Work-Life Balance and the Need to Give Law Students a Break

Abstract

It has long been understood that joining, and staying in, the legal profession is not good for one’s health. Research shows that attorneys experience alcoholism, depression, and other mental health issues at higher rates than the general population. Similarly, there is significant research showing the detrimental effects of law school on many students’ well-being. We have known for years that students’ happiness and well-being tends to decline over their law school years, yet the response by most law schools has been patchwork, slow, and largely reactive. An unhealthy work-life balance remains the norm. This Article calls on law schools to do more to create a climate and culture in which students can achieve a healthier work-life balance. While there are a range of issues that need to be addressed, this Article focuses on the specific issue of law school culture discouraging taking time off. Ultimately, if law students—the newest members of our profession—are going to achieve and maintain a healthy work-life balance, it is not enough for law schools to simply encourage students to take care of themselves. Law school faculty and administrators need to create the conditions in which self-care is not only possible but welcome. A key component of that includes enabling students to take time off. * Jonathan Todres is a Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law. Thank you to Meera Deo, Jakki Petzold, and the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) for their generosity in sharing LSSSE survey data and, more generally, for their important work on law student well-being issues. Thank you also to Caren Morrison and Nirej Sekhon for their helpful feedback on this Article and to Lauren Meeler for her excellent research assistance and valuable perspective on these issues. Finally, and most important, I want to thank the students in my Spring 2021 seminar for taking this journey with me. The legal profession is very fortunate to count you among its members. U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H L A W R E V I E W O N L I N E P A G E | 2 | V O L . 8 3 | 2 0 2 2 ISSN 1942-8405 (online) ● DOI 10.5195/lawreview.2022.848 http://lawreview.law.pitt.edu INTRODUCTION One of the most worthwhile assignments I have given to students in the past fifteen years was to stop working. Literally. I assigned them a 72-hour break from work.1 I did this out of growing concern that law schools are not doing enough to address the nonstop nature of the law school work culture and its adverse effects on student well-being. It has long been understood that joining, and staying in, the legal profession is not good for one’s health.2 Research shows that “lawyers disproportionately experience alcoholism, depression, and other mental health issues.”3 Similarly, there is significant research showing the detrimental effects of law school on many students’ well-being.4 We have known for a while that students’ happiness and wellbeing tends to decline over their law school years.5 Although law schools have 1 Jonathan Todres, An “Alternative Assignment” for Law Students, JONATHAN TODRES (Apr. 27, 2021), http://jonathantodres.com/blog/2021/4/27/an-alternative-assignment-for-law-students [https://perma.cc/ 7AF5-LG6R]; see also infra Part II. 2 Jerome M. Organ, What Do We Know About the Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction of Lawyers? A MetaAnalysis of Research on Lawyer Satisfaction and Well-Being, 8 U. ST. THOMAS L.J. 225, 268 (2011) (“[T]he fact that roughly 80% of lawyers consistently describe themselves as being ‘satisfied’ still has to be reconciled with the separate empirical data that indicates lawyers disproportionately experience alcoholism, depression, and other mental health issues.”); William W. Eaton et al., Occupations and the Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder, 32 J. OCCUPATIONAL MED. 1079, 1083 (1990) (Of all professionals in the United States, lawyers suffer from the highest rate of depression after adjusting for socio-demographic factors, and they are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from major depressive disorder than the rest of the employed population.); Martin E.P. Seligman, Paul R. Verkuil & Terry H. Kang, Why Lawyers Are Unhappy, 10 DEAKIN L. REV. 49, 53 (2005) (“Lawyers are also at a greater risk for heart disease, alcoholism and drug use than the general population.”). 3 Organ, supra note 2, at 268. 4 See, e.g., Lawrence S. Krieger & Kennon M. Sheldon, What Makes Lawyers Happy: A Data-driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, 83 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 554, 560 (2014) (“Most particularly, in the context of the previous law school studies, the current data show that the psychological factors seen to erode during law school are the very factors most important for the well-being of lawyers.”); see also Todd David Peterson & Elizabeth Waters Peterson, Stemming the tide of law student depression: What law schools need to learn from the science of positive psychology, 9 YALE J. HEALTH POL’Y L. & ETHICS 357 (2009); Jerome M. Organ, David B. Jaffe & Katherine M. Bender, Suffering in silence: The survey of law student well-being and the reluctance of law students to seek help for substance use and mental health concerns, 66 J. LEGAL EDUC. 116 (2016), https://jle.aals.org/cgi/viewcontent .cgi?article=1370&context=home [https://perma.cc/A9H9-Q2NG]; Kennon M. Sheldon & Lawrence S. Krieger, Does legal education have undermining effects on law students? Evaluating changes in motivation, values, and well‐being, 22 BEHAV. SCI. & L. 261 (2004). 5 G. Andrew H. Benjamin, Alfred Kaszniak, Bruce Sales & Stephen Shanfield, The Role of Legal Education in Producing Psychological Distress among Law Students and Lawyers, 11 AM. BAR FOUND. W O R K L I F E B A L A N C E