Law has been named the most stressful and loneliest profession. Other research into lawyer well-being has found lawyers are prone to chronic stress, problem drinking and substance abuse, and mental health challenges.
In a profession where well-being seems rarely attainable, where can lawyers find practical and realistic strategies to support their mental health and well-being?
Bree Buchanan and Patrick Krill, two global leaders in the study of lawyer well-being profession, answered questions about the elusiveness of well-being in the legal profession at the Commission on Professionalism’s 2024 Future Is Now: Legal Services conference, which was attended by more than 500 lawyers and other legal professionals from across the U.S.
Here are five questions the lawyers in our audience asked about lawyer well-being.
1. How can law firms support employee well-being?
A 2022 study by Krill found that lawyers who feel valued for their productivity, billable hours, or responsiveness report poorer mental and physical health than those who feel valued for their skills, professionalism, talent, and inherent worth as a human being.
“People want to feel like they matter and they want to feel like their effort matters,” Krill said at the 2024 Future Is Now: Legal Services conference. “They don’t want to feel like they’re just kind of a fungible unit of productivity.”
One way law firms can emphasize employee value is by prioritizing regular and open communication about firm structures and processes, Buchanan said, like being transparent about how employees are evaluated and compensated.
Krill noted that firms should also “lean into their strengths,” or the ways they are uniquely situated to support employee health and well-being.
For larger firms, this may mean highlighting the supportive resources they provide employees, like medical and mental health benefits, he said. For smaller firms, this may mean emphasizing a culture in which people know one another and would notice if a colleague is struggling.
Buchanan shared that in her solo practice, she felt isolated at times and felt the absence of a shared mission. This can be difficult, especially when balancing cases and the stress of keeping a business open. This is where bar associations can come in, she said, by offering community and mentorship for lawyers.
Without action from law firms, Buchanan and Krill predict that the profession can expect more attrition, especially from minority groups. According to one study by Krill, about one-quarter of women are considering leaving the profession due to well-being concerns.
2. How can lawyers balance their mental health and productivity?
Krill said lawyers often tell him that well-being advice can feel hollow when it conflicts with law firm culture and expectations.
“The suggestion that [the profession is] focused on well-being doesn’t align with their daily lived experience,” he said.
Krill recommends that the profession find a better way to synthesize business and well-being goals and to change the notion that well-being is “subordinate to productivity.”
“We all have to keep the lights on, pay bills, reach our financial objectives, but we also have to take care of ourselves, and these really shouldn’t be mutually exclusive,” he said.
Krill encourages lawyers to “really prioritize some breaks and downtime in their lives,” although it may feel impractical. “Even machines need to be taken offline occasionally to be serviced,” he said.
And Buchanan reminded audience members that healthy employees can support law firm business objectives.
“Research has shown consistently that when you have a mentally healthy workforce, you are going to be more profitable, you are going to attract and retain clients better, and you’re going to have a workforce that is more productive. It is a financial loss when firms don’t pay attention to this,” she said.
3. How can lawyers take care of others’ needs while also taking care of their own?
Lawyers provide a service to people experiencing some of the worst times in their lives, and it can be hard for lawyers to separate themselves from these experiences. In addition, they must balance this with showing up for other clients and in their personal lives, which can lead to burnout.
Buchanan and Krill emphasized the importance of self-awareness and setting boundaries in heading off burnout.
At times when you feel overburdened or stretched thin, ask yourself, “How am I holding up? Am I changing who I am? Am I changing the way that I interact with the people in my life?” Buchanan said, noting that if the answer is “yes” you may be entering burnout.
It is important to identify your needs and the resources available to address them (i.e. therapy or a Lawyers’ Assistance Program), she said, and to “be willing to ask for help.”
Buchanan explained that her work on domestic violence and child abuse cases taught her the importance of incorporating a physical boundary to mark the end of her workday.
“It can be when you shut your car door or you get up from your computer at the end of the day, or some other routine that signals to you, you’re done, and now you have an opportunity for rest and rejuvenation,” she said.
4. How can lawyers manage their well-being when working from home?
Working from home can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, Buchanan and Krill said, so lawyers must be intentional in creating opportunities for human connection.
“I’ve found that you can have a five-minute phone call that covers everything that would have been covered in a series of 20 emails back and forth; it’s far more efficient,” Krill said. “And it also provides that little bit of human connection—you hear the person’s voice, maybe you chat for just a minute or two about life. I would encourage all of us to try and get back to that because keeping up with the volume of emails that we all have is a stressor in and of itself.”
Krill also suggests leaning into lawyers’ busy schedules by treating connection as another calendar appointment.
“The key is actually taking a structured approach to solving this problem. Put [human interaction] on your calendar,” he said, like scheduling a call or time to check in with someone.
“It sounds oddly robotic, to have to schedule your human interaction, but sometimes we do,” Krill continued.
Buchanan agreed, noting that “the legal profession is full of introverts,” herself included.
“I will schedule calls or coffees with people because I know some of the medicine that I need for my well-being is to have one-on-one, face-to-face human connection,” she said
5. How can we prepare the next generation of lawyers for the mental health and well-being challenges in the profession?
Buchanan noted that experiences in law school may impact lawyers’ well-being before they even enter the profession.
“[Practices like] the Socratic method and hyper-competitiveness start a drip effect, wearing away the resilience and capacity of law students so that by the time they walk into the door of their first job they have already been negatively impacted,” she said.
While it is hard to get law professors to change the way they teach, it is important to talk about these issues among law school faculty and leadership, Buchanan added.
Krill noted that many lawyers he has worked with said their drinking and unhealthy behaviors “really took off in law school” and followed them years into legal practice.
He stressed the importance of law schools helping students understand what daily life as a lawyer looks like, potentially translating into less mental health distress when they enter the profession.
Krill also noted the role more established lawyers can play in modeling positive well-being habits for law students and new attorneys.
“If we want to keep that new generation from adopting some of those problematic coping mechanisms and behaviors, [one thing we can do] is look at what are we modeling,” he said.
Watch Bree Buchanan and Patrick Krill’s full panel discussion on our YouTube channel.
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