ALM 2025 Mental Health Survey: Cautious Optimism Amid Persistent Structural Pressure
The 2025 ALM Mental Health Survey, now being widely cited in mid-2026 practitioner commentary, shows depression rates among attorneys down to 33% — a cautious improvement — but 65.5% of attorneys report that billable hour pressure and aggressive client rate hikes are actively undermining their wellbeing. Writing in *Attorney at Work*, the analysis frames these two data points as running in opposit
BY FRONTIER DESK · JULY 8, 2026 · 1 MIN READ
The 2025 ALM Mental Health Survey, now being widely cited in mid-2026 practitioner commentary, shows depression rates among attorneys down to 33% — a cautious improvement — but 65.5% of attorneys report that billable hour pressure and aggressive client rate hikes are actively undermining their wellbeing. Writing in Attorney at Work, the analysis frames these two data points as running in opposite directions: clinical indicators improving modestly while the economic architecture of legal practice continues to generate chronic stress at scale. The key implication for firm leadership is that soft interventions — EAP programs, mindfulness offerings — can move clinical numbers without addressing the structural drivers of burnout. Firms that treat wellbeing improvements as a communications win without restructuring workload expectations and client communication norms may find the trend reverses.