Mental Health Awareness Week 2024: Moving with Awareness
May 15, 2024
Overcoming Speech Disorders in Law
May 15, 2024
By Oluwaseun Fatudimu.
Reading time: four minutes
This article will explore the barriers to seeking mental health support and the stigma on law students and legal professionals.
Introduction
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines mental health as ‘a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realise their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community’. It refers to man’s cognitive, social and emotional wellbeing, which impacts his thoughts, behaviors and relationships.
That being said, the legal profession, being one associated withhonour, poise and grace, comes a legion of responsibilities. These responsibilities have translated to high expectations of the lawyers and law students alike, resulting to mental health crisis within the field. Particularly, a report by Spring Health last year revealed that 71.1% of lawyers have anxiety and 38.2% are depressed. Despite this perplexing reality, legal practitioners avoid seeking necessary support due to fear of stigmatisation.
As Brian Cuban, author of The Addicted Lawyer, puts it, “the issue isn’t so much ‘why lawyers get addicted’ …The question is ‘why are lawyers so afraid of seeking help?’”
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Examining the Barriers
Mental health stigma refers to societal disapproval, or when society places shame on individuals who live with a mental illness or seek help for emotional distress, such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or PTSD. Although the WHO indicated in 2019 that 970 million people around the world were living with a mental disorder, such as anxiety and depressive disorders, the stigmatisation of mental health victims continues to increase as the years go by.
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This stigma affects lawyers and law students even more than the average person as many people believe legal practioners to be a “special breed” and incapable of experiencing mental health conditions. In essence, lawyers have been placed on a pedestal that renders their humanity non-existent.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness data supporting its Stigma Free Company initiative, eight in 10 workers say that shame and stigma prevent them from seeking treatment for a mental health condition. Although this statistic is not limited to legal professionals, it is telling. In many fast-paced, high-performing fields like law, people worry that their mental health struggle might be construed as weakness or incompetence. Consequently, this fear of stigmatisation has made it challenging for both lawyers and law students to seek mental health assistance, contributing to the high-rate of mental health issues within the field and education.
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Lawyers in areas such as criminal, family law and child abuse may be frequently exposed to descriptions or images of physical violence or emotional trauma experienced by their clients or witnesses in a case; this is bound to take a toll on the lawyer and affect his mental state.
Similarly, law students are mentally exhausted from reading numerous numbers of principles, cases, statutes, procedures, and learning the general rhetoric of law. Most students will rather spend their free days resting than being involved in a peer group discussion on mental health. Thus, the inability to disassociate from work and create a healthy work-life balance remains a challenge to lawyers seeking mental health support.
Why Mental Health Matters
Stable mental health provides legal professionals with the ability to deal with their heavy workload and stressful nature of their job. It is no secret that the legal profession is extremely demanding and a good mental health will enable them to appropriately deal with the challenges that come with the job. A stable mental state can encourage healthier coping mechanisms.
Similarly, maintaining good mental health enhances productivity. Lawyers aim to excel in their specialised areas, and having good, stable mental health helps them focus and achieve this goal. Good mental health fosters innovation, creativity, and problem-solving skills, enabling lawyers to think critically and find novel solutions and approaches.
Lastly, prioritising stable mental health for lawyers is crucial for maintaining professionalism and ethics. The role of lawyers oftentimes require objectivity and confidentiality. When mental health is compromised, these boundaries can blur, leading to ethical violations and misconducts. Thus, stable mental wellbeing can help lawyers maintain their integrity and uphold the highest standards of the legal profession.
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From Stress to Success
While it is not possible to snap our fingers and make the legal profession less demanding, it is possible to create sustainable structures to effectively handle and deal with mental health issues and stigma.
Therefore, the following are recommended:
- Encouraging a culture of open discussions on mental health issues among lawyers without judgments or repercussions is key in putting an end to the mental health stigma.
- Firms should host seminars, provide training on time management and how to prevent burnouts. They should also provide mental health resources to create a supportive work environment that emphasises the wellbeing of the employees.
- Law Schools should also educate law students on mental health, to raise awareness and reduce stigma.
- Finally, policymakers should enact laws that support mental health initiatives within the legal sector. This may include making regulations that mandate mental health training for law students and lawyers, or enacting laws that protect the rights of legal professionals who seek mental health support.
These can contribute to de stigmatising mental illness and fostering a supportive environment for legal professionals to seek help without fear of repercussions.
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Overall
Mental health stigma poses a global threat, impacting not only the legal profession but also the individuals within it. As society becomes more progressive, it’s crucial that we collaborate to combat mental health stigma by encouraging open conversations and promoting greater understanding. Seeking help for mental health should be embraced as a source of strength and compassion, rather than being taboo.
