As Lawyers die by suicide, many ask "why?"

A profession in crisis.

Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

I was in law school the first time I heard of a law firm partner suicide. Despite working successfully at one of the top firms in the nation making millions a year, Kirtee Kapoor jumped in front of a train in Palo Alto, leaving behind a loving family. 

Gabe MacConaill took his own life in his law firm’s parking lot. He was a high-powered lawyer at Sidley Austin’s LA office. 

And Peter suffered from chronic drug use, eventually resulting in his death (it’s not clear if this one was intentional). 

It got even more real when a classmate of mine took their own life in law school. A colleague I knew to be good-hearted, intelligent, ambitious, with so much to offer the world, had succumbed to the pressure cooker of the legal profession and made a permanent decision for a temporary problem.

Such is the state of law in the United States.

There are plenty of reasons underlying our mental health crisis, which boasts rates of anxiety at 75%+ and depression at 40%. One in three lawyers are alcoholics and the profession consistently ranks highly in the most suicidal careers. Many look to the toxic work environment plaguing law firm settings: unreasonable bosses, power tripping egos, disrespect from clients, or sometimes outright physically abusive managers. Others point out that lawyers are consistently overworked - many putting in 70+ hour weeks in perpetuity. There’s the drinking problem, which can be traced to law school “bar review” gatherings and firm-sponsored happy hours. Perhaps lawyers are type-A by nature, and our neurotic-ness burns us out faster. 

The nature of the profession can be draining. Lawyers often act as advisors, therapists, warriors, and more for our clients. Usually called in during a period of high stress for our customers, lawyers are often the first human sponge to absorb a client’s trauma and listen to their venting. In the case of litigators, the day job necessitates confrontation and high-stakes trials. 

Our profession’s struggle has to do with of all of the above. But after churning through the Biglaw system myself & talking to hundreds of lawyers across the country I believe there’s a much simpler explanation for this suffering: misery has become normalized. 

It doesn’t matter where the misery stems from. Lawyers face a myriad of different challenges depending on their role. A junior government level attorney from rural Texas told me that “the resources are so scant, and the system so overwhelmed, I think about quitting every single day.” For her, the problem wasn’t toxicity or drinking; it was structural. In New York, biglaw associates told me that before they quit, “crying in their office” was the norm for months on end, the culture withering every bit of life from them. And a Federal Clerk from the Bay Area remarked that “people think clerkships are fun and dandy, but they neglect to mention that if you get a toxic judge, you’re screwed. I’m working more than I was in Biglaw and making ⅓ of the salary.” 

The system doesn’t respond to these concerns. Biglaw raises pay but doesn’t change its culture. Good luck shifting a judge’s perspective on how they treat their clerks. And overwhelmed lawyers in small markets have nowhere to turn but the exit door. When faced with misery, our profession consistently responds: “so what?” Misery is the norm. The expectation.

Facing this culture many attorneys stay in their roles for long stretches of their career even when they’re unhappy. A combination of risk aversion, complacency, golden handcuffs, & fear of the unknown locking them in place. In the worst cases these lawyers give everything they have until there’s nothing left. Some do the unthinkable.

There is another path. Being a lawyer doesn’t need to mean being miserable. I found my path through opening my own firm and supporting clients I admire and respect. So too have former classmates who went in-house, business-side, or into academic counseling. The path to a fulfilling legal career exists for every lawyer out there; what separates those who find it from those who don’t is the willingness to make a change when they aren’t happy. 

Lawyers know there is a problem. A senior partner at my old firm once pulled myself and a few summer associate colleagues aside after hearing about Kirtee’s death and told us how difficult the job can be. If our profession can change - which it must - then these conversations need to shift from post mortems to an acknowledgement that misery does not equal success. It equals misery. 

And in the long run, misery does no one any good.