Law Students Lobby for More Mental Health Support

Law students' mental health needs are being neglected, but a group of
student leaders is saying, "no more." Photo: Shutterstock

It’s long been believed that a law school education must be grueling and overwhelming in order to prepare students to practice law. Unfortunately, this has left a lot of potentially promising students behind because they “couldn’t cope” with the stresses of law school.

Law students, as perfectionists by nature, often feel that they shouldn’t admit to needing help. Not only that, but bar associations in some states ask potential attorneys for information about their mental health history, so the students worry that if they do get the help they need, it will hurt their careers.

But a group of student senates at the top 14 law schools in the U.S. is saying “no.” They’re lobbying their universities for more access to mental health services for law students, and are trying to break the law school stereotype.

“The toll on students’ mental health has become an accepted characteristic of law school life rather than properly recognized as an impediment to our success,” reads a letter signed by the presidents of 13 of the student senates. “Indeed, our laws and judicial decisions display a history of overlooking mental and emotional distress and continue to downplay mental illness as too enigmatic, unimportant, or easily faked to have a role in the law.

The letter went on to say that law school culture and so-called “character and fitness inquiries” into mental health treatment history can lead people to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs rather than healthy, long-term treatment.

“We say to our affected peers: you are not alone. We say to all our friends and colleagues: we can do better. Poor student or practitioner health is not a necessary byproduct of a rigorous legal education and needs to be treated as the scourge of the profession that it is. Students left behind are not failures of personal strength. They are testaments to our collective failure to uplift one another and raise the standards of our trade.”

And the law seems to agree with those students. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice told Louisiana and Vermont that it’s a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act for bar associations performing character and fitness evaluations to ask about bar applicants’ mental health and require detailed medical information.

Several other states saw the writing on the wall and changed or eliminated mental health questions on bar admissions’ character and fitness sections.

However, the stigma still exists. Fortunately, the student governments at the top law schools in the nation are leading the way to make it possible for law students to get the mental health care they need without having to worry about how it will affect their careers.