Law Students Are Struggling With Anxiety And Depression At Higher Rates Than In The Past
Putting a greater focus on mental health in law school doesn't seem to have paid off.
It’s disappointing that we didn’t make more headway as law schools generally. We still have our work cut out for us.
— David Jaffe, associate dean of student affairs at American University Washington College of Law, commenting in an interview with Reuters on the results of the 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being. Jaffe is one of the co-authors of the 2021 study, which indicated that law students are facing mental health challenges (e.g., anxiety and depression) at a much higher rate than those who participated in the same survey in 2014. “What is clear is that our law students need help,” the researchers noted in the study. About 69% of respondents reported that they needed help for emotional or mental health problems in the past year, up from 42% from the 2014 version of the survey.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
