Constantly On Call: The Client's Role in the Legal Profession's Mental Health Crisis

As firms grapple with high rates of attorney addiction, depression and suicide, many lawyers say in-house departments aren’t yet examining their own crucial role in improving the profession’s mental health culture.

Client demands for fast turnaround times, even on non-urgent matters, can leave outside counsel in constant crisis mode. That stress can lead to frayed relationships and mental health issues such as depression, addiction and anxiety, which firm lawyers are more likely to experience than corporate in-house counsel.

“We’re on this crisis level all the time because of the expectations coming from the clients,” said Dan Lukasik, the founder of Lawyers With Depression. He said “a change in the relationship” between firms and in-house clients is needed to improve law’s mental health culture.

Many lawyers said legal department leaders often don’t think about the impact they’re having on outside counsel’s mental health, or they don’t care—clients pay a high rate for quick responses on all matters.

That mindset lacks both empathy and business acumen, said Jim Patton, the former president of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Kentucky and South Florida chapters. Legal departments invest time and resources into building trust and business knowledge with outside counsel partners.

“It’s absolutely tanking your own investment if you don’t find that healthy balance,” Patton said.

Bree Buchanan, the co-chair of the National Task Force on Lawyer Wellbeing and chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs, noted in-house departments that “run their counsel into the ground are not going to get the quality of work they want.”

That’s partially why Domenic Cervoni, a vice president in the legal department at HSBC North America, said he’s open with firms about what is and isn’t urgent. He tries to avoid sending work dumps on a weekend. In his experience, firms do the best work for clients who treat them well.

Spectrum Professional Services corporate counsel Angela Han, also a legal wellness coach, takes a similar approach to outside counsel management. When outside counsel is struggling, Han said that ”more than anything, what is appreciated is transparency.”

But Cervoni and Han are the exception. Patton said many chief legal officers are still “just starting to say, ‘We need to solve this.’” General counsel coming to that realization should let their firms know, he added. They could “help save lives, literally,” he said.

Patrick Krill, the founder of legal industry mental health consulting firm Krill Strategies, suggested general counsel set clear expectations around responsiveness for emergencies and non-urgent matters. If the situation is not a crisis, he asks, “Can they wait?”

Clients can also show they’re serious about mental health by taking firm wellness programs and practices into account when selecting outside counsel, Buchanan and Patton said. They pointed to the changes sparked by general counsel’s push for more diversity: Firms will try to give clients what they want.

“We have to change the entire ecosystem and the entire culture and that does involve all stakeholders coming to the table and saying, ‘What can we do to do our part?’” Krill said. “Part of that is in-house counsel, and I think they need to be brought into this conversation.”

Read more: Minds Over Matters: An Examination of Mental Health in the Legal Profession