The Mental Health Crisis in Law School: Improving Law Student Health Through Wellbeing-Focused and Trauma-Informed Legal Education

There are few studies on law students’ psychological distress in Canada. As such, this thesis examines the studies on law students’ psychological distress conducted in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. These countries were selected because they are all common law jurisdictions with a legal history from the same source and similar approaches to common law legal education. Law students across these jurisdictions have many shared and similar experiences, such as fierce competition and heavy workloads. Further still, in the respective jurisdictions, common law legal education is characterized by similar attitudes, practices, and beliefs, which affect mental health and wellbeing, such as the devaluation of emotion. \n\nA review of the research on law students and legal professionals’ psychological distress suggests that psychological distress likely follows graduates into their professional lives. Only recently have studies been conducted on legal professional distress in Canada. Due to the scarcity of Canadian studies and the similarities across jurisdictions, this thesis also examined legal professional psychological distress studies conducted in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.\n\nAlthough research on law student wellbeing desperately needs to be more thoroughly conducted in Canada, the findings from Canada and the other jurisdictions provide strong evidence that it is likely that Canadian law students also experience psychological distress at levels exceeding that of the general population and students in most other disciplines. Further, the studies conducted on legal professionals’ psychological distress, including a recent Canadian study, provide strong evidence that psychological distress continues into professional life and exceeds that of the general population and most other professions. Wellbeing, mental health, the relevance of emotion, and the significant impact trauma has on wellbeing will be explained and defined to provide a foundation for the thesis.\n\nFurther, the studies also disclose the normalization of substance use among law students and legal professionals, which can contribute to mental health problems and conditions. Finally, while few studies have been conducted on marginalized law students and legal professionals’ psychological distress, they, alongside the social determinants of health, do provide strong evidence that it is likely that marginalized law students and legal professionals in Canada experience psychological distress at a disproportionate rate. The wellbeing of marginalized law students and legal professionals should be of the utmost concern, given that all law schools, law societies and bar associations value diversity and inclusion but have yet to achieve such.\n\nThis thesis also delineates the other factors detrimental to wellbeing including trauma, chronic or prolonged stress, isolation, loneliness, substance use, extrinsic motivation, stigma, discrimination, and racism. The shared experiences, attitudes, practices, and beliefs (also known as the “culture” of law) in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada are compared to the factors detrimental to wellbeing. Exposure to trauma, fierce competition and heavy workloads, resulting in chronic and prolonged stress, the prioritization of money, power, status, appearance (i.e., extrinsic motivation), lack of diversity, the prevalence of substance use, and the devaluation of emotion are all shared experiences, attitudes, practices, and beliefs. These common aspects of legal education are also identified as being potentially harmful to mental health and wellbeing. The factors detrimental to wellbeing are compared to the shared experiences, attitudes, practices, and beliefs to provide law schools “targets” to address the mental health crisis within the law.\n\nThis thesis argues that law schools should improve the wellbeing of their students for four reasons. First, law students are at “high risk” of trauma, psychological distress, and substance use, as evidenced by the studies reviewed. Early intervention is vital to addressing health issues, and law schools provide the perfect forum for providing such education. Second, based on the studies on legal professional distress, it appears that psychological distress does not dissipate upon graduation. Psychological distress can affect cognition, thus affecting competence. Competency is required because all accredited law schools in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada aim to produce legal professionals with prescribed learning outcomes.\n\nThird, mental health and wellbeing affect ethical decision-making and judgement. Finally, law schools, bar associations, and law societies in all compared jurisdictions prioritize diversity and inclusion, acting in the public interest, enhancing access to justice, and reflecting the diversity of society. The studies on law students and legal professionals’ psychological distress provide strong evidence that marginalized students and legal professionals experience higher rates of psychological distress than their colleagues. Diversity and inclusion will not be realized if marginalized law students are experiencing such alarming rates of distress. Improving the wellbeing of marginalized students would likely lead to retaining such students within the profession and, therefore, enhance diversity and inclusion within the profession of law. Additionally, law schools could improve their reputation and funding by graduating students who experience more life and career satisfaction.\n\nA wellbeing-focused approach to legal education integrating trauma-informed approaches offers a promising method for addressing the mental health crisis in law schools. A wellbeing-informed approach is flexible and could be adapted to different law schools. It provides a way to facilitate self-awareness, inclusion and diversity, addiction awareness, emotional literacy, self-care, and improved competence. Courses on trauma-informed lawyering, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and cognitive behaviour have been successful in some other law schools. A wellbeing-informed approach to legal education could provide law schools with a means to prepare students for law’s emotional and psychological demands.

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