When demands equal distress: An updated understanding of lawyer mental health and well-being.

Authors

Patrick R Krill, Justin J Anker

Published in

Journal of affective disorders. Pages 122479. Sep 06, 2026. Epub Sep 06, 2026.

Abstract

High rates of depression, anxiety, stress, and hazardous drinking are reported within the legal profession, yet large-scale data on current prevalence rates and occupational correlates remain limited or outdated. This study updates prevalence estimates, reports the first large, multi-jurisdictional estimate of work-related burnout among lawyers, and examines how distress, burnout, and drinking relate to practice environments and work demands.
We surveyed randomly invited lawyers recruited through twenty-eight participating jurisdictions (39,036 respondents; 36,925 eligible for weighting), calibrating responses to demographic benchmark margins by post-stratification raking. Survey-weighted models estimated associations between psychological distress (DASS-21), work-related burnout (Copenhagen Burnout Inventory), hazardous drinking (AUDIT-C), and work hours, practice setting, litigation, and work-family conflict.
Moderate-or-higher symptoms were reported by 21.6% for depression, 20.4% for anxiety, and 18.9% for stress; 47.4% reported high or very high burnout. Hazardous drinking was 41.8% at the standard AUDIT-C threshold and 26.4% at the higher. Distress rose nonlinearly with burnout and was higher among lawyers reporting greater work-family conflict, with the largest absolute differences at high burnout. Confidentiality (53.3%) and career concerns (49.2%) were the most cited barriers to seeking help.
Distress, burnout, and hazardous drinking were common in this sample and associated with practice demands, practice setting, and work-family conflict. Burnout is the more proximal correlate of distress, and tailored interventions addressing occupational exhaustion and work-life interference merit exploration and evaluation for the lawyer population.

PMID:
42702271
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 07 Sep 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.