The State of Lawyer Mental Health in 2026: What the Data Shows (and What It Doesn’t)

by | Apr 30, 2026 | Care for Yourself

Ten years ago, the legal profession did its first comprehensive analysis of mental health and well-being in the industry.

The 2016 ABA/Hazelden Betty Ford study surveyed nearly 13,000 attorneys and produced numbers that stopped people mid-sentence. At some point in their career, lawyers experienced the following issues:

  • Depression—28%
  • Problem drinking—21%
  • Suicidal ideation—11.4% 

Those figures prompted a notable institutional response. Law firms launched well-being programs, the Institute for Well-Being in Law was established, and Well-Being Week in Law became an annual fixture.

Now, nearly 10 years after that original study, the American Bar Association (ABA) and researcher Patrick Krill are conducting the first large-scale national follow-up, a randomized survey of attorneys through state bars, with findings expected in the first half of 2026.

What more recent data shows

The updated ABA/Krill study will be the most comprehensive look at the profession in a decade. What other research has found in the meantime varies.

2021 Krill/Anker study

A 2021 study by Krill and co-investigator Justin Anker, Ph.D., of more than 3,300 California and Washington, D.C., bar members, conducted midway through the decade, found that mental health problems and hazardous drinking remained elevated. 

The findings were a useful interim check on whether the profession’s post-2016 investments in mental health initiatives were producing results at scale. The answer, at that point, was no.

The 2022 Krill/Anker study on leadership and well-being

A study by Krill and Anker, published in Behavioral Sciences, examined what actually drives attorney mental health outcomes at the firm level.

Attorneys who perceived that leadership valued their skills and professionalism had measurably stronger mental health than those who believed they were valued primarily for their financial contribution, or who received no meaningful feedback from leadership at all. Having a wellness program didn’t appear as a variable. How leadership treated attorneys, though, did.

The 2024 NALP perfectionism survey

The 2024 NALP Lawyer Perfectionism & Well-Being Survey adds another layer. Among lawyers who scored high on perfectionism measures, 50.6% showed elevated depression scores.

If the legal industry is attracting a population already predisposed to elevated mental health risk and placing them in an environment that compounds it, it begs the question of whether a decade of interventions has been aimed at the right target.

The 2024 Unmind survey on attorney trust

The 2024 Unmind survey of attorneys at mid-sized U.S. and U.K. firms measured how attorneys feel about firm leadership now. One in three said they do not trust their firm’s senior leaders to make decisions that prioritize employee well-being, an increase of 11 percentage points from the prior year. Attorneys who feel supported by their direct managers are nine times more likely to say that their work positively affects their well-being than those who don’t.

2024 Bloomberg study

The 2024 Bloomberg Law Well-Being Report surveyed over 600 attorneys and found discrepancies between what attorneys say they value in their mental health and what they actually do to support it. 

For example, attorneys rated the importance of well-being to their own practice at 8.7 out of 10, yet their average self-reported well-being score was 6.5. Forty-three percent had delayed or never sought mental health treatment despite acknowledging they would benefit from it. And of those who knew about their state’s Lawyer Assistance Program, only 1 in 10 had ever used it.

2025 ALM mental health survey

The 2025 ALM survey suggests measurable improvement in attorney mental health and well-being. Depression rates fell to 33%, the lowest since 2019, and self-reported drug and alcohol rates declined as well.

But despite the positive indicators from the ALM survey, major stressors within law firms remained, and even worsened. For example, the number of participants who felt billable hour pressure rose by nearly 4 points to 65.5%. Additionally: 

  • 37.4% of lawyers and staff said they experienced sadness on a regular basis
  • 48.4% of respondents reported losing motivation
  • More than 70% reported that political polarization affected their mental health

2025 Pyle study

A December 2025 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies examined two nationally representative datasets (the National Health Interview Survey and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health) and found they produce dramatically different estimates of lawyer distress. 

  • Under the NHIS, lawyers appear to experience psychological distress at rates lower than the general public and similar to other highly educated professionals. 
  • Under the NSDUH, more than 40% reported moderate or serious distress in the past year, significantly higher than the general public, similarly educated peers, and doctors.

The authors attribute the difference to how each survey is administered. On one hand, the NHIS asked sensitive questions face-to-face, while the NSDUH used anonymous computer-assisted interviewing, which produces higher reporting of sensitive behaviors. They conclude the higher estimates are more likely accurate and that lawyers experience more psychological distress than other highly educated professionals, including doctors. 

What firms did and where things stand now

Attorney mental health is shaped by individual factors and the environments in which they work. As the well-being conversation has grown louder over the past decade, law firms, bar associations, and industry groups have increasingly responded with programs, resources, and dedicated roles.

Firm responses

Some firms made early, sustained commitments and still have active programs:

  • Latham & Watkins: LiveWell Latham launched around 2010 and expanded in November 2024 with the opening of an on-site health center in Washington, D.C., managed by Johns Hopkins Medicine, joining existing centers in Los Angeles and New York.
  • O’Melveny: Holds the top spot on Vault’s 2025 wellness rankings, has a full-time director of well-being, and received One Mind at Work’s Salus Award for workplace mental health.
  • Morgan Lewis: ML Well launched in 2019 with Krill involved from the start; 2025 programming continues in partnership with Caron Treatment Centers.
  • Quinn Emanuel: Added dedicated well-being counsel and trained ombudsman roles firmwide as first-line mental health support.
  • Reed Smith: Launched a #StopTheStigma campaign focused on reducing the career risk attorneys associate with seeking help, offering educational resources, and access to counselors.

The response beyond BigLaw

Six months after the publication of the 2016 ABA/Hazelden Betty Ford study, the ABA established the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. In August 2017, the Task Force published The Path to Lawyer Well-Being, a report with 44 recommendations directed at judges, regulators, law firms, law schools, bar associations, professional liability carriers, and lawyer assistance programs. It concluded the profession was at a tipping point and called for systemic change across every level of legal practice.  

Following this, the ABA launched the Well-Being Pledge Campaign, a public commitment framework through which legal employers sign onto a seven-point well-being framework. More than 220 organizations have since signed. In February 2018, the ABA House of Delegates passed Resolution 105, urging courts, bar associations, law firms, and law schools to adopt the Task Force recommendations. Forty of 50 state bars established well-being committees. 

More than 30 organized statewide initiatives following the report. In December 2020, the Institute for Well-Being in Law was founded to advise state bar commissions and consult with law firms. They also host the annual Well-Being Week in Law.

The ABA’s Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs also supports a network of state and local Lawyer Assistance Programs providing free, confidential support to attorneys and judges in every state. The NYSBA’s program, for example, offers a 24/7 hotline and up to four free counseling sessions annually for members. Indiana’s state bar has had a Wellness Committee since 2012. The Chicago Bar Association runs a dedicated Well-Being Month each May with its own Lawyer Well-being and Mindfulness Committee.

The state of mental health in the legal industry: 2016–2025

With all of that as context, it’s worth stepping back to look at where the numbers were in 2016 and where they are now.

The 2016 study found 28% of attorneys reporting depression, 21% problem drinking, and 11.4% reporting suicidal ideation. The 2025 ALM survey shows depression at 33%, the lowest since 2019 (though still higher than in 2016), drug and alcohol rates declining, and the share of attorneys describing the profession’s mental health situation as a crisis falling six points to 43%.

A direct comparison may be complicated by methodology. Pyle and Rosky’s 2025 research suggested that the survey instrument used to measure lawyer distress may be materially affecting the result, and as a result, skewing the numbers lower. If the higher estimates are more accurate, as Pyle and Rosky conclude, the improvements reported in the years since 2016 may be smaller than the data suggests.

Revenue and billable hour culture

The 2022 Krill/Anker research found that what most drives attorney mental health is whether attorneys believe leadership values them as professionals rather than as revenue sources.

The structure of partner compensation makes that difficult. The 2024 Major, Lindsey & Africa Partner Compensation Survey found that record increases in average partner compensation were driven primarily by a 26% increase in average partner originations and a 36% increase in billing rates.

Origination-driven compensation doesn’t necessarily cause poor mental health outcomes, but it does suggest that the incentives that firm leadership relies on are heavily weighted toward financial production. As the 2022 Krill/Anker study noted, this tends to make attorneys feel like revenue sources rather than professionals.

Increasing billable hour rates also exacerbates this. Many Am Law 100 firms have implemented billing rate increases of 10% or more annually for several consecutive years. As one partner noted in the 2025 ALM survey, when clients pay more, they feel entitled to demand more.

Some firm leaders have acknowledged this, warning that an overemphasis on financial metrics risks damaging firm culture and eroding the trust and collegiality that sustain it. But acknowledgment and structural change are two different things.

Stigma

The most specific data on stigma in the legal profession still comes from the 2016 ABA/Hazelden Betty Ford study. Among attorneys who had sought treatment, 50.6% cited not wanting others to find out as a primary barrier, and 44.2% cited privacy and confidentiality concerns. Among those who hadn’t sought help, the numbers were lower but consistent at 25.7% and 23.4%.

The 2024 Unmind survey found the pattern persisting: 28% of legal professionals believe talking openly about mental health to supervisors could harm their career advancement, and 27% have concerns about the confidentiality of those conversations.

Updated data on attitudes toward stigma are among the explicit research goals of the forthcoming ABA/Krill follow-up study.

Gender barriers

The 2021 Krill/Anker stress, drink, leave study found significant gender disparities across nearly every mental health measure. Depression, anxiety, stress, and risky drinking were all higher among women. One in four women contemplated leaving the profession due to mental health concerns, compared to 17% of men.

The single strongest predictor of women contemplating leaving was work-family conflict, stronger even than overcommitment, and notably stronger for women than for men, even though the men surveyed were more likely to be married with children. Women with high work-family conflict were approximately 4.5 times more likely to leave or consider leaving the profession due to mental health, burnout, or stress.

Women also reported significantly higher levels of overcommitment and lower perceived likelihood of promotion than their male counterparts.

What lawyers can do next

The conditions described in this piece are structural, and they’ve been building for decades. Billable-hour pressure, a culture of perfectionism, stigma, and compensation structures that prioritize production over professional development. None of those change quickly, and individual attorneys didn’t create them.

Waiting for institutional change isn’t a strategy.

What individual attorneys can do is reach out for help and support. Research on stigma shows that the most common barrier to seeking support is concern about what it will cost professionally. That concern is valid, but it’s also worth weighing against what not seeking support costs in performance, in health, and career sustainability.

Small, deliberate steps taken consistently produce more than a single large effort. A few places to start include:

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