Legal Blog Watch has sent these details spinning around America’s computer savvy legal fraternity:
‘Lawyers Down Under Also Down
Most of us are already familiar with the sad fact that lawyers in the United States are more prone to depression than any other profession. But I was surprised to learn from this post at Legal Pad that 16 percent of Australian lawyers suffer from severe to moderate depression, which ranks them as the most depressed of Australian professionals, just above insurance underwriters. And the study also found that at least a third of these unhappy lawyers turn to drugs and alcohol to ease their pain.
Still, Australian lawyers aren’t quite as unhappy as their American counterparts. This post at Legal Underground cites studies showing that 19 percent of Washington state lawyers and 26 percent of North Carolina lawyers displayed signs of clinical depression.’
The last link is to a Herald Sun article from Monday, 23 April 2007. One must treat these statistics with a healthy serve of salt, but there must be a kernel of truth in there somewhere.
See also:
- US lawyer castigated for accepting less than 1/3 contingency fee
- Lawyer referred for appearance of complicity in husband client’s fraud on wife
- A non-exhaustive bibliography on lawyers’ conflicts of duties between insurer and insured
- Lawyers’ duty to speak proper and be nice like
- Misconduct constituted by ignoring the Bureau
