Legal profession is ‘detrimental’ to mental health, say 41% of lawyers
Lawyers in the United States suffer from elevated anxiety, stress, depression, burnout and problem drinking despite efforts over the past decade to improve attorney wellness and mental health, a new national survey has found.
Nearly 22% of lawyers report moderate to severe symptoms of depression, according to the new study by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and lawyer mental health advisory firm Krill Strategies published this week in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
Drawn from responses of more than 37,000 lawyers, it's the largest study to date on lawyer wellness, according to the authors.
Bar associations, law firms and other legal employers have stepped up efforts to address lawyer mental health since an earlier version of the study raised alarms in 2016, said study co-author Patrick Krill, but the new data shows that those initiatives have not done enough.
"It shows that the issues were worse than we thought," Krill told Reuters. "The levels of distress were higher than we knew."
More than 20% of the surveyed lawyers reported moderate to severe levels of anxiety, while nearly 19% reported those levels for stress. More than 41% reported that time in the legal profession has been “detrimental” to their mental health.
The study also found high rates of problem drinking among lawyers, with nearly 42% screening positive for hazardous drinking and 26% of those reporting an even higher level of drinking, on an international tool used to assess alcohol use.
Prior research has shown lawyers suffer mental health problems at higher rates than the general US population, though the new study does not draw such comparisons.
While the study methodologies differed slightly, rates of anxiety, stress and depression were each higher than those found in the 2016 report. The rate of hazardous drinking, however, had declined.
Consistent with the earlier study, younger lawyers reported mental health challenges at higher rates than their older counterparts, with the study authors theorizing that the stress of being a novice in a demanding profession, a lack of professional support, and educational debt are contributing factors.
Mental health and wellness also varied by practice area, the study found. Lawyers working in house at companies or in judicial chambers reported lower levels of distress and burnout than did solo practitioners and those in private practice.
Lawyers at law firms reported higher levels of hazardous drinking while attorneys involved in litigation had higher rates of burnout and hazardous drinking — which the study authors said could be the result of the “adversarial exposure” of litigation alongside long hours.
Lawyers working the most hours per week are also the most at risk of burnout, the study found. Those working more than 71 hours a week were approximately three times as likely to screen positive for moderate to severe stress as were those working between 31 and 40 hours a week.
Concerns over confidentiality and potential harm to their professional reputations remain the top barriers cited by lawyer respondents to seeking help for their mental health and wellness challenges, the study found.
Docs show King & Spalding fee cap for Federal Reserve work
Law firm King & Spalding’s contract for legal work for the Federal Reserve involving a US Justice Department investigation into Jerome Powell was capped at 1.5 million dollars, according to newly disclosed legal records obtained by Reuters.
The law firm’s contract in January originally set a 750,000 dollars maximum but was later bumped up to 1.5 million dollars, the records showed. Reuters last week obtained the contract from a records request.
The Federal Reserve hired King & Spalding for legal guidance as the Justice Department investigated then-Fed Chairman Powell over renovation costs for Fed buildings. Prosecutors in April said they were dropping their inquiry of Powell for now. A federal judge in March blocked subpoenas targeting Powell, in a rebuke of the Justice Department. Powell has denied any wrongdoing.
The King & Spalding team included former Republican-appointed US attorney Robert Hur and two other partners, Andrew Michaelson and Leah Grossi, the records showed. The board redacted the lawyers’ discounted hourly rates. It is common for private attorneys to reduce rates for government clients.
The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Federal Reserve declined to comment. Powell has chosen to continue serving on the Fed board. His term lasts until early 2028. He turned to lawyers from Williams & Connolly for his defense.
Legal sector job growth continues
The US legal sector hit another historic employment high in August as job growth in the broader economy accelerated, according to figures released last week by the US Department of Labor.
The total number of jobs in the legal sector, including lawyers, paralegals, judges and legal assistants, stood at 1,245,900 in August, an increase of 600 from July and up 7.8% compared to five years earlier, figures released by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
The sector has added jobs every month but one over the last two years, BLS data shows.
By contrast, the US finance sector, which is larger and an important source of income for law firms, lost 11,000 jobs last month. That sector has shrunk by 125,000 jobs since peaking in May 2025, per BLS.
The legal sector job growth comes as large US law firms recorded double-digit revenue gains in the first half of 2026 thanks to an increase in billing rates and strong demand fueled in part by work related to AI, according to survey data released last month by Wells Fargo.