Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
ISSN
0022-2208
Publisher
Association of American Law Schools
Language
en-US
Abstract
A 2016 study of 13,000 lawyers conducted by American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation found that approximately 28 percent struggle with depression, 19 percent anxiety and 23 percent stress.12 The study found “younger lawyers in the first ten years of practice and those working in private firms experience the highest rates of problem drinking and depression.”13 At least one study suggests that 40-70 percent of disciplinary proceedings and malpractice claims against lawyers involve substance abuse or depression.
According to a 2016 Survey of Law Student Well-Being including over 3,300 law students from 15 different law schools, 43 percent of law students surveyed reported binge drinking at least once in the prior two weeks and one-quarter were deemed at risk for alcoholism.15 The study found that 23 percent of law students surveyed had mild to moderate anxiety and 17 percent reported experiencing some level of depression.16 Among other things, lawyers identified “a narrowing of values so that profit predominates,” incivility, social alienation, sleep deprivation, job dissatisfaction, and work-life imbalance as problems in the profession.17 Put simply, many lawyers and law students are not well.
Problems of incivility, social alienation and work-life imbalance are perhaps compounded for people of color in the legal community. Racism remains a reality in the legal system and in law schools.18 Not only are people of color on the receiving end of intentional and explicit racist comments and conduct, implicit bias and ostensibly neutral policies and practices frequently can result in unintentional racial discrimination.19 Moreover, innocuous mistakes that are incessant—such as confusing people of color for one another—an irritant overtime can prove injurious.20 These discriminatory instances, statements or actions that are regarded as indirect, subtle, or unintentional are called micro-aggressions and they can impair relationships or result in “racial battle fatigue.”21 People of color are disproportionately more likely to experience race-based trauma and even post-traumatic stress disorder from experiencing racism.22 Stereotypes that celebrate the resilience of people of color who persist and are professionally successful despite bias and barriers—such as a “strong black woman” or a “model minority Asian”—can serve to minimize the adverse mental-health effects of exclusion and micro-aggressions overtime.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better and we would be much better off professionally and personally were the legal community to appreciate wellbeing as a priority. The National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being has urged leaders in the legal profession to act. Our panel at the 2019 National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference considered the potential contribution of “mindfulness” and contemplative practices to solving some of the problems confronting the profession concerning lawyer well-being.
Recommended Citation
Erika George, Nicky Boothe & Kellyn O. McGee,
Panel Discussion: Mindfulness in the Law School Environment
,
73
Journal of Legal Education
208
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4200
