Encountered Depression or Drug Abuse? Forum

[jtabustos]

From statistics, law seems to have high rates of depression and drug abuse in the community.

I'm not exactly sure why that is, so maybe some of you can elaborate. I had figured much had to do with dealing with criminals (and seeing injustice), the long work hours, ...possibly a combative environment, and stress from big cases.

I'm curious if anyone has encountered this in their jobs or in law school and just how openly or noticeably rampant is it? I think the statistic I read was that law was had the second highest rate of depression among professionals. Seems just really high for a white collar profession.

[stillwater]

lawyers are crooks

[AreJay711]

Well, tbh I imagine that depression is generally higher in white collar work (1) because they are more likely to see a psychiatrist and (2) blue collar work generally requires fewer hours, with less politics, less stress (provided your industry isn't rapidly declining), and more varied. I worked construction and it was a great job.

But law might be particularly bad because it has all the things that other white collar work has but is full of unfulfilled people that either wanted to be humanities professors or business people but fucked up along the way and are now unfulfilled with what they do. That's just a guess, but I think it might be accurate. It's funny with all the alpha-dominant male talk on TLS but I bet to be happy churning through docs at for someone actually doing things in the world about to make fist fulls of cash you have to really take pride in serving people (as in your betters).

But yes, I have encountered both. Idk if the incidence is higher than normal life though.

[jtabustos]

Well, tbh I imagine that depression is generally higher in white collar work (1) because they are more likely to see a psychiatrist and (2) blue collar work generally requires fewer hours, with less politics, less stress (provided your industry isn't rapidly declining), and more varied. I worked construction and it was a great job.

But law might be particularly bad because it has all the things that other white collar work has but is full of unfulfilled people that either wanted to be humanities professors or business people but fucked up along the way and are now unfulfilled with what they do. That's just a guess, but I think it might be accurate. It's funny with all the alpha-dominant male talk on TLS but I bet to be happy churning through docs at for someone actually doing things in the world about to make fist fulls of cash you have to really take pride in serving people (as in your betters).

But yes, I have encountered both. Idk if the incidence is higher than normal life though.

Interesting perspective.

What about civility in law? Is there a lot of disrespect or otherwise lack of friendliness in it?

Would you describe lawyers as generally a friendly and caring bunch of people on a daily basis? Are you guys happy to see your colleagues?

[eric922]

This is just a theory, but perhaps the fact that law is so stressful contributes to the depression. I mean it's kind of a lose lose as far as stress goes. You are either in big law dealing with million dollar cases and corporate clients or you're doing criminal law and even if you make a good living you have the responsibility of keeping people out of prison. I imagine if you have a legitimately innocent client the stress is even worse. Or even worse you are a broke slip and fall attorney who is barely making ends meet so you can't take care of yourself or your family. Law seems to be a high stress profession.