Biglaw

The Legal Mental Health Crisis Hits Home

From the perspective of Career Services, the mental health crisis unfolding that has unfolded in the legal community is hard to ignore.

By  
on

As I imagine is the case for many Above the Law readers, I subscribe to the twice daily email blasts from The American Lawyer.  I typically scan the headlines to see which firms will be next in the seemingly never-ending merger craze while also keeping up to date as to which firms are gaining, or losing, certain partners or practice groups — occasional emigration is normal, but if it becomes a regular feature it might portend something about the long-term health of the firm, a vital piece of information to pass along to students.  After a quick read, the email is sorted as part of my never ending quest to reach Inbox Zero.

Monday’s ALM Afternoon Update was different.  Rarely does an email, let alone an ALM Update, stop me in my proverbial tracks, but “Big Law Killed My Husband”: An Open Letter from a Sidley Partner Widow did the trick.  I put down what I was doing and dove into Joanna Litt’s heart-wrenching account of how her husband Gabe MacConaill, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Sidley Austin, took his own life last month in the firm’s parking garage at the age of 42.  Unfortunately, stories of lawyers struggling with mental health issues, even to the point of suicide, are all too common.  But this story was different.  While my CSO job requires that I show no favoritism among employers, Sidley will always be special to me.  I spent my 2L summer split between two offices of the firm (neither of which was the LA office) and then briefly returned after my clerkship.  While my tenure at the firm was short and unremarkable, I still consider it “my” firm.  That’s why Litt’s piece had such an impact.  While I am quite familiar with the mental health crisis unfolding — or rather, that has unfolded — in the legal community, it has often seemed like other people’s’ problems.  Now the issue has somewhat come home and it’s hard to ignore.

What does this mean from the perspective of Career Services?  It has been my experience that many students at Vanderbilt, and probably most elite law schools, have a career default towards Biglaw — this default probably extends to students at nearly every law school, but the feasibility of getting on such a career path can be daunting for many.  The rationale for such a default is rather understandable considering that it is far easier to pay off student loan debt in the six figures with a $190,000 salary than it is with $50,000.  Even for those students without onerous student loans, that Biglaw salary is enticing once students, to paraphrase Leo McGarry, discover that they can buy stuff with money.  Finances aside, the Biglaw path can be alluring to students due to the accelerated hiring timeline.  3L is a lot more enjoyable when you have a job waiting for you after graduation than when you do not.  Biglaw is appealing to those of us in CSO as well because it serves as a stable destination for students with that aforementioned accelerated timeline which allows us to focus more attention on the students who really need our help as well as 1Ls beginning to navigate the system.

The problem with such a default is thrown into sharp relief with Litt’s letter.  Working in Biglaw is very hard and can be extremely taxing on attorneys.  Not too long ago, I was meeting with a Vanderbilt student who was getting ready to head off into a Biglaw summer associate position in a major market and the student inquired if the typical hours for an attorney at the firm were in the range of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.  I honestly contemplated resigning my CSO position for a moment because I had so fundamentally failed this student.

But while at least most law students anticipate long hours as a Biglaw associate, many believe that if they make it to partnership, the long days are replaced by frequent trips to the golf course and even larger paychecks.  While the latter might be true, Joanna Litt’s letter disproves the former.  Even though he was a partner, Gabe MacConaill was pouring his life into his work.  Litt describes her husband not sleeping and working weekends on a major bankruptcy matter to the point where a colleague noticed that MacConaill’s “sense of humor had been gone for a while.”

Why do attorneys stay in positions that are obviously having a deleterious effect on their health?  One line in particular from Litt’s letter stood out, “I told him we could sell our beautiful house and move to Mammoth, our happy place, and snowboard all winter and then figure it out” (emphasis added).  Golden handcuffs — economic incentives that keep individuals in jobs they might otherwise leave — are something that everyone in Biglaw will eventually have to grapple with, and as associate salaries continue to rise, that timeline moves closer and closer to one’s Biglaw start date.  Gabe MacConaill had seemingly used the economic fruits of his Sidley labor to purchase a gorgeous house.  Abandoning that residence and that lifestyle can be extraordinarily difficult, especially when it is no longer just you in the home.

Sponsored

Is all this to say that law students should run as far away from Biglaw, lest they develop serious mental health issues?  No.  Stories such as Gabe MacConaill’s are still the exception rather than the norm.  But those of us who work with law students must make sure that we are providing them with as full a description of Biglaw life as possible.  Allowing a student to default into a Biglaw position when it is clear that such a position could have damaging mental health effects is a disservice to both the student and even the Biglaw employer.

But more broadly, the legal industry needs to have an honest and thorough discussion about mental health in the profession.  I did not know Gabe MacConaill and the story of his suicide still shook me. I cannot imagine how I would react if I see the name of a deceased former Sidley colleague in the next American Lawyer update.

Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.

Sponsored

Topics

, , , , , , ,