Well-being in the Law

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This week was Well-Being in the Law Week. So this seems like the perfect time to talk about well-being in the law generally.

The most recent surveys of well-being in the law showed some trends in the right direction, which we think reflect that more people are thinking about and talking about mental well-being in the law. That is certainly a positive. However, there continue to be significant stressors, with the most common being billable hours pressures and the feeling that an attorney has to be “always on-call.” This mirrors what we’ve seen and heard from participants in our programs at all, with some saying the constant demands make it feel like they are struggling to just keep their heads above water. Support programs like the ones we offer and the ones offered by Legal Assistance Programs (LAPs) can help buoy up those struggling to keep their head above water, and these reports demonstrate a need that still very much exists.

The most recent report also adds a new level of nuance by adding consideration of “psychological safety” to the analysis. This is likely the direction that discussions of well-being in the legal profession need to go. Too many legal workplaces still create psychologically unsafe conditions in their professional spaces.

And this brings us to the crux of it. Well-being in the law cannot be restricted to one week or one month. While they are useful tools to focus the conversation, professional wellness needs to be something that continues year-round. For well-being in the law to become a real thing, there must continue to be a cultural change within the legal profession, one that reduces psychologically unsafe conditions.

In the meantime, those legal professionals who are struggling with their mental well-being need to know that they are not alone and that help is available. Creating support for those who need it is something we work to do every day, but the reflections that come out of things like Mental Health Awareness Month and Well-Being in the Law Week reveal that we can all continue to do our part to move the needle forward when it comes to mental well-being.