It’s no secret that lawyers have higher rates of depression than the general population. They suffer at a rate 3.6 times higher than non-lawyers, according to a frequently cited 1990 study. Others are dealing with a wide range of mental health issues, including anxiety, stress, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But the stigma surrounding mental illness leads to many lawyers keeping it a secret. Their fear of being seen as weak and potentially putting their jobs at risk leads them to suffer in silence. “Depression cries out vulnerability and weakness to many people,” says Ontario Bar Association President Orlando Da Silva, who has spoken openly over the past year about his own struggles with depression. “I was worried about permanent damage to my career and an inability to attract clients—especially as a trial lawyer, where you’re supposed to be strong and deal with people’s most difficult problems.”
The costs to the profession of not addressing mental health issues—both personally and financially—are huge. Most lawyers who suffer from depression function at a very high level, says Da Silva, and work tends to be the last thing affected by it. But he describes his own “presenteeism,” when he’d be working late trying to concentrate on simply writing a letter. He could only think about how miserable he felt. “One of the costs for the firm for that of course is time that gets written off. That’s in addition to others who leave the practice or leave the firm and go into something they think is more manageable given their condition. And that’s a cost.”
Given the large number of lawyers affected by mental illness, law firms have begun to step up to the challenge of dealing with the issue head-on. Fostering a supportive work environment for those dealing with mental illness can go a long way to help them and to fight the stigma surrounding it.
The Canadian Bar Association has partnered with Bell Let's Talk and the Mood Disorders Society of Canada to develop Mental Health and Wellness in the Legal Profession, a self-directed educational tool for lawyers that helps them figure out what’s wrong and provides support and resources for prevention and recovery. Advisory panel member Karen Bell, who is Senior Director, Professional and Client Education at McCarthy TĂ©trault in Toronto, sees it as an excellent starting point for firms to use in building awareness and knowledge of stigma, its impact and ways to address it.
Bell says McCarthy TĂ©trault has begun to focus on the need to build deep awareness around mental health issues and associated stigma. The firm has been developing its plan over the past year and is now in the process of rolling it out and “having our leadership really take an active role in leading the initiative,” she says.
Norton Rose Fulbright Canada had its first national mental health awareness campaign in October 2014, says the firm’s Chairman, Norman Steinberg in Montreal. Its purpose was “to make everybody who works for us more sensitive about the issues and also to combat the stigma.”
He points out that as a professional firm, “our resources walk in and out of the doors every morning, so we want to ensure that everybody who works for us is in the best mental and physical health.”
“Twenty-five per cent of all people in the workplace at one point or another will themselves have some sort of an issue,” says Steinberg. “And if you extrapolate it, that actually means that everybody in the workplace is going to have a friend or a family member at one point in their life that has this issue.”
The firm will also implement a training program that will recognize and address the signs of mental illness. “We’re going to train about 75 or 80 people around the country to basically have the skill set to recognize the warning signs and be able to deal with it.”
Rhonda Heffernan, National Director, Human Resources in Norton Rose’s Calgary office, says the firm will send four HR people initially to do a five-day situational training course in London. The plan is to then involve partners and associates who will be given a toolkit to respond to situations, “whether they notice the behaviour, whether the individual comes to them, or perhaps somebody who’s observing the behaviour comes to them with concerns. We will make it very public and promote throughout the year the fact that we have these first-aid-trained people in every office.”
The cornerstone of the training is to identify and respond to the earliest signs – “the little triggers we see that in the past we just ignored because we thought ‘well, that person’s just having a bad day’,” says Heffernan. The biggest thing to look out for in colleagues is a change in behaviour. “When you are actually trained formally, you’re more alert and aware of those early signs and you can see them building. The idea is to get well ahead of them.”
As Steinberg says, “I think we have a much better chance of success in dealing with it early on than after it’s festered for a long time, either undiagnosed or not treated.” He adds, “We’re trying to make everybody understand that this is a normal part of being in the workplace now.”
That kind of openness and acceptance is needed in the profession, say those who have suffered from mental illness. When Da Silva’s story appeared in the Toronto Star last fall, Ottawa law student Tricia Edgar read it at a particularly dark period in her life. Dealing with PTSD, anxiety and depression, she was planning to quit law school until she read about Da Silva’s struggles. “I don’t think I would have completed my studies if it hadn’t been for him,” she says.
Edgar then took the bold step of writing about her own struggles on Facebook. “To me, telling people that I had a mental health challenge was the same as telling everybody I was incompetent and I couldn’t do this job and I was never going to get hired.” She was shocked when she started getting emails from a large number of her classmates who were struggling with their own mental health issues and some who were even contemplating suicide. It was much more common than she had realized. “People I had really high regard for that I never thought had a worry in the world were writing to me telling me about their challenges and struggles, and said they were too terrified and please don’t ever tell anybody.”
Edgar urges others with mental illness to reach out and talk to someone. “It can be very scary and you might not find the right person the first time you speak out but you will find someone. You are not alone. It does get better.”
Ann Macaulay is a Toronto writer and editor.