ANALYSIS: A Brighter Future for Law Student Well-Being?

Law students’ well-being has improved since 2022, according to new survey data from Bloomberg Law. Even though a troubling percentage of law students still say that law school contributes to anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns, a lower percentage of students reported these concerns late last year than they did in 2022.

Bleak data from the fall 2022 Law School Preparedness Survey revealed that over half of surveyed students said that their well-being worsened during the prior semester; over 75% of student respondents reported increasing anxiety because of law school related issues and over 50% reported depression.

Bloomberg Law’s fall 2023 Law School Preparedness Survey tweaked the scope of the questions slightly, and asked law students about their well-being since starting law school, and the students’ responses suggest a (slightly) less grim portrait of law student well-being.

Although almost half of students still reported worsened well-being in 2023, over 30% reported improved well-being. Notably, the percentage of students who said that their well-being “significantly worsened” in law school dropped at least 10 percentage points across the board: overall (from 26% to 13%); for men (from 22% to 10%); for women (from 26% to 14%); for white respondents (24% to 13%); and for Black and African-American respondents (from 33% to 11%).

Further, the percentage of law students reporting various mental health issues due to law school also decreased in every category from the 2022 survey to last fall’s survey. Notably, unlike the overall well-being question, which changed from the 2022 to the 2023 survey, the mental health issues question applied to all of law school—not just the prior semester—for both surveys.

The percentage of students reporting anxiety dropped from 77% to 69%; disrupted sleep from 71% to 62%; and depression from 51% to 36%.

Conversely, the percentage of respondents who said that they experienced none of these issues increased slightly from 11% to 14%.

So while there’s much room for improvement, the picture is better than it was last year.

A Curriculum Designed for Well-Being?

This positive change may be driven, in part, by the 2022 changes to the American Bar Association standards for law school curricula, which require accredited law schools to teach law students that well-being is germane to the practice of law.

The survey responses may reflect the experiences of students who have had more time to benefit from this change, in comparison to those students surveyed the year before.

Healthier Law Students Make Healthier Lawyers

Supporting law student well-being not only benefits the students themselves, but it may also help drive change in the wider legal industry.

These future lawyers will be better educated than past generations on how to ask for help and how to set boundaries. As a result, the day may come when legal employers are expected to provide the necessary benefits and support.

Bloomberg Law subscribers can find related content on our  Surveys, Reports & Data Analysis page, our In Focus: Law Student Development page, and our In Focus: Lawyer Well-Being page.

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