Stressed, lonely, overworked: What new study tells us about lawyer suicide risk

[SwordfishMining]

Sometimes you have to dig deep to find treasure. Whilst looking up lawyer death rates, Google served me up this Reuters article, among others, 3.7 per 100,000 is the national average & it's 11 for 2022 (steady for years after dropping from 15?) for lawyers.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf

Lawyers don’t have a monopoly on stress. It’s an element of just about every job, from waiter to police officer to surgeon. But a new study, suggests that the stress of practicing law, especially when combined with other factors, can be uniquely detrimental to mental well-being.

As my colleague Karen Sloan reported, lawyers are twice as likely as other U.S. adults to contemplate suicide, according to the study, which was based on a survey of nearly 2,000 lawyers in California and the District of Columbia. More ominously, lawyers who report feeling a high level of stress are 22 times more prone to suicidal ideation than their low-stress counterparts. Think about that: 22 times more likely to contemplate suicide.

Why are so many stressed-out lawyers feeling such despair? I reached out to one of the study’s authors, Patrick Krill, who noted that there’s “something about who we are as lawyers and the way we work” that can exact a steep toll on mental health. The basic culprits are familiar: long hours, tight deadlines, complex tasks and demanding clients — not to mention the fundamentally adversarial nature of the work itself. Law is not, and perhaps never has been, a laid-back occupation. Still, Krill said what he’s seeing now strikes him as “not sustainable.”

An attorney who advises legal employers on wellness issues, Krill teamed up with Justin Anker from the University of Minnesota’s department of psychiatry on the study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Healthcare. Randomly selected D.C. and California bar members in an email survey were asked, “How often have you had thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself?” Those who said, “Several days,” “More than half the days,” or “Nearly every day” were classified as endorsing suicidality. About 4.2% of all adults in the U.S. fall into that category, compared with 8.5% of lawyers.

Within the attorney cohort, however, a portrait of those at greatest risk emerges. According to the study, male lawyers are twice as likely to contemplate suicide – a “surprising” finding, since the researchers also found that women lawyers had more risk factors such anxiety, depression and hazardous levels of alcohol use. They’re also lonely. The study theorizes that such feelings of social isolation could be related to the demanding nature of the profession, as well as its often competitive and individualistic culture.

In addition, lawyers who are overly committed to their work are also more likely to contemplate self-harm. The potential ill effects come when attorneys allow their work “to play too large a role in their lives,” Krill said, and are unable to disconnect at the end of the day. Of course, that’s exactly what law firms reward. Compounding these problems, lawyers are often reluctant to acknowledge or address mental health issues. Lawyers tend to see themselves as confident, highly productive professionals, Krill said. Instead of admitting to feelings of despair, some find it easier “to stuff those thoughts down rather than say ‘I’m unwell; I’m struggling.’”

Nor does it help that 37 state bars and the District of Columbia, as part of their character and fitness evaluation ask applicants about their mental health status. To Krill, that reinforces the idea that mental health problems should be hidden. While statistical analysis found that a lawyer’s race by itself wasn’t a predictor of suicidality, the raw survey data indicated that lawyers who identified as Asian, followed by Black and Latino, more often thought about self-harm compared with those who are Caucasian/White — numbers that strike me as a reflection of the legal profession’s lack of diversity and the associated struggles among minority lawyers. The most unhappy lawyers are also apt to be young. The survey data showed that lawyers under age 30 were most likely to report feelings of suicidal ideation, while those 61 and older were least likely to do so, though age alone also wasn’t a predictor of suicidality. It does however point to an alarming wider trend.

more with the links for help.

For lawyers feeling depressed or suicidal, help is available: Suicide and crisis lifeline: Dial 988

ABA directory of lawyer assistance programs by state, Online peer support group Lawyers Depression Project

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigatio ... 023-02-15/

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf