features
spring 2024
By Michael Fisch
Illustration by Vivian Mineker
Recent studies on the mental health of law students and lawyers make plain what some in the field have intuited for decades: Attending law school and working as an attorney can be a pressure cooker, leading to higher levels of anxiety and depression than in most other professions.
Suffolk Law Professor Shailini Jandial George didn’t have law student mental health data in front of her back in 2012 as she taught her Legal Practice Skills course. But she knew something wasn’t right.
Increasing numbers of students were confiding in her about their struggles to balance their personal lives and the grind of law school—and the ways they felt they didn’t measure up to more successful classmates.
Her growing sense that many law students would benefit from practical tools to help manage the high intensity of law school—before anxiety or depression took deeper root—led her to begin a decade of research on cognitive learning theory and optimal conditions for focusing on intellectual challenges.
In 2021, George published The Law Student’s Guide to Doing Well and Being Well (Carolina Academic Press). The following year—in partnership with her colleague Professor R. Lisle Baker, an authority on the principles of positive psychology—she launched a one-credit course on thriving in law school that uses the book as a touchstone.
Her students appreciate the book’s unorthodox subject matter, including practical mindfulness techniques that separate students from their phones when they’re studying; time management strategies that honor the primacy of regular study breaks, exercise, and healthy meals; and, critically, recalibrated definitions of what it means to succeed in law school.
“My students have a chance to revisit the reasons they came to law school in the first place,” George says. “Sometimes they go back to their law school admission essays and reacquaint themselves with their intrinsic motivations. Many of them had written about a desire to serve the public, to help others facing legal emergencies. Remembering that can help them get re-energized, and maybe stop comparing themselves to classmates who land the most prized, high-paying law firm positions.”
Return to Table of Contents
—Professor Shailini Jandial George
climate
youth
law
racial equity
therapy
hope
The goal isn’t to gold medal in the stress Olympics, but to foster the kind of work-life balance that encourages less burnout and more innovation.
Taming distraction
In one research study covered in the class, college students were asked to perform tasks requiring focus and problem-solving skills. Some left their phones in another room, others kept them where they usually do—like a pocket or purse—and a third group set their phones on the desk next to them.
Just having a phone nearby created what researchers call a “brain drain.”
Scores were highest for students whose smartphones were in the next room and lowest for those whose phones were on the desk. And it didn’t matter whether the phone was turned off, on silent mode, face up or down.
“If you’re able to internalize some of the book’s practical techniques for calming your brain down, the time you spend working will be more productive,” George says. “You’ll also have more time for activities like healthy eating, exercise, and adequate sleep, all of which help dispel mental fog and put your brain and body on the path to wellness.”
Suffolk Law Professor Shailini Jandial George
George says the time-honored image of a diligent law student groggily pushing onward into the wee hours doesn’t jibe well with her neuroscience research. Those late-night cram sessions are generally fruitless. Better, instead, to work in shorter bursts of about 50 minutes, starting with writing down clear and detailed goals for your study session and a few minutes of deep breathing. She also recommends something counterintuitive for most law students: setting a time to stop working.
It’s important to give the brain true rest time, she says, because it’s during such interludes that the brain processes information, makes connections, and discovers solutions.
Don’t try to be a ‘law warrior’
In a recent opinion piece in Bloomberg Law, George argues that law firms aren’t doing enough to address lawyer burnout. She offers a few ways that law firm leaders can change the dynamic.
In a profession where working overtime tends to be seen as “a badge of honor,” George says that attorneys with direct reports need to stop valorizing emotionally punishing work schedules and begin modeling better self-care. She also calls for laying out clearer definitions of work emergencies so that inexperienced attorneys don’t feel the need to be tethered to their phones in the wee hours.
As George says, the goal isn’t to gold medal “in the stress Olympics,” but to foster the kind of work-life balance that encourages less burnout and more innovation.
Changing law firm culture
