One morning, the labor lawyer Ramon Alexandre Salvat He looked in the mirror and realized that I was losing hair at an alarming rate.. “When I started losing my beard, I asked to keep my hair. When my hair started falling out, I hoped to keep my eyebrows. When my eyebrows began to disappear, I prayed not to lose my eyelashes. And, in the end, time was relentless and left me skinnier than a shelled peanut.” With these crude words, the lawyer told, a few months ago, his case, accompanied by shocking before and after photos, in a LinkedIn post. The entrance was greatly applauded by his teammates, for his bravery and generosity.
The diagnosis pointed to a autoimmune reaction“probably triggered by powerful episodes of stress,” Salvat clarified. “It is necessary to learn to lose. The effects of stress on our profession are multiple and none of them positive. You can lose your hair (like me) or you can have a stroke. Turn the loss into learning and don’t let it affect you more than necessary,” the Barcelona lawyer advised in his post.
On October 10, the World Mental Health Day. This year’s motto, It’s time to prioritize mental health in the workplaceinvites you to raise awareness about the importance of the emotional, psychological and social well-being of people in their work environment. According to the First Study on mental health of the Madrid legal profession, prepared by the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM), seven out of ten lawyers (65.7%) admit to having suffered anxiety and almost half of the members consulted (49 .1%) claim to have experienced fatigue, depressing thoughts and emotional disturbances. Less than a third (28.8%) say that their professional work makes them feel good, while 18.2% have neutral feelings. Silence is a wall to tear down. Lawyers fear a negative impact on professional development if they share their discomfort (39.6%).
The mental health of the legal profession is no longer a taboo, although very little by little. There are more and more professionals who rebel against the status quo and point out the negative consequences of an inherited culture. The endless days at the law firm, the overload of work, the peremptory deadlines, the lack of disconnection and permanent availability are problems.
Ramón Alexandre Salvat, member of the young lawyer group of the Barcelona Bar Association (ICAB), puts his finger on the uncertainty with which lawyers live daily, especially those who dedicate themselves to litigation. When income and even employment depend on a favorable ruling, we must put it into perspective. Over time and with help, he says, “you learn to let it affect you less.” Other factors that generate stress in the profession, Salvat points out, are the abuse of working conditions (false self-employed…), hyperregulation and poor legislative technique, and the requirement of procedural deadlines. Psychologists, he defends, are necessary to manage the tsunami, but he emphasizes that Do not assume that lawyers have to live with stress. “I would ask for a change in the system from the Government, the professional associations and the General Council of the Legal Profession,” he exclaims.
Ask for help
Daniel Sánchez Bernal, a lawyer in Seville, misses that professional associations have a psychologist. “Why not dedicate a part of the school budget to our mental well-being?” he proposes: “Someone with whom we can resolve our concerns before they escalate into mental disorders and who can teach you tools.” Sánchez celebrates the day he met his psychologist, who helps him manage his weaknesses and channel his emotions. “Everyone, by making small changes, can contribute to achieving mental well-being much faster than one could imagine,” he maintains.
In 2021, the Mental Health Institute of the Legal Profession, an initiative that sought to give voice and put figures to the emotional well-being problems of the sector, had to be dissolved due to lack of funds. But its founder, Manel Atseriascurrently a member of the Professional Welfare Commission of the International Bar Associationdoes not abandon activism. It insists on a key idea: there is a link between the exercise of professions related to law and mental health problems. And there is a stigma, the fear of marginalization at work, of appearing weak, of causing problems, of not seeming like a good professional, of not being committed…, which feeds the spiral of silence.
“Until now there has been a denial of the problem,” says the expert. He himself remembers an experience: a few years ago, at a job fair, he asked the human resources managers at the offices how they would act if a candidate revealed, in the last phase of a selection process, that he suffered from a mental health problem. . “Most of them just looked at me in silence,” and then they let it slip that revealing it would end up being a problem. Others suggested that it was something that was better to keep quiet about, “even if the candidate passes the technical tests,” says Atserias.
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Experts in psychology focused on professionals in the legal sector, a niche where a notable business has flourished, which is a clear symptom that more and more lawyers dare to talk about their potholes, agree that there is a change in trend. Now, young people not only dare to take the step and go to therapy, but they are also challenging the taboo and daring to do something that was forbidden just a few years ago: talking about their emotional state in the office; They even dare to discuss it with their bosses.
“In my consultation I detect a generational bias,” he comments. Patricia Tudó, psychologist specialized in the legal sector and former lawyer. “Young people up to 35 years old have completely normalized going to the psychologist. It is clear that they have received psychoeducation in this regard and they do not go for consultation when they have a pathology or mental health disorder, but rather when they observe a decrease in their well-being or in their social relationships.”
It’s no longer a secret
But the paradigm shift goes further: until now, it was normal to hide that a person went to a psychologist. Especially in a world like that of the legal profession, where the tendency was to project security and a profile of a superhero lawyer, impervious to emotional ups and downs. Now young people are reluctant to follow this pattern. “There are lawyers under 35 years of age” who “comment on it as a synonym for taking care of themselves and worrying about their well-being.” And far from generating rejection, in the office it is perceived “positively,” explains Tudó. Psychologists detect that senior profiles are also talking about the matter openly. Sometimes it is even bosses who encourage their juniors, if they are not managing the pressure well, to ask for professional help and contact a psychologist if the profession is too much for them.
“Many young lawyers come to therapy encouraged by older lawyers, who recognize these processes as a more effective means for emotional well-being and professional performance,” he says. Marisa Mendezpsychologist specialized in the legal sector and former lawyer. In the eyes of the expert, three factors feed the wheel of stress: the uncertainty, the litigious nature of the union and the constant exposure to conflicts. “Depending on the area of practice, attorneys face unpredictable situations where the results of their efforts may be beyond their control.” This is aggravated by “the hierarchical structure of law firms,” which “encourages considerable internal competitiveness.” “Not only do lawyers have to compete with each other, they also face pressure to prove themselves to partners and clients.”
Warning signs
Fatigue and exhaustion. The Illustrious Bar Association of Madrid has developed a psychological first aid manual, a document that offers guidelines to intervene preventively at the first signs of mental health problems. One of them is chronic fatigue.
Changes in work performance. Decreased quality of work or difficulty concentrating and making mistakes that normally would not happen can also be warning signs.
Irritability. Emotional outbursts and frustration are other signs of bornout.
Social isolation. Avoid meetings or social events. Even talk to colleagues.
Lack of motivation and interest. Feeling that you no longer feel passionate about your work or career goals; In short, an apathetic attitude towards important tasks or cases.
Problems with sleep. Insomnia or feeling tired even after sleeping.
Daniel Sánchez Bernal: “I have beaten myself up for every mistake”
“I have known and suffered stress, anxiety and the feeling of not having confidence in myself. I have beat myself up for every mistake I have made in my life and in my professional practice. I have come to wonder if it was worth continuing to practice law.” The Sevillian lawyer Daniel Sánchez felt very alone when he undertook a crusade in the courts against the slowness of justice. “I suffered a lot when I started receiving hundreds and hundreds of criticisms and reproaches,” he says. Her lifeline: her family, her boyfriend and her psychologist. “It has helped me enormously to manage my weaknesses, to reinforce my strengths and to understand and channel my emotions and fears.”
Laura Cebrián: “I saw life as a place of struggle”
The pride of working in large law firms (she worked at Baker McKenzie and Pérez-Llorca) led Laura Cebrián to be the tenth lawyer: responsible, diligent, extra mile, perfectionist and always available to the client. A requirement that took its toll on his health. “I paid the emotional price of a success that cost me physical and mental well-being. Luckily I had the clarity to stop in time.” Her body sent several signals: an ocular migraine left her blind in one eye for two hours; He suffered renal colic. He said enough and explored new paths. He now lives in Brazil, where he promotes the humanization of the legal field and helps other lawyers. “I followed my intuition and changed my life.”
Ramón Alexandre Salvat: “My hair completely fell out”
The roller coaster that trial lawyers (those who make a living from trials) face can be devastating. “You have to deal with the uncertainty of the outcome of the lawsuit, on which your professional success and income depend.” For Ramón Alexandre Salvat, a labor lawyer, this tension took a physical toll: his hair completely fell out. “It was supposedly justified by an autoimmune reaction, probably triggered by powerful episodes of stress,” he says. The lawyer defends that, although therapy is vital to “control internal factors”, the fundamental thing is that the system changes (peremptory deadlines, etc.): “It leads us to continuous stress.”
Pilar Calvo: “Talking about it always helps”
A civil and commercial lawyer with 40 years of experience, Pilar Calvo knows well what it means to practice in the decades when talking about mental health was prohibited. He says that he never went to a psychologist, not because it was not necessary, but because he learned to deal with the bumps in the profession with his own weapons. “Stress is not bad if you know how to manage it,” she says, but in the case of women, she adds, they are tied to the role of caring and organizing all the time. It is a “double scaffolding,” he points out, “it happens at home and at work, we are in charge of managing, preparing the meeting, the administration… All of this has happened to me.” Over time, he says, he has learned “to say no.”