WSJ: Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed?

Telling statistics from today's Wall Street Journal Work & Family column by Sue Shellenbarger, Even Lawyers Get the Blues: Opening Up About Depression:

• 19% of lawyers suffer from depression (v. 6.7% of general population)
• 20% of lawyers are problem drinkers (v. 10% of general population)

The causes of lawyer depression?  "Escalating billable-hours quotas fuel chronic overload, and the ceaseless deadlines and adversarial nature of the work feed anxiety."   Legal education is partly to blame:

[S]ome legal educators are beginning to see poor career choices as a root cause of work-life distress. Two-thirds of 1,500 Oregon attorneys surveyed by the Oregon Attorney Assistance Program said they'd had no exposure before law school to the day-to-day life of a lawyer; if allowed to start over, 30% said they'd choose a different field.

To support career adjustments, the University of Iowa law school last year dispatched a roving associate dean, Steve Langerud, to meet with alumni; he has counseled more than 100 so far on such questions as, "Is this the right field for me?" he says.

Oklahoma City University's law school runs programs to help students weigh their options carefully. One speaker, James Webb, a successful trial lawyer, tells how some of the strengths that led him into the law -- his drive to succeed, to win battles -- also made him vulnerable to depression. A few years ago he almost committed suicide. Noting that no one discussed mental health when he was in law school, Mr. Webb, now 40 and doing well, says he sometimes has to force himself to speak up. But he does so, he says, on the belief that "it's never going to get better until we start talking about it."

For more, see:

• Correlation and Causation in Lawyer Depression, by Jeffrey Lipshaw
• Lawyers with Depression
• Why Are Lawyers So Unhappy?, by Martin E. P. Seligman
• Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed?, by Peter Lattman