Did you know that during a first psychiatric evaluation, psychiatrists ask patients whether they are dealing with legal issues? We ask because legal stress can significantly impact mental health.

But for lawyers, that question carries a different meaning.

They are constantly exposed to legal stressors: conflict, high-stakes decisions, adversarial dynamics, urgency, responsibility for clients, and the emotional weight of other people’s problems. Over time, a kind of normalization occurs. The stress begins to feel ordinary simply because it is constant. What might feel acutely distressing to someone outside the profession becomes psychologically invisible within it.

A lawyer’s instinct may be: “Of course I’m dealing with legal issues — that’s my job.” But constant exposure does not make stress harmless. It only makes it familiar.

For some professionals, this overlaps with what is known as vicarious traumatization: the cumulative emotional impact of repeatedly being exposed to other people’s trauma, suffering, conflict, or crisis. You absorb not only the stress of your own practice, but the psychological weight of your clients’ crises. Over time, this accumulates in ways that are easy to overlook.

I know this pattern well. During medical school, I would move from performing CPR, to speaking with a grieving family, to discussing a new diagnosis with another patient, and then to lunch, if there was time. At the time, it simply felt normal. It was part of the rhythm of medicine.

Years later, as I pursued psychiatry, I realized the stress and emotional weight of those experiences had not disappeared simply because I kept moving. What I had really accumulated were years of unprocessed emotions and experiences.

As the phrase goes:1

“The body keeps the score.”

The legal profession may be particularly prone to this kind of cumulative emotional burden. A growing body of research suggests that lawyers experience disproportionately high rates of mental health difficulties compared to the general population. In a 2020 study of lawyers from the State Bar of California, the California Young Lawyers Association, and the D.C. Bar, 8.5% endorsed suicidal ideation on a depression questionnaire — approximately twice the rate seen in the general working population,2 with another Utah sample reporting rates as high as 11.9%.3 A national study of over 12,000 practicing attorneys found elevated rates of depression, anxiety, stress, and problematic alcohol use, further underscoring the mental health burden within the profession.4

This is why awareness matters: without it, chronic stress can slowly become woven into one’s baseline way of functioning.

Of course, conversations around stress in the legal profession cannot focus solely on individual responsibility. Broader systemic and cultural factors within high-pressure professions also play an important role and deserve attention.

On an individual level, creating intentional moments where the body’s rest and recovery system becomes strengthened can be protective. This may include mindfulness practices, slow diaphragmatic or vagal breathing, regular physical activity, exposure to nature, protected time away from work-related stimulation, adequate sleep, and maintaining routines that reconnect you to parts of your identity outside of work.

Support systems matter as well. Having trusted people with whom you can process stressors as they come — whether friends, family, mentors, colleagues, or a therapist — can reduce the psychological burden.

In some cases, professional mental health treatment, including psychotherapy and medication, may also be appropriate and important.

A note on bar preparation

Bar preparation deserves special attention in conversations around mental health in the legal profession. For many law graduates, the bar exam involves months of sustained cognitive load, prolonged uncertainty, social isolation, disrupted routines, and prolonged stress on the nervous system. Because this experience is so normalized within legal training, many students underestimate the degree to which it can affect their overall wellbeing.

During this period of prolonged stress, small environmental and behavioral adjustments can help reduce cumulative nervous system strain:

  • Studying with calming music or nature sounds can improve focus while making the process feel less mentally intense.
  • Structured study groups can improve accountability, reduce isolation, and create opportunities to process stress collectively through shared experience.
  • Studying outdoors or in natural environments may help reduce mental fatigue during long study periods.

Intentional recovery and regulation throughout the day also matter:

  • Micro breaks between study blocks
  • Mindfulness practices
  • Exercising even for short periods
  • Maintaining a relatively consistent sleep and wake schedule
  • Going on walks or hikes with peers
  • Eating meals away from study materials
  • Maintaining social connection
  • Scheduling deliberate screen-free, study-free time each day to allow the mind to fully disengage

These moments may appear minor, but repeated periods of physiological recovery can become protective over time.

The goal is not to eliminate stress entirely. In fact, performance is often best at manageable levels of stress, where alertness and motivation are enhanced. But when stress becomes excessive or prolonged, concentration, memory, emotional regulation, and performance itself can begin to decline. Awareness of stress, before it becomes chronic and unmanageable, can make a meaningful difference.

Amid the pressure and intensity of this period, it is worth remembering that a professional examination reflects performance and knowledge within a particular moment and context, not one’s worth, humanity, or potential.

Thank you to all those working in this deeply meaningful profession and advocating for justice every day. The work you do matters. It is demanding, emotionally heavy, and more marathon than sprint.

Behind this important work are you, human beings. You matter too.

References

  1. van der Kolk BA. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking; 2014.

  2. Krill PR et al. Stressed, Lonely, and Overcommitted: Predictors of Lawyer Suicide Risk. Healthcare (Basel). 2023;11(4):568.

  3. Thiese MS et al. Depressive Symptoms and Suicidal Ideation Among Lawyers and Other Law Professionals. J Occup Environ Med. 2021;63(5):381–386.

  4. Krill PR et al. The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys. J Addict Med. 2016;10(1):46–52.