Akin Suicide Forum

[nixy]

Of course someone could, in theory, just quit. But suggesting that seems to fundamentally not get how depression works. You yourself pointed out that depression distorts reality. So if you think someone who would choose suicide isn't acting/thinking rationally, why would you expect them to be able to just quit the job rationally? Depression messes with your brain and your perception of reality and tells you that everyone will be better off without you.

And that also ignores the fact that the rational reasons why someone would go into biglaw - loans, need to support a family, desire to use the job as a stepping stone to something they really want to do - don't disappear because you're unhappy there.

Plus for many high-achieving types (which is who biglaw firms hire), quitting the job would feel like failing, which is a fate worse than death.

And finally, conventional wisdom holds that you have a much better shot at getting a job while you're in a job, rather than when you're unemployed. So you don't want to just quit without something else lined up. But if you're working crazy hours you don't get the time to look for other jobs. You also may not think that a different firm would be any better, but you don't know what else to do.

So saying "just quit the job" is way easier said than done. Obviously some people do, and many people probably should - absolutely someone is much better off quitting than destroying their mental health. But it's still easier said than done.

Obviously not everyone who goes into biglaw commits suicide, or develops depression. But that's kind of beside the point. Rates of mental illness (esp. anxiety and depression) among the general population are high enough that people prone to these issues are going to show up in every job.

And as for why blame the job - some circumstances are just bad for people. No one is surprised if someone whose job makes them stand in one spot all day develops back pain and varicose veins, even if some people don't get them as badly as others. The brain is part of the body, too, and responds to the conditions it finds itself in. Just because one person's brain is better at dealing with shitty conditions than another's doesn't make the conditions less shitty. Not all coal miners get black lung.

(And to be clear, I know there are people who are just fine in biglaw, and that how shitty the conditions are varies a lot by firm and practice area and who you work with. But objectively, biglaw is a pretty stressful profession for most people, even if you can argue a lot about whether it's *necessarily* stressful or not.)

[JamezPhoenix]

Yes, but not everyone who is depressed commits suicide. In fact the vast majority of people who are depressed, or more specifically are clinically depressed, do not commit suicide. If it was because of the culture of BL in general or even a specific firm/partner you would expect every person to commit suicide. So doesn't it obviously come down to individual circumstances and decisions?

If someone had loans, family, ambition wouldn't those be confounding variables? Seems to me that the stress from having huge debt, or family stressors would be a contributing factor to suicidality and depression. None of those have anything to do with BL, although I do recognize how BL can/does strain family life. You should have never taken on those loans or given yourself such high goals if you could not handle the stress that comes with it. That shows poor/irrational decision making that has nothing to do with BL.

If you feel as though quitting is failing, and that is worse than death, doesn't that prove my point? If you are feeling that way you are suffering from a black/white world view that predated BL. Those are tragic but ultimately personal underlying issues/ poor coping skills and irrational self talk.

If you are feeling trapped you need to seek help. There are counselling services, family members, support groups of all kinds. Why do we blame BL for someone who is unwilling to seek therapy? The OP point was that these feelings of feeling stress, feeling trapped, feeling overwhelmed are not unique to any one profession and have far more to do with an individuals choices, temperament, and other contributing factors than BL culture. I understand that it can be difficult to cut out people, places and things that are not good for you. I am also not at all implying that someone is weaker for not being able to. But all OP said was that workload/ environment not the sole or primary cause for one making the truly tragic decision to end their life. Why do we also rob these individuals of their agency? It seems incredibly cruel to take from the one thing they knew they still had.
I don't think you and I are really disagreeing. I think we both see stress from BL as a contributing factor in one's decision, but that does not mean it was still not the person's decision, which is I believe what the OP was saying?

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I genuinely don't understand how ANYONE could disagree with this poster, but apparently everyone does. I am not in BL yet, but I am genuinely curious why anyone would blame any job for an individuals personal decision. Do we not believe in free will? I remember growing up people always blamed kids killing themselves on online bullying over an interstate chat room, as if it was impossible to turn off a computer.

I should have stopped here. If I had known you didn't understand how cyberbullying works, it would have been obvious you didn't have anything helpful to contribute to a discussion on mental health and I wouldn't have taken your ignorant and dickish post at face value.

I just don't understand why smart people are saying Correlation = Causation.

Because 99% of everyone who has set foot in a law firm, and a decent chunk of people who haven't, understand why this job *causes* depression, anxiety and other negative health impacts.

If there is something about BL that takes away your free will or ability to think rationally, if there is some kind of contractual obligation that prevents you from quitting or not showing up I really do want to know before I enter into it.

Stress, which Biglaw causes (since I apparently have to spell everything out for you), does indeed inhibit one's ability to think rationally. You can Google the wealth of scientific research on that, or maybe just talk to anyone in history who has ever felt an emotion.

Yes, but not everyone who is depressed commits suicide. In fact the vast majority of people who are depressed, or more specifically are clinically depressed, do not commit suicide. If it was because of the culture of BL in general or even a specific firm/partner you would expect every person to commit suicide. So doesn't it obviously come down to individual circumstances and decisions

Your whole post is like a spot-the-flaw-in-the-argument LSAT question.

Are you having trouble with the concept that something can be a contributing factor to an increased risk without being 100% determinative? Or is it with the idea that something can cause an effect in one instance without causing it in another?

It's well-established that smoking causes cancer. That does not mean that other variables, including genetics, environment, other health markers and other behaviors are not also associated with a higher risk of cancer. It also does not mean that every regular smoker, or even a majority, will get cancer (in fact, the large majority will not). Neither of those things invalidate a causal relationship.

If someone had loans, family, ambition wouldn't those be confounding variables? Seems to me that the stress from having huge debt, or family stressors would be a contributing factor to suicidality and depression. None of those have anything to do with BL, although I do recognize how BL can/does strain family life. You should have never taken on those loans or given yourself such high goals if you could not handle the stress that comes with it. That shows poor/irrational decision making that has nothing to do with BL.

Really? You don't think "the stress from having huge debt" has anything to do with Biglaw? Which is the awful job almost no one wants to do but is also the only way for lawyers to pay down that huge debt? You think those things are just totally unrelated?

If you feel as though quitting is failing, and that is worse than death, doesn't that prove my point? If you are feeling that way you are suffering from a black/white world view that predated BL. Those are tragic but ultimately personal underlying issues/ poor coping skills and irrational self talk.

What on earth are you even trying to prove here? That people who are suicidal aren't acting rationally? Everyone knows that. Do you think that somehow makes it more okay when they're driven over the edge or that somehow the obligation of a firm to keep these people's mental health in check is lessened?

Go re-open your fucking Torts casebook to understand why you're still responsible for causing harm to someone even if they were fragile in the first place.

If you are feeling trapped you need to seek help. There are counselling services, family members, support groups of all kinds. Why do we blame BL for someone who is unwilling to seek therapy?

Did it ever occur to you that most Biglaw associates are required to be in the office at the large majority of times professional therapists are available, and that most firms don't have mechanisms that allow associates to take regular appointments, and that time is precisely the thing that they don't have a lot of? It would have taken you about fifteen seconds of searching on this forum to find people who had to cancel therapy sessions because a deal was blowing up. The exact subject of the therapy regularly inhibits your ability to get it.

The OP point was that these feelings of feeling stress, feeling trapped, feeling overwhelmed are not unique to any one profession and have far more to do with an individuals choices, temperament, and other contributing factors than BL culture. I understand that it can be difficult to cut out people, places and things that are not good for you. I am also not at all implying that someone is weaker for not being able to.

Yes, you are. That's why you described them using the phrases "poor/irrational decision making" and "personal underlying issues/ poor coping skills and irrational self talk."

But all OP said was that workload/ environment not the sole or primary cause for one making the truly tragic decision to end their life. Why do we also rob these individuals of their agency? It seems incredibly cruel to take from the one thing they knew they still had.

I can assure you the family and friends of this dead person would not have given a single fuck about their "agency" if they knew they could interject themselves in a way that would've saved their life. Normal people, the kind with a shred of empathy, are not interested in letting toxic environments do harm to mentally ill people just so they can stand up for how much "agency" the person has.

[Anonymous User]

I am aware of a 2020 grad who worked at Akin who passed away last week. I wasn't aware it was a suicide, although I didn't see any news regarding it (so probably wasn't a car accident or something similar). That's incredibly tragic. NO JOB IS WORTH YOUR LIFE. IF IT IS THAT BAD, PLEASE JUST QUIT.

I’ve heard some terrible things out of Akin Rx esp lately. If this is true they need to seriously think about their culture.

People don't kill themselves because of work load. People kill themselves because of unaddressed issues, usually mental health stuff. To be clear, anytime a young person takes his or her life, it's a tragedy, but I get frustrated with the navel-gazing analysis that occurs after about "work culture" as if having to write briefs or review diligence documents for 70 hours a week causes people to end their life.

As someone who has struggled with my own mental health issues and see a therapist on a regular basis to work through it, all this tells me is you have no idea what mental health is all about and, likely have never seen a therapist in your life. People take their life for countless reasons - a failed relationship, losing a job, demands of work, harassment, bullying, a rouge online comment, or countless other reasons. Maybe underlying, unaddressed issues are also to blame but such a blanket statement does nothing but reinforce that their is a problem in our high-expectation, high-stress, high-demand work environment.

I've had very close family members who have dealt with depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and schizophrenia. Is that a good enough cred signal for you? I've seen it.

The only point I and several others are making is that people like this are always one bad environment away from making that fateful decision. There's nothing particular to biglaw that causes this and it isn't biglaw's responsibility to change its structure because of it. The same result would have occurred, hypothetically, if this person were working in banking or a fire department or the military or as a surgeon or countless other high stress / high intensity environments. Or, you know what, maybe the environment had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever and it was just a question of time.

I always lol when burnt out associates project when something like this happens and start wringing their hands about the "toxic culture." Culture didn't cause this. Again, this is a tragedy and a very sad course of events but it wasn't because of anything that was happening inside of Akin or any other firm. It was something inside that person.

I genuinely don't understand how ANYONE could disagree with this poster, but apparently everyone does. I am not in BL yet, but I am genuinely curious why anyone would blame any job for an individuals personal decision. Do we not believe in free will? I remember growing up people always blamed kids killing themselves on online bullying over an interstate chat room, as if it was impossible to turn off a computer. Electricians have a higher suicide rate than Lawyers, I just don't understand why smart people are saying Correlation = Causation. I am not trying to trigger or upset anyone. I understand that law is stressful, that people get depressed. But if you were beyond depression, to the point you wanted to end your life, why would you not leave? No one is forcing anyone to practice law or work at any specific firm. There are very few cases where one could argue that the rational choice was to end one's life, so if we can all agree that a person in not acting rationally then why do we disagree that the person obviously has some underlying issues/poor coping skills/irrational self-talk? Please, if you know something that I do not know about Big Law then educated me. Please do not post dismissive garbage like earlier posters did. If there is something about BL that takes away your free will or ability to think rationally, if there is some kind of contractual obligation that prevents you from quitting or not showing up I really do want to know before I enter into it.

you have the empathic capacity of a peanut and I doubt you have ever worked in big law.

[MrTooToo]

There are so many studies that show toxic work environments cause depression and increase suicide. Why is this even up for debate? Last year, I had a friend and colleague commit suicide while at top law firm. I knew him from our days in the service. He survived a tour in Iraq. I am still so sad that it was the pressure of a "Biglaw" that made him decide to take his life. He would text me about how unhappy he was at the firm, the pressure of the billing requirements, insomnia, and not being able to remain physically healthy. He was a warrior. RIP.

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

[nixy]

Are you really saying that chronic stress has nothing to do with someone’s mental health, or that chronic stress isn’t endemic to biglaw? No one’s claiming that biglaw is the only kind of job that could mess with someone’s mental health, but as jobs go, it’s pretty stressful.

[Anonymous User]

There are so many studies that show toxic work environments cause depression and increase suicide. Why is this even up for debate? Last year, I had a friend and colleague commit suicide while at top law firm. I knew him from our days in the service. He survived a tour in Iraq. I am still so sad that it was the pressure of a "Biglaw" that made him decide to take his life. He would text me about how unhappy he was at the firm, the pressure of the billing requirements, insomnia, and not being able to remain physically healthy. He was a warrior. RIP.

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

You really think the majority of people in biglaw hold the position that biglaw cannot cause or exacerbate mental or physical illness? Seriously?

There's a difference between saying that people posting here tend to exaggerate a bit too much (which I agree with, despite partaking in it myself) and what you posited above.

[nixy]

Yes, but not everyone who is depressed commits suicide. In fact the vast majority of people who are depressed, or more specifically are clinically depressed, do not commit suicide. If it was because of the culture of BL in general or even a specific firm/partner you would expect every person to commit suicide. So doesn't it obviously come down to individual circumstances and decisions?

If someone had loans, family, ambition wouldn't those be confounding variables? Seems to me that the stress from having huge debt, or family stressors would be a contributing factor to suicidality and depression. None of those have anything to do with BL, although I do recognize how BL can/does strain family life. You should have never taken on those loans or given yourself such high goals if you could not handle the stress that comes with it. That shows poor/irrational decision making that has nothing to do with BL.

If you feel as though quitting is failing, and that is worse than death, doesn't that prove my point? If you are feeling that way you are suffering from a black/white world view that predated BL. Those are tragic but ultimately personal underlying issues/ poor coping skills and irrational self talk.

If you are feeling trapped you need to seek help. There are counselling services, family members, support groups of all kinds. Why do we blame BL for someone who is unwilling to seek therapy? The OP point was that these feelings of feeling stress, feeling trapped, feeling overwhelmed are not unique to any one profession and have far more to do with an individuals choices, temperament, and other contributing factors than BL culture. I understand that it can be difficult to cut out people, places and things that are not good for you. I am also not at all implying that someone is weaker for not being able to. But all OP said was that workload/ environment not the sole or primary cause for one making the truly tragic decision to end their life. Why do we also rob these individuals of their agency? It seems incredibly cruel to take from the one thing they knew they still had.
I don't think you and I are really disagreeing. I think we both see stress from BL as a contributing factor in one's decision, but that does not mean it was still not the person's decision, which is I believe what the OP was saying?

No, we are disagreeing, because your post is terrible. “Stress from BL being a contributing factor” is exactly what I am are saying happens, but not what the person being responded to said and not what the rest of your post actually argues.

The original comment people are pushing back on was that BL has nothing to do with this because the person was just troubled and it was just a matter of time and would have happened anyway. That’s such a poor understanding of cause and effect that it’s ludicrous.

And if you’re saying that someone with depression who kills themselves is exercising agency, you don’t know shit about depression.

[Anonymous User]

Are you really saying that chronic stress has nothing to do with someone’s mental health, or that chronic stress isn’t endemic to biglaw? No one’s claiming that biglaw is the only kind of job that could mess with someone’s mental health, but as jobs go, it’s pretty stressful.

I'm not some biglaw denialist. Of course there's stress present in biglaw; sometimes the job downright sucks. Like in many other fields and jobs, especially ones that are highly compensated. But unlike most of the people commenting here (and like what I suspect is the silent majority), when a 1 in 1,000,000 event like this happens, I don't draw any deeper inference from it though than "that's very sad for this individual and his family; I'm deeply sorry it happened." In other words, I don't see it as a bridge to some great insight about a problem in biglaw culture, because it doesn't imply one. Hot take: If anything using a suicide like that is almost a little exploitative.

Edit: Accidental anon. MrTooToo.

[jc9812]

There are so many studies that show toxic work environments cause depression and increase suicide. Why is this even up for debate? Last year, I had a friend and colleague commit suicide while at top law firm. I knew him from our days in the service. He survived a tour in Iraq. I am still so sad that it was the pressure of a "Biglaw" that made him decide to take his life. He would text me about how unhappy he was at the firm, the pressure of the billing requirements, insomnia, and not being able to remain physically healthy. He was a warrior. RIP.

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

This is untrue, as your own post and the thread more generally illustrate. People who hold this position, which in my view is ill informed at best and completely detached from reality at worst, seem very vocal about it.

[MrTooToo]

There are so many studies that show toxic work environments cause depression and increase suicide. Why is this even up for debate? Last year, I had a friend and colleague commit suicide while at top law firm. I knew him from our days in the service. He survived a tour in Iraq. I am still so sad that it was the pressure of a "Biglaw" that made him decide to take his life. He would text me about how unhappy he was at the firm, the pressure of the billing requirements, insomnia, and not being able to remain physically healthy. He was a warrior. RIP.

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

This is untrue, as your own post and the thread more generally illustrate. People who hold this position, which in my view is ill informed at best and completely detached from reality at worst, seem very vocal about it.

I'm not sure what you're drawing that conclusion from. The supermajority of this discussion has been people wringing their hands about how this points to a toxic culture in biglaw and claiming that was a big contributor to what happened. And I think about the same thing concerning that view as you think of mine so I guess we're even. Have a great morning!

[nixy]

Are you really saying that chronic stress has nothing to do with someone’s mental health, or that chronic stress isn’t endemic to biglaw? No one’s claiming that biglaw is the only kind of job that could mess with someone’s mental health, but as jobs go, it’s pretty stressful.

I'm not some biglaw denialist. Of course there's stress present in biglaw; sometimes the job downright sucks. Like in many other fields and jobs, especially ones that are highly compensated. But unlike most of the people commenting here (and like what I suspect is the silent majority), when a 1 in 1,000,000 event like this happens, I don't draw any deeper inference from it though than "that's very sad for this individual and his family; I'm deeply sorry it happened." In other words, I don't see it as a bridge to some great insight about a problem in biglaw culture, because it doesn't imply one. Hot take: If anything using a suicide like that is almost a little exploitative.

So you think big law is stressful, but that stress has nothing to do with subsequent mental health problems?

My hot take is that this isn’t a great insight into biglaw culture exclusively but into more widespread unhealthy ideas about work and money and prestige and self-worth that tie directly into current rates of depression and anxiety. That doesn’t mean biglaw is exclusively responsible for something like this, just that all employers have some obligation to think about their employees’ mental health, whether the conditions of their job exacerbate problems, and whether those conditions can be mitigated.

[MrTooToo]

Are you really saying that chronic stress has nothing to do with someone’s mental health, or that chronic stress isn’t endemic to biglaw? No one’s claiming that biglaw is the only kind of job that could mess with someone’s mental health, but as jobs go, it’s pretty stressful.

I'm not some biglaw denialist. Of course there's stress present in biglaw; sometimes the job downright sucks. Like in many other fields and jobs, especially ones that are highly compensated. But unlike most of the people commenting here (and like what I suspect is the silent majority), when a 1 in 1,000,000 event like this happens, I don't draw any deeper inference from it though than "that's very sad for this individual and his family; I'm deeply sorry it happened." In other words, I don't see it as a bridge to some great insight about a problem in biglaw culture, because it doesn't imply one. Hot take: If anything using a suicide like that is almost a little exploitative.

So you think big law is stressful, but that stress has nothing to do with subsequent mental health problems?

My hot take is that this isn’t a great insight into biglaw culture exclusively but into more widespread unhealthy ideas about work and money and prestige and self-worth that tie directly into current rates of depression and anxiety. That doesn’t mean biglaw is exclusively responsible for something like this, just that all employers have some obligation to think about their employees’ mental health, whether the conditions of their job exacerbate problems, and whether those conditions can be mitigated.

That's really never been the point of my posts nor do I think anyone is really arguing that, are they? Of course if someone is deeply suicidal then throwing them into an environment that's high stress / high function / high stakes may affect them. Who would deny that? That's an easily provable claim and maybe people are getting worked up because they think that's what's being argued against and so we some miscommunication.

The point we're making, I think, is that it doesn't suggest some deeper problem in the culture of biglaw or any other environment that's similar. There's nothing you do when something like this happens. It's not the job of biglaw to change because 1 troubled attorney in a million killed himself, as individually tragic as that may be. I think that's the point the original anon was getting at with "if you put him in x or y or z, the same thing would have happened." We all learned about the eggshell plaintiff as 1Ls, right? Also, I'm not doing this all morning I ironically I guess have to get to work.

[Anonymous User]

There are so many studies that show toxic work environments cause depression and increase suicide. Why is this even up for debate? Last year, I had a friend and colleague commit suicide while at top law firm. I knew him from our days in the service. He survived a tour in Iraq. I am still so sad that it was the pressure of a "Biglaw" that made him decide to take his life. He would text me about how unhappy he was at the firm, the pressure of the billing requirements, insomnia, and not being able to remain physically healthy. He was a warrior. RIP.

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

Just from a physical standpoint, there could not be a less intelligent thing to say. Here are just a few rebuttals:

1. Many mental health disorders manifest later in life (the mid to late twenties) and are not always apparent when people go to law school in their early twenties. My aunt was diagnosed with (and later died prematurely from) schizophrenia in her mid to late twenties, but was entirely normal until then. Is this anecdotal? Yes, but does it track with the actual medical science done by actual doctors (sorry, your JD doesn't make you a mental health specialist, edge lord)? Also yes.

It is entirely possible, and indeed likely, that some percentage of people who enter the legal profession generally, and more specifically big law, will develop mental health conditions that, of their own accord, could be life-threatening. Not treating this possibility as a probability is stupid for most firms and makes me think that the churn-and-burn lifestyle is a sign of their negligence and willingness to ignore signs of worsening mental health of their firm's attorneys. If even 1% of people may develop a mental health issue during their tenure at big law, firms should be mitigating the risk that their jobs will cause people such extreme distress and serve to further exacerbate these issues.

2. Not sure if you've ever done any research on what lack of sleep does to the human brain and body (it's actually toxic on a molecular level for your brain). Even if someone is coping with their mental health issues, or does not yet have any/know he/she/ze has them, they may still be exacerbated by forces quite literally beyond their control. If someone is being forced to work Goldman Sachs hours then they are suffering from workplace abuse. This is UNACCEPTABLE. Merely because big law is known to be a "difficult environment" does not justify brazen workplace abuse of individual workers. Difficult environments do not HAVE to be abusive, but big law is a patently abusive environment from a physical and mental perspective. The way partners treat people subordinate to them is absolutely unacceptable. In time, I have confidence that this culture will shift simply because people will be less willing to expose their physical health to extreme detriment in order to make whiny partner ABC happy at 4 am, especially when many subordinates are only there to pay their loans off in the first place.

Fake fire drills, deadlines that people have to stay up all night needlessly to meet, having insomnia from anxiety -- all of these things DIRECTLY contribute to declining mental health. The lack of sleep is DIRECTLY detrimental to mental health and can exacerbate depression. Moreover, I'm sure you would argue these are "just well-known facets of the job." Researchers in Michigan discovered that lack of sleep can make you almost doubly likely to commit suicide if you were at all predisposed.

You can't cheat your body out of its NEEDS (sleep, exercise, healthy food, time with loved ones) endlessly and expect to have no detrimental effects. People have physical and mental needs that they should not be PUNISHED for trying to meet. Indeed, receiving emails at 3 am for ASAP to-dos is fucking abusive and unacceptable.

3. I have spoken with many people who have symptoms of PTSD after leaving big law/working for difficult partners. Inability to sleep, nightmares, constant anxiety, what some might call irrational fear of opening their outlook and these individuals don't even work for big law anymore. This would seem to rebut the idea that "it's just a job."

To everyone else: the point of capitalism is to extract from you the highest amount of value for the lowest amount of return. The point of being a worker is to extract from your employers the highest amount of value for the lowest amount of labor spent (still a lot of labor in BL).

Your PRIMARY job is to aggressively and absolutely protect your body and your mental health first, then and only then to complete your tasks. You cannot successfully do your job, or any job, if you are not sleeping, not eating, not getting some physical exercise. Any partner who expects you to forgo the literal needs of your body (sleep is not optional, eating is not optional, exercise is not optional, your body has been designed over millions of years to need these things as high-level priorities) is abusive. Now, maybe it's only temporary for a big filing or something similar in which case you have to be able to manage your needs at the same time as the deadlines, but if this is a constant for you, it's unacceptable.

If you are struggling reach out to someone that you can talk to, do not listen to precocious ass-hats on TLS tell you one way or another (including me). Your survival and safety are the TOP priority. Partners are always of a lower priority on that list. You matter, you are important, you probably are doing a much better job than you think you are.

[MrTooToo]

There are so many studies that show toxic work environments cause depression and increase suicide. Why is this even up for debate? Last year, I had a friend and colleague commit suicide while at top law firm. I knew him from our days in the service. He survived a tour in Iraq. I am still so sad that it was the pressure of a "Biglaw" that made him decide to take his life. He would text me about how unhappy he was at the firm, the pressure of the billing requirements, insomnia, and not being able to remain physically healthy. He was a warrior. RIP.

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

Just from a physical standpoint, there could not be a less intelligent thing to say. Here are just a few rebuttals:

1. Many mental health disorders manifest later in life (the mid to late twenties) and are not always apparent when people go to law school in their early twenties. My aunt was diagnosed with (and later died prematurely from) schizophrenia in her mid to late twenties, but was entirely normal until then. Is this anecdotal? Yes, but does it track with the actual medical science done by actual doctors (sorry, your JD doesn't make you a mental health specialist, edge lord)? Also yes.

It is entirely possible, and indeed likely, that some percentage of people who enter the legal profession generally, and more specifically big law, will develop mental health conditions that, of their own accord, could be life-threatening. Not treating this possibility as a probability is stupid for most firms and makes me think that the churn-and-burn lifestyle is a sign of their negligence and willingness to ignore signs of worsening mental health of their firm's attorneys. If even 1% of people may develop a mental health issue during their tenure at big law, firms should be mitigating the risk that their jobs will cause people such extreme distress and serve to further exacerbate these issues.

2. Not sure if you've ever done any research on what lack of sleep does to the human brain and body (it's actually toxic on a molecular level for your brain). Even if someone is coping with their mental health issues, or does not yet have any/know he/she/ze has them, they may still be exacerbated by forces quite literally beyond their control. If someone is being forced to work Goldman Sachs hours then they are suffering from workplace abuse. This is UNACCEPTABLE. Merely because big law is known to be a "difficult environment" does not justify brazen workplace abuse of individual workers. Difficult environments do not HAVE to be abusive, but big law is a patently abusive environment from a physical and mental perspective. The way partners treat people subordinate to them is absolutely unacceptable. In time, I have confidence that this culture will shift simply because people will be less willing to expose their physical health to extreme detriment in order to make whiny partner ABC happy at 4 am, especially when many subordinates are only there to pay their loans off in the first place.

Fake fire drills, deadlines that people have to stay up all night needlessly to meet, having insomnia from anxiety -- all of these things DIRECTLY contribute to declining mental health. The lack of sleep is DIRECTLY detrimental to mental health and can exacerbate depression. Moreover, I'm sure you would argue these are "just well-known facets of the job." This is a well-known fact. Researchers in Michigan discovered that lack of sleep can make you almost doubly likely to commit suicide if you were at all predisposed.

You can't cheat your body out of its NEEDS (sleep, exercise, healthy food, time with loved ones) endlessly and expect to have no detrimental effects. People have physical and mental needs that they should not be PUNISHED for trying to meet. Indeed, receiving emails at 3 am for ASAP to-dos is fucking abusive and unacceptable.

3. I have spoken with many people who have symptoms of PTSD after leaving big law/working for difficult partners. Inability to sleep, nightmares, constant anxiety, what some might call irrational fear of opening their outlook and these individuals don't even work for big law anymore. This would seem to rebut the idea that "it's just a job."

To everyone else: the point of capitalism is to extract from you the highest amount of value for the lowest amount of return. The point of being a worker is to extract from your employers the highest amount of value for the lowest amount of labor spent (still a lot of labor in BL).

Your PRIMARY job is to aggressively and absolutely protect your body and your mental health first, then and only then to complete your tasks. You cannot successfully do your job, or any job, if you are not sleeping, not eating, not getting some physical exercise. Any partner who expects you to forgo the literal needs of your body (sleep is not optional, eating is not optional, exercise is not optional, your body has been designed over millions of years to need these things as high-level priorities) is abusive. Now, maybe it's only temporary for a big filing or something similar in which case you have to be able to manage your needs at the same time as the deadlines, but if this is a constant for you, it's unacceptable.

If you are struggling reach out to someone that you can talk to, do not listen to precocious ass-hats on TLS tell you one way or another (including me). Your survival and safety are the TOP priority. Partners are always of a lower priority on that list. You matter, you are important, you probably are doing a much better job than you think you are.

k

[nixy]

MrTooToo: I understand your point, I just fundamentally disagree, for a lot of the reasons the anon above just discussed, in particular that we’re not simply talking about throwing someone into biglaw who’s already “deeply” depressed. Depression is a disease and some people are more prone to it than others, but external circumstances can absolutely cause it.

I also think you’re minimizing the degree to which depression is an issue - I don’t think these kinds of suicides are actually only 1 in a million, but I also don’t think someone has to commit suicide for there to be a mental health problem in biglaw. The suicide is just the tip of an iceberg.

But yeah, I have to actually get to work myself.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I believe there is only one clueless anon who seems to be arguing that Biglaw cannot cause/exacerbate mental (and physical) illness and/or drive someone over the edge. No one else ITT, nor known IRL to me, seems to hold that position, which, to be clear, is both dickish and empirically bullshit.

Plenty of us hold this position. I'd say the majority of us do. We're working in the environment, after all, by choice. (Some of us are even doing it while dealing with mental health issues--imagine that!) We just typically try to keep politely quiet about it when something like this happens while the Chicken Littles do their venting and public acts of cred signaling, as is on full display in this discussion, since we know it will pass eventually and then we can get back to real life where jobs don't cause people to kill themselves.

Stressed out biglaw attorneys using the extraordinarily rare occurrence of a suicide to decry the "toxic environment" of their profession is a good example of the principle that "if you only have a hammer, everything's a nail." In other words, if you're prone to come to TLS to gripe about your professional stresses and tribulations in biglaw, then of course you're going to be the type to see this as a manifestation of a problem with a culture you don't exactly get along with. So no surprise about the general tone of this discussion or its disconnect from working reality.

Your posting doesn't indicate that you actually think Biglaw doesn't create/exacerbate mental health conditions, because I don't think you'd deny lawyers suffer from depression and anxiety at startling rates and you keep talking about the stress of this job and that it can push an "eggshell plaintiff" over the edge. All you're saying is you don't think it happens often enough to indicate any kind of problem with Biglaw and I'm guessing you also think something like "Depression is sometimes to be expected in a high-stress job, and it's not surprising that that could really fuck up someone who's already unwell, and you get paid a lot of money to do this, and if you don't like it, there's the door."

And I specifically wanted to draw a distinction between someone saying "X doesn't happen" and "X happens but it's not that bad and even if it were, I wouldn't really give a shit as long as it's not happening to me and mine", which of course I think many (maybe most) people think.

[Anonymous User]

Has there been any confirmation that this was in fact a suicide or are we still going off a random rumor started by OP?

[JamezPhoenix]

I specifically stated that I wanted insight and yet still people decided to be trolls. I shudder to think that people actually managed to get into elite schools and jobs while whining about everything. Does playing a victim give you a false sense of empowerment? Also, how did the posters that responded to me get a good LSAT score if they failed so badly at RC?

No one said BL is not stressful. The "Give me attention, I'm a victim" crowd complained about how BL inevitably drives everyone to suicide. They refused to accept any other factors could contribute to someone committing suicide. Maybe read the first or second page of this thread again? I had genuinely wanted what I thought were smart people to defend their view but instead I got trollery...so thanks. Please, do not vote. I am going to hope and pray that the majority of non-logic impaired people agree with me. I thought it was funny when people would blame guns but now people are literally here blaming jobs for killing people that they choose AND REFUSE TO LEAVE.

Jobs do not kill people, people kill people

MrTooToo, I leave the floor to you. I learned a long time that some people are just a lost cause where logic goes to die. You can spend all day teaching algebra to a wall but all that does is waste a day!

(FWIW I don't think anyone actually disagreed with me still...because everyone argued against points I didn't make, but good job attacking a straw man with a red herring!)

[jc9812]

Jobs do not kill people, people kill people

All this statement communicates is an inability to comprehend the existence (let alone the effects) of structural power. (Same as when it's offered in its usual formulation, with 'guns' instead of 'jobs.') It's like you think that the world is just a Rube Goldberg Machine of individuals making one random decision after another, entirely cordoned off from each other, their jobs, the social and cultural institutions in which they participate, etc etc. If nothing else, it's an unbelievably naive viewpoint.

The rest of the post is just a straw man, and a particularly whiny one at that. Always fun to watch those whose only semi-coherent position is to be 'anti-victim culture,' uh... claim they are being victimized by bad-faith 'trolls' the second anyone points out an obvious flaw in their thinking.

[nixy]

I specifically stated that I wanted insight and yet still people decided to be trolls. I shudder to think that people actually managed to get into elite schools and jobs while whining about everything. Does playing a victim give you a false sense of empowerment? Also, how did the posters that responded to me get a good LSAT score if they failed so badly at RC?

No one said BL is not stressful. The "Give me attention, I'm a victim" crowd complained about how BL inevitably drives everyone to suicide. They refused to accept any other factors could contribute to someone committing suicide. Maybe read the first or second page of this thread again? I had genuinely wanted what I thought were smart people to defend their view but instead I got trollery...so thanks. Please, do not vote. I am going to hope and pray that the majority of non-logic impaired people agree with me. I thought it was funny when people would blame guns but now people are literally here blaming jobs for killing people that they choose AND REFUSE TO LEAVE.

Jobs do not kill people, people kill people

MrTooToo, I leave the floor to you. I learned a long time that some people are just a lost cause where logic goes to die. You can spend all day teaching algebra to a wall but all that does is waste a day!

(FWIW I don't think anyone actually disagreed with me still...because everyone argued against points I didn't make, but good job attacking a straw man with a red herring!)

You disagreeing with our responses doesn’t make them trolling. I answered you seriously. Monochromatic Oeuvre answered you seriously. Sure, I think one person said you had the empathy of a peanut, but if that’s enough for you to flounce off in a huff, maybe this isn’t a great forum for you.

And absolutely no one here has said that biglaw inevitably drives everyone to suicide - if that’s what you got from the comments in this thread, maybe you’d better not diss other people’s RC skills. The argument people are contesting is that biglaw has nothing to do with someone committing suicide. (If this poor associate even did so.)

[aegor]

No one said BL is not stressful. The "Give me attention, I'm a victim" crowd complained about how BL inevitably drives everyone to suicide.

No one said that, though. It does not seem like you wanted actual insight; it seems like you came in with a preconceived narrative and are just engaging with it rather than what anyone here is saying.

They refused to accept any other factors could contribute to someone committing suicide. Maybe read the first or second page of this thread again?

Again, quote this please, because I do not see it.

[Anonymous User]

I knew the person who passed away. Nobody in this thread has any basis to say it was (1) a suicide or (2) related to work. In any event, it seems pretty gross to me to use the person's passing as a "jumping off point" or whatever for a broader discussion. These (important) conversations can be had without people projecting their thoughts and assumptions onto a particular case.

[nixy]

I’m sorry about the person who passed and the inappropriate speculation.

[thisisvridic]

I specifically stated that I wanted insight and yet still people decided to be trolls. I shudder to think that people actually managed to get into elite schools and jobs while whining about everything. Does playing a victim give you a false sense of empowerment? Also, how did the posters that responded to me get a good LSAT score if they failed so badly at RC?

No one said BL is not stressful. The "Give me attention, I'm a victim" crowd complained about how BL inevitably drives everyone to suicide. They refused to accept any other factors could contribute to someone committing suicide. Maybe read the first or second page of this thread again? I had genuinely wanted what I thought were smart people to defend their view but instead I got trollery...so thanks. Please, do not vote. I am going to hope and pray that the majority of non-logic impaired people agree with me. I thought it was funny when people would blame guns but now people are literally here blaming jobs for killing people that they choose AND REFUSE TO LEAVE.

Jobs do not kill people, people kill people

MrTooToo, I leave the floor to you. I learned a long time that some people are just a lost cause where logic goes to die. You can spend all day teaching algebra to a wall but all that does is waste a day!

(FWIW I don't think anyone actually disagreed with me still...because everyone argued against points I didn't make, but good job attacking a straw man with a red herring!)

The fact that you have not been in big law REALLY makes me not want to listen to whatever you’re saying. Take it from someone there, you don’t know how grueling it is until you’re there. Every law student, myself included, thinks they’re different, can put up with the hours with little mental impact, think others are complaining (I may have thought that way). But, you’re just wrong. You don’t get it until you’re there but the hours, the demands, the constant pressure, the fear you’re going to mess up all factors into your mental health. And these aren’t things that existed prior to work. I never cried all night because the research assignment due to the client the next day was bad and the partner yelled at me. I never was depressed because I had too much to do with not enough waking hours. And you can’t just leave. We have debt, commitment, family obligation, golden handcuffs perhaps. All that is to say, come back to me in a few years when you can speak on the topic.