By now, you’ve seen the statistics. You’re probably aware that lawyers are disproportionately prone to mental health problems and substance-use concerns when compared to the general population.¹ This data should open individual attorneys’ eyes to the need to seek professional counseling or just prioritize their own well-being. But it also poses a challenge for senior attorneys, particularly those with leadership roles in their firms: How can those of us with leadership roles help junior lawyers navigate mental health hazards in our profession? And should we even try?

Let’s start with the second question. Is it a good idea for senior lawyers to take an interest in junior lawyers’ mental health and substance-use issues? Is that even our business?

We think the answer is yes — and for a very pragmatic reason. As lawyers, we are zealous advocates of our clients’ causes. The healthier we are — and the healthier our team is — the better we’ll be at advocating for our clients. That, at least, is the self-interested rationale. There are better rationales, such as compassion and empathy and basic decency. But the truth is that healthy, grounded attorneys are better attorneys. And if we want to serve our clients well, the least we can do is foster a culture of health and well-being.

Easier said than done. Still, we have 10 suggestions on how to create a firm culture that guards against mental health problems.

You can’t just swoop in when there’s a problem. Fostering well-being — and assisting junior lawyers with mental health problems — requires genuine, ongoing communication. Talking about mental health is hard. It requires an enormous amount of trust. If you wait until a junior lawyer seems to be having a problem, chances are slim that you’ll have the kind of meaningful connection necessary to help them. But if you establish open lines of communication — if you check in when nothing’s wrong — you’re much more likely to have the sort of trusting relationship that allows honest communication.

Listen to listen, not to “fix” the issue. Creating a culture of well-being does not turn lawyers into psychotherapists. We may be concerned with mental health, but we’re not mental health professionals. That’s why it’s so important to avoid trying to fix junior lawyers who share their mental health struggles. What they need from senior attorneys is not psychoanalysis; it’s a willingness to listen and an ability to make others feel heard. That requires slowing down and fighting our lawyerly instinct to have just the right words for every occasion.

Watch out for firm habits that foster mental health issues — e.g., making every firm event about alcohol or expecting communications late at night or on the weekends. Getting serious about promoting mental health can require some soul-searching. Many of us created or inherited law firm cultures that aren’t exactly geared toward junior lawyers’ well-being. Maybe we’re used to sending emails and demanding a response late in the evening or on weekends. Maybe we give assignments on short notice and have unrealistic expectations of what a junior lawyer can accomplish in the time given. Maybe every social event revolves around alcohol — or worse, maybe these events give the impression that drinking is nec essary to be part of the firm’s “in” group. These habits undermine junior lawyers’ attempts at wellness. There are two antidotes: drawing and respecting healthy boundaries at work and getting creative about firm socializing.

Manage workload expectations. What’s “busy”? What should a junior attorney do when they get overloaded? Many of us practice law in a world where the billable hour is king. You can sugarcoat that reality only so much for associates. Ultimately, a junior lawyer has to be productive. But putting a little humanity back into the billable hour can go a long way toward reducing the pressure of having to bill more, more, and more. What exactly does “humanity” mean here? Ask junior lawyers to come to you if they find their workload unmanageable. Let them know exactly what’s expected — but also let them know that there are remedies if they find themselves struggling to meet expectations.

Be human. Share flaws. Practicing law requires a degree of perfectionism. You can’t miss deadlines. You can’t miss the key case when briefing. Everything you say or write can have consequences from judicial displeasure to malpractice liability. Lawyers can take comfort that they’re not doctors. No one dies when we make a mistake. But our work affects people’s lives, often dramatically. And that’s a lot of pressure to work under day in and day out. No wonder lawyers struggle with mental health and substance-use issues in disproportionate numbers.

The truth, however, is that none of us get through our career without making mistakes. And those mistakes usually aren’t as consequential as we fear. Sharing those stories with junior associates can mitigate some of the anxiety that comes with practicing law. It reassures them that they’ll be okay — even if they make a mistake. Could acknowledging your own errors encourage junior lawyers to be sloppier? Doubtful. A well-balanced lawyer will always outperform a stressed-out lawyer. Allowing junior associates to see our fallible humanity empowers them to do their best. It also fosters open communication.

When an associate has a crisis, be willing to move heaven and earth so they can focus on recovery. Treat it just like any other medical crisis. It is much easier to tell someone you have a ruptured appendix than it is to tell someone that you’re suffering from suicidal ideation. The appendix doesn’t feel like it’s your fault; the suicidal ideation just might. No one expects you to power through a ruptured appendix. Attitudes toward suicidal ideation may be very different. No wonder shame and fear of stigma prevent people from sharing their struggles with mental illness. But the brain is just an organ. It’s three pounds of tissue, and it can go wrong like any other organ. So we should treat a junior lawyer’s mental health crisis the same way we’d treat a junior lawyer’s heart attack or emergency appendectomy. We should reassign that attorney’s work, ensure that they can prioritize recovery, and make sure they know they can prioritize recovery.

Be sensitive to differences in experience, especially across demographic groups. Your experience 20 years ago as a member of your demographic group likely does not correspond to an associate’s experience today. Lawyers seem particularly prone to the belief that the way we did things back in the day is the only right way to do things — “Back in my day, we were embarrassed if we only billed 220 hours a month!” or “Back in my day, this office would have been filled on Saturday morning!” This particular viewpoint may blind senior lawyers to the conditions that lawyers now face. It may also blind lawyers to ways in which experiences can differ based on gender, race, sexual orientation, and so on. You did the best you could with the pressures you faced. A lawyer in crisis may be facing pressures you haven’t encountered or can’t understand. There is only one solution to this problem: listening.

Model wellness. Senior lawyers can only expect junior lawyers to prioritize their mental health if those senior lawyers prioritize their own mental health. Molly Ranns, director of the State Bar of Michigan Lawyers and Judge Assistance Program, points out that modeling can mean working reasonable hours and not expecting associates to respond to emails at all hours. She also recalls one senior lawyer who decided to put their therapy appointments in their official calendar as a way of normalizing therapy. For a firm, modeling wellness can mean forming a well-being committee to telegraph its commitment to wellness and encourage innovation in wellness programs.

Be skeptical of the tough-it-out approach. It’s not uncommon for senior lawyers to express the opinion that junior lawyers are just soft — that they lack the toughness earlier generations displayed in handling the ups and downs of practicing law. People just need to be tougher, or so the argument goes. There are good reasons to be skeptical of that approach. As Michigan Supreme Court Justice Megan Cavanagh, chair of the state’s Commission on Well-Being in the Law, noted, research shows that lawyers really weren’t better years ago. Lawyers in previous generations had serious mental health and substance-use issues. They just didn’t talk about them.

Assume there are mental health challenges within your team. It’s tempting to take a no-news-is-good-news approach to mental health management — to assume your team isn’t experiencing problems if no one has actually mentioned one. But Ranns said that research shows roughly 30% of lawyers struggle with some form of men tal health or substance-use issue. Again, empathy and compassion should be enough for that figure to startle senior lawyers into action. But from a business perspective, that means 30% of your workforce is struggling with mental health challenges that could compromise their careers

CONCLUSION

Serious mental health crises can happen to anyone, whether they’ve wrestled with mental illness for years or suddenly find themselves in a crisis. Help is available, and senior lawyers can use their platforms to increase the visibility of these resources. The State Bar of Michigan Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program confidential helpline is available at 800.996.5522. Also, dialing 988 connects callers directly to the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which is free and confidential.

The authors thank Michigan Supreme Court Justice Megan Cavanagh and State Bar of Michigan Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program Director Molly Ranns for their contributions to this article.