With Depression Running Rampant, It’s Time For Law Schools To Step Up When It Comes To Student Mental Health

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

I think it makes a lot more sense to be visible in [law schools’] efforts to address [mental health issues in the legal profession] rather than operating as if they’re not really the pervasive challenges that they are.

You’ve got to name it to tame it. If we pretend that a problem doesn’t really exist, or that it’s not as significant of a problem as it is, that makes it really hard to have credible efforts to address it and to remediate it.

— Patrick Krill, principal and founder of Krill Strategies, which provides guidance for addressing and reducing the incidence of mental health distress and problematic substance use, in comments given to Law.com concerning why the legal profession needs to start addressing mental health for lawyers, starting in law school. According to the Dave Nee Foundation, about 10% of students begin law school depressed, and that number climbs to 40% by graduation. In a recent article published by the ABA, titled, “How You Can Protect Your Health from the Harms of Law School,” University of Iowa College of Law student Joann Mulholland wrote, “Lawyers are ranked fifth in suicide rates by occupation. We’re literally dying.”

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.