Mental health struggles exacerbated by the depths of the pandemic seem to have eased, leaving in their wake similar—and still concerning—levels of anxiety and depression that have plagued the legal industry for several years, Law.com and ALM Intelligence’s annual Mental Health Survey results showed.
More than 3,400 respondents from law firms around the globe detailed the state of their mental health, work environments, perceptions of colleagues, client expectations and the effects of remote work, among other areas tackled in this year’s survey. Overall, there were slight declines from 2021 in terms of those reporting anxiety (67%), depression (35%) and isolation (44%). There also was an increase in those who believe their firms provide a safe environment to raise concerns about mental health (45.4%).
While some of the pandemic uncertainties that led to increases last year in anxiety and isolation have given way as society returns to more historical levels of interaction and office work, 87% of those suffering from anxiety said they did so before the pandemic, and 56% of those suffering from depression said the same.
One stat that has remained the same over the history of this survey is the sobering statistic around those who contemplated suicide at some point during their professional career—hitting 19% this year. Even as we emerge from the pandemic and tensions may ease, other concerns can replace them, as was reported after the death by suicide last month of a prominent Philadelphia litigator.
This year’s survey added questions about remote work and issues impacting parents or other caregivers. It also continued to tackle thoughts around clients, the ability to untether from work and other issues specifically tied to the profession’s role in impacting mental health.
The Numbers
When it comes to overall levels of anxiety, depression and substance abuse, 2021 saw a slight decline compared to 2020 but didn’t quite get back down to 2019 levels.
About 35% of respondents said they suffered from depression in 2021, a drop from the 37% who responded the same in 2020 but still a slight increase from the 31% who said they suffered from depression in 2019.
Anxiety levels followed a similar pattern, with levels for 2021 at 67%, down from the 70.7% reported in 2020 but above the 2019 level of 64%.
Overall, the number of respondents who felt mental health and substance abuse in the legal industry were “at crisis levels” was up about 3 percentage points (44%) compared to 2019 (41%) and 2020 (41.7%).
People had a more favorable perception of their own condition than they did of their peers. While only 35% of respondents said they are depressed, 63% said they knew a colleague who was. And while 67% had anxiety, 77.6% said they knew someone else who did.
That rosier perception of one’s self played out in a large way when it comes to substance usage. While only 2.4% said they had a drug problem (compared to 2.7% in 2020 and 2.8% in 2019), 18.4% said they knew a colleague who did. Alcohol as a problem was similar, with 9.4% saying they had an issue with drinking while 43.86% said they knew a colleague who did.
The Law Firm Environment
For the third year in a row, close to three-fourths of respondents (74.3%) believed their work environment contributed to their mental health issues. But a growing number felt their firms were doing more to help them.
In 2019, only 54% said their firm offered an employee assistance program (EAP) that included assistance with mental health or substance abuse issues. In 2021, that number had risen to 60.7%. For staff, that percentage moved from 44% in 2019 to 51% in 2021.
Even with the perception more assistance was being made available, 38.5% of respondents said they believed their firm was not “sincere” in its efforts around mental health, down less than one percentage point from the 39.4% who felt the same way in 2019.
One area that did see some significant change was the idea that firms were providing enough resources to get the job done. Amid a talent war, constant shuffling of lawyers and a surge in demand, lawyers were left feeling the pressure to get the work done. When asked what factors about their workplace negatively impacted their mental health, 49.5% of respondents said lean teams, up from 40.5% last year. When asked a different way—if leaner teams had impacted their mental health—56.3% said yes, up from 49.4% last year.
The top workplace factor negatively impacting mental health remained, as it has for the survey’s history, always being on call and not being able to disconnect. In 2021, 72% of respondents cited that as a concern, followed by 59% who cited the billable hour, 57% who noted client demands and 55% who noted lack of sleep.
Of the programs firms offer to support mental health, nearly 55% of respondents said they’d take advantage of leave to get mental health assistance, while only 34% said they would utilize an onsite wellness professional.
Former commercial litigator and current executive coach and wellness expert Jarrett Green said he found it interesting that, according to the survey results, individuals felt their own well-being was improving but felt the well-being in their firms was not.
“This could suggest that people have built a sense of internal resiliency over the course of the pandemic that is making them feel a bit healthier, while also believing that their improved resiliency has resulted despite—not because of—their firm’s culture. This combination can create a sense of resentment toward one’s firm, which can help explain the Great Resignation,” Green said in an email.
The Client’s Role
There were slight upticks in the number of respondents who felt their clients “often” or “always” had unreasonable expectations, coming in at 34% and 7%, respectively, with another 48.5% saying clients “sometimes” had unreasonable demands.
The percentage of those who felt their firm “pushed back” on unrealistic client demands stayed relatively flat from 2019 through 2021, hovering around 29%.
When asked whether they felt others cared about their mental health, 15.8% of respondents said clients cared, while 68% said their co-workers did. Managers and firms fell in between those two bookends.
Remote Work
For the first time, the survey examined how remote work impacted various aspects of law firm life. The results may offer a road map for those firms looking to help improve employees’ well-being.
Nearly 58.8% of respondents said remote work increased their quality of life, while only 22.2% said it decreased it.
When it came to home-based relationships, 62.4% said remote work increased the quality of those relationships, while 21.8% said it did not impact them, and 15.8% said it made home life worse. On the flip side, 76% of respondents said interpersonal relationships with colleagues suffered.
With regard to work productivity, 46% said working remotely increased their productivity, 33% said there was no impact on their work, and 21% said their work suffered during the remote period. Nearly 54% of respondents attributed remote work to a rise in their hours billed. And 50% said their personal finances improved due to remote work.
When specifically asking about stress and mental health, however, the answers were a bit more split. More than 37% said remote work improved their mental health, while 35% said it caused their health to suffer. Similarly, 36% said their stress levels improved, while 32% said they worsened. Physical health, however, increased among 46% of respondents and suffered among 28%.
When asked whether remote work would increase the likelihood of professional burnout, 25.4% said it would, while 33.5% said it wouldn’t. Nearly 32% said it would lead to increased consumption of alcohol or drugs.
It does seem firms figured out a way during the pandemic to better implement remote well-being efforts. While 53.5% of respondents in 2021 said remote work made mental health programs more difficult to implement, only 41.1% said the same this year.
Analysis
Jennie Malloy, founder of wellness company Lights, Camera, Kale, has worked with multiple law firms for several years and said a couple of things from the survey stood out to her.
One of those items was the demographic makeup of the survey this year, which skewed more toward partners and those outside the 25-34 year-old age (the previous two years hovered around 38% of respondents being in that age bracket. This year it was only 27%) range, the time when most Big Law attorneys are fighting to make partner.
“If you look at the ‘Do you feel you are depressed or anxious?’ question, it looks like the numbers are down from 2021 to 2022,” she said. “But the demographics changed a bit. A lot fewer associates and more partners. More people that had been practicing law for many years, which tends to improve their quality of life compared to those difficult earlier years.”
She also noted the point mentioned earlier that respondents seemed to find more “issues” with others, especially around substance usage and levels of anxiety and depression, than they found in themselves. She also said this is not surprising.
“It is easier to identify a challenge when we can step outside ourselves,” she said. “It is easier to see a challenge in others than in ourselves sometimes.”
Lynn Saladino, founder of Dr. Lynn Psychology, noted more people reported having anxiety than suffering from depression.
“It is more socially acceptable to say you suffer from anxiety,” she said. “Some people, they take it as a badge of honor. I think there is a lot in the culture of the legal profession that says ‘Figure it out. Work harder. Push for it.’ Depression is the opposite of that. If you are depressed, you haven’t figured it out, and there is a weakness in there.”
Green, the wellness consultant, noted that, while most larger firms have EAPs in place, almost half of law firm employees aren’t aware of it, according to the survey results.
“I would venture to estimate that over 95% of the respondents are at firms that offer an EAP that currently includes coverage for mental health or substance abuse issues,” Green said in an email. “Yet only 60% of attorneys said ‘yes’ and only 50% of staff said ‘yes.’ This is an indicator that firms are not effectively communicating the nature of their EAPs; employees are badly misinformed on this critical issue. Firms are spending millions and millions of dollars per year on their EAPs and nearly half of their employees don’t think the firm even has such an EAP!”
Noah Heller, CEO of Katten Muchin Rosenman, has made it his personal cause to make the people at his firm aware of the programs they offer.
An advocate to take the negative stigma away from using (in an appropriate fashion) psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, Heller shared his own experiences with the firm in order to try and break down barriers around anxiety and depression.
“I’m pretty aware of my own mental well-being, as a leader of lawyers, all the collective angst of our people finds its way to my desk,” he said. “I don’t have control over a lot of things I wish I had control over. I work with a therapist and talk my way through not taking things personally, all in an effort to be the best at this (firm leadership) as I can be.”
It’s an uphill battle for many. More than 25% of survey respondents said they didn’t believe mental illness was an actual disease. Stigmas around how those who are suffering should be treated in the workplace continue to evolve, and while progress is made each year, the high levels of anxiety and depression persist.
While there is no magic solution and every person’s circumstances are different, the open-ended responses to our survey along with the data show there is still work to be done around stigma, which is just the beginning and has been ongoing for years. Creation and adoption of meaningful mental health policies is another big factor. And while no work environment can solve for every case, this data offers insights into the law firm structure and culture that may be exacerbating the problems.
The Respondents
Of the more than 3,400 respondents, 51.7% were female, 47.7% male and less than 1% identified as other or transgender. In terms of age, 35-44 made up the largest percentage of respondents at nearly 30%, followed by 25-34, 45-54 and 55-64.
Nearly 36% of respondents were associates, 23.4% were equity partners, almost 17% were nonequity, and the remainder were comprised of other timekeepers as well as various staff functions. Litigators made up the largest group of respondents by practice area, at about 22%.
The respondents mainly hailed from Big Law, with 35% at firms of over 1,000 lawyers, 33% at firms with 501-1,000 lawyers, 15% at firms with 201-500 lawyers, 12.5% with 51-200 lawyers and 4.2% at firms of 1-50 lawyers.
In terms of geographic reach, 79% of respondents were from the United States, with the U.K. making up the next largest bucket at 6.3%.
In terms of ethnic diversity, nearly 85% of respondents were white, 4.6% were Hispanic, 3.6% were Asian, and 3.1% were Black.
