Lawyer Depression: Part 1 — The Roundup
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the alarming rate of depression among lawyers. The Journal cites the statistic that “19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole.” Ever-increasing billable hour quotas, “ceaseless deadlines” and the adversarial nature of lawyers’ work are among the reasons are cited as reasons for the high rate of depression.
This article struck a chord with legal bloggers: there are now about a dozen blog posts which reference the Journal article:
- Correlation and Causation in Lawyer Depression at Concurring Opinions and Legal Profession Blog (cross-posted). He asks, “But do lawyers become depressed, or do people with a biochemical predisposition to depression become lawyers?”
- WSJ: Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed? at TaxProf Blog.
- Even Lawyers Get the Blues: Opening Up About Depression (within the Legal Profession) at Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog.
We work in a stressful profession. People bring us their problems and expect us to fix them. We search for the truth in adversarial courtroom settings. We often deal with important and significant high-stakes situations. Your law practice tip today is to be alert for your own mood changes and to take care of yourself this holiday season.
- Depression Confession: Help for Lawyers Who Suffer at Blawgletter.
- Why Are So Many Lawyers Depressed? at Inhouse Blog.
- Lawyers with depression at Novalawcity. She links to a podcast that Daniel T. Lukasik, founder of lawyerswithdepression.com, did last year.
- Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed? at the WSJ Law Blog.
- Retirement and Pre-retirement Depression at Practice Development Counsel’s Next Generation Next Destination. Mentions the depression older lawyers sometimes face which is “frequently attributed to the loss of professional identity, especially if they have made their practice the dominant component of their life.”
- Lawyer Depression Comes Out of the Closet at ABA Journal.
- Lawyer Depression at Lawsagna. “Many lawyers hide such conditions for fear of losing their practices.”
- Is Blogging an Antidote to Lawyer Depression? by Carolyn Elefant at Legal Blog Watch.
- Some Disparate Thoughts on Empowerment and Creating Opportunities Through Blogging by Carolyn Elefant at My Shingle. She provides a few extra thoughts building on her post at Legal Blog Watch, noting: “But blogging goes beyond personal empowerment; it can create huge, life changing opportunities.”
We suspect that people with great creative gifts — a group that includes the best lawyers — feel the pain of birthing innovative ideas. Imagine, therefore, the agony of rejection — a common experience for lawyers. Which experience in many cases may lead to the dullness of depression.
The ABA and other bar groups are questioning the emphasis on billable hours (PDF) that drives lawyers to exhaustion, while some law schools are helping students and alumni evaluate whether they have chosen the right field. Individual lawyers are also stepping up to discuss their depression on websites or as visiting lecturers.
For lawyers who aren’t necessarily clinically depressed (which is a serious illness requiring medical intervention and professional help), but feeling angst or lingering malaise, one possible antidote (and by far, not the only one) is… blogging. Whereas law practice enslaves lawyers, blogging empowers, giving lawyers a unique voice in a world where they usually serve as a mouthpiece for others, giving them control over a domain, even if it’s just a tiny little piece of the Internet. Most importantly, blogging builds connections and conversation with others, and eradicates the sense of loneliness and isolation that serve as a breeding ground for depression.
Depression can be a big issue when contemplating a career change. Perhaps escaping depression is one of the reasons to consider changing careers. Or maybe depression is one of the obstacles hampering a career change. How we feel about ourselves plays a huge role in how we figure out our career direction.
In my next post, I will explore how depression and feelings play a role in career change.
Update - Another Article that I missed:
- Why Are Lawyers So Damned Depressed? Well, You’re A Lawyer. You Figure It Out at Build a Solo Practice, LLC. She cites another reason lawyers may be more prone to depression:
I would like to proffer another perspective on challenges facing all lawyers which are unique to our profession. I see it quite often with my clients and we address it. It’s not depression but my guess is it can cause depression. It is the knowledge that we have chosen a profession which turns problem-solving into an art form in order to be professionally and financially successful. This very same problem-solving skill which is highly regarded makes you a magnet for EVERYONE’s problems, not just paying clients.
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