For lawyers and law students, well-being skills are vital

Law schools and legal professionals need to prioritize well-being to ensure that suicide is not the result of an often stressful workplace.

Dr. Richard S. Lazarus, who studied the interconnection of emotions and stress, defined stress as not “an environmental stimulus, a characteristic of the person, nor a response” but instead “a relationship” between a person’s perception of “demands and the power to deal with them.” In other words, stress is an interpretation—a product of thinking.

Suicide is a crisis of “stress” with tragic consequences. It represents a misinterpretation about reality and a belief—a thought—that one is lacking capability or resources to deal with an imminent threat in the form of overwhelming pain—physical or emotional. A continual feedback loop of thinking about the threat creates physical and mental stress and more pain, leading to an impulse to act, sometimes with a fatal result.

Stress and the law

Law is known as a stressful occupation, with a heavy emphasis on verbal and written thought. It often involves a workplace culture that prizes competition, is based on a win-loss paradigm, requires excessive mental and time demands, and celebrates financial rewards and intellectual acumen, with little emphasis on self-care or emotional awareness. Any law student will tell you that anxiety, deadlines, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and mental and physical exhaustion, are as much a part of the law school experience as researching, writing a legal brief, and learning by the Socratic method.

So why is it that the legal profession—synonymous with stress, mental exertion, and taxing demands—rarely encourages or promotes practices for stress management, cognitive sustainability, and emotional intelligence?

Current research confirms that stress diminishes rational thinking and negatively affects mental and physical health. Poor nutrition affects our mood and ability to think clearly and learn. Lack of supportive social relationships, purpose, autonomy, and collaboration, contributes to illness. Expanding the storehouse of healthy and effective internal resources—whether it’s mental, physical, emotional, or social—that can be mobilized in the face of demands will not only influence whether we perceive events as stressful, but will also help our cognitive functioning and diminish the stress response and disease.

In 2017, the American Bar Association (ABA) Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being issued a comprehensive report that confirmed law students and lawyers are suffering from depression, anxiety, and the detrimental effects of substance abuse at alarming rates—all of which can contribute to suicidal ideation. In the report, “The Path to Lawyer Well-Being, Practical Recommendations for Positive Change,” the Task Force concluded that recent research “reveals that too many lawyers and law students experience chronic stress and high rates of depression and substance use. These findings are incompatible with a sustainable legal profession, and they raise troubling implications for many lawyers’ basic competence…Lawyer well-being issues can no longer be ignored.” The report sets out hundreds of recommendations for training, interventions, and organizational changes targeting all stakeholders in the legal profession, including lawyers, law schools, law firms, the judiciary, and bar associations.

It starts in law school

Well-being is defined as a continuous process in which lawyers strive to thrive in all dimensions of their lives, including physical, intellectual, emotional, social, occupational, and spiritual. Emerging from disciplines such as positive psychology and affective neuroscience, the evidence-based practices and skill sets recommended include emotional intelligence, contemplative practices, social connectedness, nutrition and movement, inclusion and diversity, resilience, cognitive reframing, growth mindset, work-life balance, and self-regulation, among many others.

According to research cited in the ABA report, law students start law school with positive feelings and high life satisfaction. However, during their first year there is a decrease in well-being, and a marked increase in rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Efforts to prevent suicide and foster well-being must explore the organizational, cultural, and individual factors contributing to why so many law students are among the most dissatisfied, demoralized, and depressed of any graduate student population. In a significant study of law students, almost 50 percent identified themselves as needing emotional help, but only half of that group ever sought assistance.

Learning more than just the law

In an effort to address these problems, law schools across the nation are implementing stress management and mind-body wellness practices into their learning environments and curriculum. This helps law students cope with such stressors as test anxiety, mental overload, physical exhaustion, and social isolation.

Debra Austin writes in “Killing Them Softly: Neuroscience Reveals How Brain Cells Die from Law School Stress and How Neural Self-Hacking Can Optimize Cognitive Performance,” that “learning about the neuroscience of cognitive wellness is critical to protecting brain function and enhancing cognitive performance.

“Neural self-hacking is likely to be the newest fitness movement. Law schools and law firms that want to support robust cognitive performance for their constituents will follow the lead of companies like Google and create achievement cultures designed to optimize cognitive wellness and limit sources of stress…and curate desirable learning and working environments by enhancing the formation of more complete and competent lawyers,” the article states.

Many of these practices, such as mindfulness, are being explored as interventions for suicide prevention, reducing anxiety and alleviating depression. Physical, mental, and emotional health or illness are inextricably linked to our energy and productivity. Our competence as legal professionals involves well-functioning executive capacities, such as making good decisions, evaluating risks, coping with setbacks, and acting appropriately and with civility. Law students who learn skills that foster well-being will carry these practices into their work as lawyers. This is good for individuals, the legal community, our clients, and the world.

As a legal professional and well-being coach, and a mental health professional, we urge law students and law schools to implement the well-being initiatives and practices recommended by the ABA Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. To do so is a vital step that will foster personal, professional, and law school success, and the sustainability of the legal profession as a whole. It is not an exaggeration to say that it may be a matter of life or death.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Robin Oaks is an attorney-investigator, workplace mediator, conflict resolution consultant, and well-being coach, with certifications in many mind-body practices and evidence-based wellness interventions.

Spencer Sherman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and college professor who teaches students and coaches professionals about positive psychology, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and peak performance.

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