Mental Health Awareness Week
We’ve talked on social media about how this week is Mental Health Awareness Week. Yet within the legal profession, what does that mean?
As a profession, I don’t think the mental health challenges are a surprise to anyone. When talking with people about the LegalMind Society’s mission, few are surprised when they hear just how bad legal professionals are at taking care of themselves. Indeed, the stereotype of the workaholic lawyer who is constantly busy and constantly stressed is a stereotype for a reason.
And as a profession, there are plenty of polls, surveys, publications, etc detailing just how big of a problem this is. State bar associations talk about it. The American Bar Association talks about it. It isn’t like this is a secret.
Yet raising awareness needs to continue happening, not just this week, but every week. It needs to happen because it spurs on conversations that our profession needs to have. It isn’t just about saying there is a problem and moving on. We’ve done that plenty. Raising awareness needs to mean continuing the discussion and starting to put solutions in place.
After all, that is part of what The LegalMind Society is all about. We don’t just want people to know there is a problem. We want to find a solution. We want to de-stigmatize mental illness within the legal community. We want to work with state bar associations to remove mental health questions from their applications. We want to work with law schools to include more mental health material in legal education. We want to work with firms to include more discussions about mental health and well-being, including discussing ways that firms can be more supportive of an attorneys mental health.
Of course, we can’t do that without your support. Part of Mental Health Awareness Week is raising awareness with all of you who support this organization. Your donations, your support, your conversations, all of it are a part of why we do what we do. So I want to finish this post by not just saying that this conversation needs to go on beyond just this week, but also by saying thank you for your support thus far as we work to raise awareness about mental illness in the legal community, this week and every week. Seriously, thank you.
And one final note, if you want to know how we can have a conversation with your law school/firm/office/staff etc, feel free to reach out to us at info@thelegalmindsociety.org.