Law Schools

The 'Grisly Reality' Behind Mental Health Issues At Harvard Law School

Will Harvard Law lead in the area of mental health?

By  
on

Mental health issues remain an important issue for the legal industry. The law is the loneliest profession — the struggle of being in the industry is real, and a crisis of mental health issues plagues all levels of legal sector. Against this dismal backdrop one law school has stepped forward in an attempt to quantify, and hopefully then address, the issue.

As reported in the Harvard Crimson, the law school has taken a cold, hard look at the issues facing their student body, and the results aren’t pretty, indeed it’s a “grisly reality”:

Last year, we pushed Harvard Law School to begin an annual mental health survey to measure the welfare of the student body. We began writing law school-specific survey questions based on our experience as students and worked with university health researchers and administrators to publicize the survey.

The results presented a grisly reality. Among 886 respondents, 25 percent reported suffering from depression. For context, according to the CDC, 7.7 percent of individuals aged 20 to 39 from the general population suffer from depression. 24.2 percent of Law School survey respondents reported suffering from anxiety, and 20.5 percent said they were at heightened risk of suicide. 66 percent of respondents said that they experienced new mental health challenges during law school. Nearly 61.8 percent said they had frequent or intense imposter syndrome experiences at school and in measuring social connectedness, 8.2 percent stated they had zero people they could open up to about their most private feelings without having to hold back.

The authors of the Crimson piece — Amanda M. Lee, President of Harvard Law School Student Government,  Amanda H. Chan,  Vice President of Harvard Law School Student Government, and Adam P. Savitt, Chair of Health and Wellness of Harvard Law School Student Government — have a five step plan they’re advocating as a way forward.

 

1) The students want the school to release the full data (anonymized) of the survey results

[S]tudents were willing to put in the time to answer invasive questions about their mental health struggles, including potential struggles with suicide ideation, alcohol consumption, and more. Students deserve to have ownership of the data that they themselves created; as sophisticated and sensitive allies, students also understand that data must be handled responsibly, that patterns may not have statistical significance, that correlation is not causation, and that results should be contextualized.

Sponsored

2) They want more diverse, full-time therapists hired by the law school

Only 33 percent of student respondents that were found to be depressed were being treated. Harvard should also provide weekly, appointment-free drop-in counseling sessions. However, any increase in access to care to new students must not be at the expense of ongoing or specialized treatment to students already seeking care.

3) They want training for students to deal with signs of mental health challenges in their fellow students

These trainings can develop lawyering skills when applied to client service and facilitate earlier peer or self-intervention for students struggling with mental health. It is evident that most of our classmates suffer in isolation; a majority of student respondents indicated that they believed less than half of their peers faced mental health challenges, though 83 percent of respondents reported having such challenges.

4) They want to build relationships between faculty and students

Sponsored

This could include more candid discussions about mental health struggles in the legal profession, or even the struggles of the faculty themselves. Our survey shows that students with more connections to faculty members display lower rates of depression and anxiety. But, as it stands, only 8 percent of students said they would feel comfortable reaching out to faculty about mental health challenges. Our educators should be open to combining traditional legal teaching tools with new pedagogy that cultivates conversation and de-stigmatizes mental health.

5) They want the school to pressure state bar associations to end character inquiries unrelated to the practice of law

Licensing bodies require candidates to answer probing character and fitness questions as a prerequisite to practicing law; some have even discriminated against students based on treatment or diagnosis in violation of the ADA. Basing assessments of competency on a candidate’s medical record—which may include the diagnosis of mental health conditions—rather than a candidate’s actual conduct stigmatizes mental illness and actually deters students from seeking counseling for fear they will eventually need to report. Indeed, our survey found that 19 percent of respondents were reluctant to seek help due to concerns about bar eligibility. This reluctance was correlated with heightened depression, anxiety, and risk of suicide.

Hopefully Harvard Law will get onboard with these steps and they can be a leader in the industry, this time in the area of mental health.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Topics

, ,