The American Bar Association released new survey data (Reuters, August 3) finding that 37% of women lawyers report experiencing anxiety versus 23% of men; 19% of women have depressive symptoms warranting clinical evaluation versus 15% of men; 36% of women report mental wellness issues versus 26% of men; 40% of women report financial strain versus under 30% of men; 31% of women report sleep disturb
The Washington State Bar Association released its 2026 Member Well-Being Report (903 respondents, 99.8% confidence, eight specialized workgroups) on July 31, producing the most comprehensive state-level wellbeing dataset for the US legal profession in 2026. Key findings: 76.9% of survey participants identified adversarial process and incivility as contributors to poor mental health and substance-u
Ed Ergenzinger — a patent lawyer, neuroscientist, and person with lived experience of psychiatric hospitalization and disability — published a widely-read analysis in Psychology Today (July 25) making the structural case for wellbeing investment. His core argument: the problem arises when employers use wellness programs to shift responsibility for unhealthy working conditions back onto the people
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon's opening address at Singapore's Legal Profession Symposium 2026 (July 29) is the most empirically grounded judicial statement on lawyer wellbeing published this year. Drawing on the Anthro-LawSoc Legal Profession Sustainability Study and the Young Lawyers' Survey, he identified five structural pressures that cumulatively produce chronic stress, burnout, and anxiety:
The Washington State Bar Association's 2026 Member Well-Being Report — the result of a two-year Task Force initiative established in January 2024 with eight specialized workgroups covering law students, private practice, government and public interest, the judiciary, suicide and addiction, DEI, member wellness programming, and rules/regulation — was published July 17 as the most comprehensive stat
Ex Judicata's July 17 analysis of BigLaw burnout synthesizes Bloomberg Law's 2025 attorney workload survey data — 42% of attorneys reported feeling burned out on average in the second half of 2024, rising to 51% for mid- and senior-level associates — with the structural drivers that law firm wellbeing programs must address to be effective. The analysis draws a clinical distinction between burnout
Inside Practice's July 14 webinar on Vicarious Trauma and Psycho-Social Risks in the Legal Profession drew on research finding that lawyers demonstrate significantly higher levels of PTSD-like symptoms, depression, secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and functional impairment than comparable professions — and that the difference is mediated by longer work hours and greater contact with traumatise
The Singapore Law Society's Legal Profession Sustainability Study — released June 23 and debated in Parliament this week — drew on 855 practising and former lawyers and 31 in-depth interviews with former judges, academics, and practitioners, and found that toxic workplace patterns including incivility and bullying were reported consistently across all levels of the profession, from trainees to sen
The NALP Foundation's April 2026 report confirmed that law firm associates continue to leave firms within the first five years at rates consistent with or above the all-time high documented in August 2025 — and multiple trade press accounts this week noted the finding that "BigLaw designed it that way," pointing to systemic structural factors rather than inadequate retention programming. Attrition
A new survey reported by the *South China Morning Post* has found that poor mental health is the primary reason young lawyers in Singapore are leaving the profession, with the publication flagging that lawyers "don't last beyond the courtship phase." The Singapore findings echo a global pattern: early-career attrition driven not by compensation dissatisfaction alone but by the psychological cost o
A comprehensive national study of more than 7,000 legal professionals across Canada — the largest of its kind — found that more than half of respondents reported psychological distress and burnout, with the figure reaching 72% among articling students. The findings, published this week in the Canadian Bar Association's *National Magazine* by lawyer and mental health advocate Jason Ward, identify s
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
South China Morning Post and the Straits Times both reported this week on new survey data from Singapore's Law Society finding that poor mental health is the main reason young lawyers leave the profession in large numbers — with the SCMP framing it as lawyers who "don't last beyond the courtship phase." The findings arrive alongside a Duke-NUS Medical School study finding that 77% of Singapore adu
A CLE course published June 25 by TRTCLE addresses digital addiction as a discrete attorney wellness risk, framing excessive device and platform use as an impulse control disorder with direct consequences for anxiety, sleep disruption, impaired judgment, and ultimately ethical performance. The course maps the issue to ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, identifying how digital overuse can imp
A GRM Group analysis published June 27, drawing on Bloomberg Law's 2024 Attorney Workload & Hours Survey and LawCare's Life in the Law 2025 report, consolidates the sector's wellbeing baseline: burnout runs at 42% across the profession, spiking to 51% among mid-to-senior associates; nearly 60% of lawyers reported poor mental wellbeing; over 78% regularly work beyond contracted hours; and almost a
Victoria's Legal Services Board and Commissioner released on 23 June 2026 the wellbeing module findings from the 2025 Victorian Lawyer Census — the first such annual census in the state — covering more than 1,500 lawyers. Fifty-three percent experienced some form of psychological distress; 13 percent at severe levels; 53 percent were at risk of burnout, with 25 percent at very high risk. The repor
A June 2026 analysis published in the *Journal of Empirical Legal Studies* by Benjamin Pyle and Clifford Rosky compared two rigorous national randomized surveys of US lawyers and found they produced radically different distress prevalence figures — illustrating that the legal profession's consensus understanding of its own mental health crisis rests on methodologically contested ground. The findin
A 223-page study commissioned by the Law Society of Singapore and released on 23 June 2026 is among the most comprehensive investigations of lawyer attrition ever conducted in a single jurisdiction. Drawing on surveys of 855 practising and former lawyers plus 31 in-depth interviews, the research concludes that attrition "stems not from individual failings, but from structural and cultural conditio