Tag: law school

A Lawyer, a Father, a Friend: One Lawyer’s Experiences with Depression & Recovery

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This interview is part of the ongoing podcast series “True Stories,” where I have conversations with lawyers about their journeys through mental health challenges and well-being triumphs.

In this podcast interview, I speak with Jim Warner about his struggles with major depression as a lawyer. Jim obtained his undergraduate degree at Harvard and his law degree from Boston College of Law in 1992. Since 2020, he has served as General Counsel for Oracle Elevator. Previously Jim was engaged in the private practice of law for Hemenway & Barnes in Boston and Deborah Mills & Associates in London. He lives in Tampa with his wife, three boys, and two dogs. On the weekends, Jim pretends he still knows how to play ice hockey with a bunch of similarly deluded old guys. You can read more about her incredible journey by reading the blog he wrote for his law school alma mater’s website, BC Impact.

Continue Reading Article

True Stories: One Woman Goes from Lawyering to Leaping to Boost Her Mental Health and Well-Being.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This interview is part of the ongoing podcast series “True Stories,” where I have conversations with lawyers about their journeys through mental health challenges and well-being triumphs.

In this podcast interview, I speak with Rosari Sarasvaty who grew up in Indonesia and earned law a law degree there from the Universitas Pelita Harapan and later graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law with an LLM degree, cum laude, in 2019. After that, she practiced immigration law before attending NYU Steinhardt with an M.A for Teaching Dance in the Professions: American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Pedagogy. Rosari is the recipient of the NYU 2022 Outstanding Service in Dance Education Award. She was trained in classical ballet and jazz and has performed numerous times with New York University, the Martha Graham Dance School, and Dance FX. She currently serves as the Children’s Division Coordinator at Northern Plains Dance! You can read more about her incredible journey by reading “This is Why I Quit Practicing Law to Teach Dance.”

Listening to Depression: What It Might Be Trying to Tell Lawyers Who Suffer From It

This guest blog is from Dr. Lara Honos-Webb, a clinical psychologist and author of the book, “Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life.” I also write below about what listening to depression has meant in my own own life as a lawyer.

Why are lawyers so depressed these days?

The rates of depression and substance abuse problems are skyrocketing according to recent media reports and research. Can depression be seen as a break-down in the service of offering you an opportunity for a break-through? If depression offers corrective feedback to lawyers, what might it be telling you?

We only reflect on those things that break down in our life. For example, if life is going along smoothly you won’t spend time thinking about the meaning of life. You tend to think deeply about life when something is not working. When we identify a problem, we begin to reflect on what caused the problem and how to fix the problem. If you are disconnected from your deepest feelings and impulses you may still manage to get through life without realizing that your life is off track.

Continue Reading Article

Mental Health in Law Schools: My Chat with David Jaffe, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at American University

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

 

Today’s guest is David B. Jaffe, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. A committed steward of law student wellness, he is the author of “The Key to Law Student  Well-Being? We Have to Love Our Law Students.” and oversees all aspects of the Office of Student Affairs, which includes support for J.D. students from Orientation, through academic and personal counseling, organization development, to Commencement.

Dean Jaffe serves on the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) as co-chair of the Law School Assistance Committee and co-wrote Part II of The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, Recommendations for Law Schools. In 2015, he received the CoLAP Meritorious Service Award in recognition of his commitment to improving the lives of law students. He received a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and his J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.

Continue Reading Article

Addressing Mental Health and Well-Being in Law Schools: An Interview with Law Professor Shailini George

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today’s guest is Shailini George, a law professor at Suffolk University Law School. Her scholarship is focused on law student and lawyer well-being, mindfulness, and the cognitive science of learning. She is the author of the recently released “Law Students Guide to Doing Well and Being Well,” and the co-author of “Mindful Lawyering, The Key to Creative Problem Solving.” She and fellow law professor Lisle Baker, will be teaching a new law school course at Suffolk this year, “Preparing for Professional Success.”

Professor George is highly involved in the National Legal Writing Community, having served on the board of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Research and Reasoning, and his co-chaired the Diversity and Scholarship Committees of the Legal Writing Institute. Professor George was recently appointed to the Institute for well-being in-laws research and scholarship committee and is a member of the AALS balance section.

Continue Reading Article

True Stories: A Wife’s Pain Over Her Husband’s Struggle With Depression During His First Year of Law School

“True Stories” is a new series of guest blogs I am running; this is the fourth in the series. Here is a heartfelt story from Katie, who writes about her husband’s struggles with depression during his first year of law school.

Three years ago, my husband became a first-year law student at a state school with an excellent reputation. After several years of waffling between pursuing medicine, law, military, and scientific research careers, he opted for law and was admitted to a number of schools, accepting his best offer. We relocated so that he could attend, moving from the sunny Southwest to the frigid winters of the Mid-Atlantic. He was excited at first, eager to begin a new chapter of his life, and enthusiastic to embark on a learning journey; he loves to read and study politics, economics, business, and law, and I felt that this endeavor would help him fulfill his potential both personally and professionally.

Continue Reading Article

Wired: Anxiety Strikes at Harvard Law School

Freud was of the opinion that in fear a person is responding to a specific and immediate threat to physical safety while in anxiety a person is responding to a threat that is objectless, directionless, and located somewhere far off in the future—ruination, for example, or humiliation, or decay. Daniel Smith, Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

I spoke at Harvard Law about the challenges of living with depression and the epidemic of poor mental health in the legal profession. It was a memorable event.

Days before I am scheduled to talk, my sleep goes cuckoo. I become incredibly anxious about my speech. What if I fall flat on my face? I graduated from some third-tier law school, after all. I don’t belong lecturing at Harvard.  My churning nighttime ruminations now seep into my days as the event gets closer.

Continue Reading Article

The Suicide of a Law Student Hits Home

When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.’ – Kay Redfield Jamison, M.D., “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide”

A second-year law student at the University at Buffalo School of Law, Matthew Benedict, died by suicide earlier this week by leaping from the Liberty Building he had been clerking at according to the Buffalo News. Another account of Matt’s life and suicide was reported in The New York Law Journal.

Matt’s funeral is tomorrow. By all account’s he was a tremendous, loving, talented, bright young man.Matt was kind-hearted, passionate and driven.

Continue Reading Article

Slogging Through the Swamp of Lawyer Depression With Dr. James Hollis

Here is my fascinating interview with Dr. James Hollis, psychoanalyst and author of several best-selling books including “Swampland of the Soul” and “What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life.”

Dan:  What is depression?

Jim:   I think first of all we have to differentiate between depressions because it‘s a blanket term which is used to describe many different experiences, different contexts and different internalized experiences of people.  First of all, there is the kind of depression that is driven by biological sources and it is still a mystery as to how that works.  We know it affects a certain number of people in profound ways.   Second, there is reactive depression which is the experience of a person who has suffered loss and as we invest energy in a relationship or a situation and for whatever reason, that other is taken away from us, that energy that was attached to him will invert as depression.  Reactive depression is actually normal.

Continue Reading Article

Finding Meaning in the Legal Profession:An Interview with Dr James Hollis

This is my interview with psychoanalyst, James Hollis, Ph.D., author of the best-selling books, “What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life,” and “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up”

Dan:  What is depression?

Jim:   I think first of all we have to differentiate between depressions because it‘s a blanket term which is used to describe many different experiences, different contexts and different internalized experiences of people.  First of all, there is the kind of depression that is driven by biological sources and it is still a mystery as to how that works.  We know it affects a certain number of people in profound ways.   Second, there is reactive depression which is the experience of a person who has suffered loss and as we invest energy in a relationship or a situation and for whatever reason, that other is taken away from us, that energy that was attached to him will invert as depression.  Reactive depression is actually normal.

We would have to figure out where that fine line is and where it might cross over into something that was more than normal.  When we say that a person is grieving too long or it is affecting their lives so profoundly, that’s a judgment call, of course, but we do know people that have been sort of destroyed by reactive depression because they had attached so much of their identity to the other, whatever it might be: a position in life that they lost or a relationship that was important.

But I think none of us can avoid occasional reactive depressions because life is a series of attachments and losses.  Most commonly, when we think about depression, however,

Continue Reading Article
Featured In:
Featured in The New York Times
Featured in The New York Times
Featured in The New York Times
Featured in The New York Times
Featured in The Washington Post
Featured in NPR
Featured in The New York Times
Featured in The New York Times

Built by Staple Creative