The legal profession is in the throes of a mental health crisis. State bars across the country continue to be rocked by the tragic loss of their lawyers to suicide and accidental drug overdose. Recent studies have also shed further light on the severity and scale of lawyers’ long-recognized struggles with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and other indicators of psychological distress.
This is the opening paragraph to the 2019 Warren E. Burger Prize winning essay entitled, Lawyer Well-being as a Crisis of the Profession, co-authored by Judge Cheryl Ann Krause and Jane Chong, Esq.
Judge Krause was unanimously confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2014. She served previously as a partner at a multinational law firm in Philadelphia, specializing in white collar criminal defense and securities litigation; a lecturer at Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools; and an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Krause is a former law clerk for retired Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and a member of the University of Pennsylvania Law School American Inn of Court.
A former law clerk for Krause, Jane Chong is now an assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. She was previously an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, earning her law degree from Yale Law School.
The essay describes the legal profession’s current mental health crisis with the authors describing high rates of lawyer depression, anxiety, accidental overdose, and suicide and urge comprehensive examination of the conditions that contribute to lawyer distress. “[T]he suffering lawyer can be understood as a canary in the coalmine of the legal profession,” the authors write.
Going beyond poor mental health’s effect on individual lawyers and their ability to represent clients effectively, the essay instead focuses on the way in which modern legal practices impair lawyer wellbeing and degrade the profession’s ideals. These practices include long hours, diminished training opportunities for young lawyers, the increasing commercialization of practice, and the deterioration of civility and decorum. Striking at the core of professional identity, these practices have led to decreased autonomy, diminished connectedness to others, and debilitating self-doubt.
Calling for the profession to put its ideals into practice, the essay concludes with suggestions for reform. Recommendations include expanding opportunities to develop competence, rewarding public service as well as billable hours, and raising standards of conduct outside as well as inside the courtroom.
The link below provides an excerpt which focuses on lawyer well-being and civility and is the basis for this CLE course.
The full essay can be found here.
This is the opening paragraph to the 2019 Warren E. Burger Prize winning essay entitled, Lawyer Well-being as a Crisis of the Profession, co-authored by Judge Cheryl Ann Krause and Jane Chong, Esq.Judge Krause was unanimously confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2014. She served previously as a partner at a multinational law firm in Philadelphia, specializing in white collar criminal defense and securities litigation; a lecturer at Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools; and an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Krause is a former law clerk for retired Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and a member of the University of Pennsylvania Law School American Inn of Court.
A former law clerk for Krause, Jane Chong is now an assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. She was previously an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, earning her law degree from Yale Law School.
The essay describes the legal profession’s current mental health crisis with the authors describing high rates of lawyer depression, anxiety, accidental overdose, and suicide and urge comprehensive examination of the conditions that contribute to lawyer distress. “[T]he suffering lawyer can be understood as a canary in the coalmine of the legal profession,” the authors write.
Going beyond poor mental health’s effect on individual lawyers and their ability to represent clients effectively, the essay instead focuses on the way in which modern legal practices impair lawyer wellbeing and degrade the profession’s ideals. These practices include long hours, diminished training opportunities for young lawyers, the increasing commercialization of practice, and the deterioration of civility and decorum. Striking at the core of professional identity, these practices have led to decreased autonomy, diminished connectedness to others, and debilitating self-doubt.
Calling for the profession to put its ideals into practice, the essay concludes with suggestions for reform. Recommendations include expanding opportunities to develop competence, rewarding public service as well as billable hours, and raising standards of conduct outside as well as inside the courtroom.
The link below provides an excerpt which focuses on lawyer well-being and civility and is the basis for this CLE course.
The full essay can be found here.
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