Biglaw

Lawyer Suicides Are Becoming All Too Frequent

No client, no case, no partnership, no failing to make partner, no promotion, no demotion is worth the price that some lawyers have paid.

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Guess what yesterday (Tuesday) was. It was not National Cheeseburger Day. It was not National Apple Pie Day. Hungry yet?  It was not Set Your Hair on Fire and Run Down The Street in Your Birthday Suit Day. It was…tada…World Kindness Day. And no, I am not making this up. And it’s the 20th anniversary of this day, and I didn’t even know it existed.  Did you?  I guess it could be a kissing cousin to Love Your Lawyer Day, which Joe Patrice thoroughly trashed recently.

Lawyers and kindness? An oxymoron? Another touchy-feely discussion about how we need to be supportive of each other? You betcha, and I will rant on this topic ad nauseam until we lawyers, who are supposed to be smarter than the average bear (thanks, Yogi Bear), not only get the message but act on it.

In a devastating opinion piece, the wife of a Biglaw partner, who killed himself, takes Biglaw and the profession to task. Understand that this is the perspective of a widow who has lost her life partner and best friend and her grief is fresh and palpable, but there’s a lot of truth in what she says about how the legal practice environment fosters a climate of unhealthiness. Biglaw peeps should read this op-ed, as should every lawyer in every size firm, be it corporate law department, government, and solos. I would include support staff and every lawyer’s family and friends in the required readership as well. Family and friends may see warning signals that professional colleagues are either oblivious to or choose to ignore.

Yes, Gabe MacConnaill had personal issues and personal demons (don’t we all?) but none of that takes away from the tragedy of what has happened. None of that obscures the fact that he clearly felt that he couldn’t reach out for help, for support, because as we all know, doing that is considered a sign of weakness of our profession. In fact, Gabe felt that if he went to the emergency room due to exhaustion, “it would be the end of his career.” Whether that was true or not, that was how he felt. Reaching out can be a career killer. Shame on us.

His wife, Joanna Litt, also a lawyer, in researching the unanswerable, came across the concept of “maladaptive perfectionism,” that is, unrealistic standards of achievement combined with hypercriticism of failing to meet them. Anyone reading this see herself/himself in that definition? I thought so.

At the memorial service at Gabe’s firm, so many people spoke of his kindnesses, his support, his mentoring. Was it ever reciprocated? I wonder how many people actually told him what he had meant to them. I wonder how many other partners in the firm, both in Los Angeles and elsewhere, were too busy to take the time to share words that may have made a difference, words of encouragement, words of support. We’ll never know and it’s too late now.

Stories of lawyers killing themselves by guns, by booze, by drugs are becoming all too frequent. What is the value of a life? We here in California are finding that out to our heartbreak both in the recent fires that still plague this state and the mass shootings at the Borderline Bar and Grill a week ago in Thousand Oaks, a community devastated by fire as well.

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Kathryn Rubino has also posted about this. Perhaps repetition on this topic is a good thing if it helps call attention to this ever-growing crisis. What are we lawyers going to do about it, individually and collectively? No client, no case, no partnership, no failing to make partner, no promotion, no demotion is worth the price that Gabe and others have paid. Practicing law is not like hazing in a fraternity nor should it be.

My plan had been to write about an ABA working group to advance well-being in the legal profession, which dovetails, sadly, with Ms. Litt’s op-ed. The working group’s purpose is to “make recommendations regarding the current state of attorney mental health and substance use issues with an emphasis on helping legal employers support healthy work environments.”  Better late than never, I suppose. And define “healthy work environments.”

The primary vehicle for this latest effort is a pledge composed of two parts: “calling upon legal employers (including law firms, corporate entities, government agencies and legal aid organizations) to first: (a) recognize that substance use and mental health problems represent a significant challenge for the legal profession and acknowledge that more can and should be done to improve the health and well-being of lawyers; and (b) pledge to support the Campaign and work to adopt and prioritize its seven-point framework for building a better future.”

A number of law firms have already signed the pledge. Among them, Sidley Austin. And at what firm was Gabe MacConnaill a partner? Need you ask?

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old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for more than 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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