Originally published in Student Lawyer magazine, April 2005 (Vol. 33, No. 8). All rights reserved.

Opinion

Student depression becomes an issue of faculty concern

by Herbert N. Ramy

Law student stress and depression are problems that have become national in scope. While students enter law school suffering from clinical stress and depression at a rate that mirrors the national average, this number skyrockets during the first year of law school. Studies have shown that law students suffer from clinical stress and depression at a rate that is three to four times higher than the national average.

These same studies indicate that student stress rises steadily through the third year of law school and then improves only moderately after graduation. At this point, law students show signs of stress that is twice the national average. Unfortunately, this sad story continues after law school. Lawyers are more likely to suffer from clinical depression, marital difficulties, and substance abuse than are any other professionals.

At Suffolk University Law School, we have tried a number of things to reach out to and educate our students on this topic. For example, we have brought in counselors to speak to students during orientation. While this was an effective way to introduce the class to the university counseling center, the students did not tend to take the warning seriously. It was simply too early in the year, and they had yet to experience the rigors of law school life.

At other times, we have offered stress- reduction seminars during the semester. Through evaluations, we found that attendees learned quite a bit from these sessions. Most importantly, they learned about the necessity of maintaining a healthy balance in life between law school and everything else. Attendance at these sessions was, however, quite small. Attendance never rose beyond 20 students, which is disappointing when one considers that our first-year class is more than 550 students strong.

Just recently, we decided to try a somewhat different tack. In the past, we concentrated our efforts on reaching out to students. This year, we offered a faculty colloquium at which we laid out the problem of student stress and depression.

Our hope was to educate the faculty on the topic and to use their influence to help us reach out to students. Our fear was that professors would be unreceptive to the topic. We were concerned that many would adopt the attitude that stress in law school is normal, and that any attempt to deal with the issue would be tantamount to coddling our students.

As for the presentation itself, we divided the material into four sections. We started our presentation with the same statistics I mentioned at the outset of this article. Then, we attempted to relate these numbers to specific examples of students in distress at Suffolk Law School. Next, we reviewed some of the common warning signs of stress and depression. The final aspect of the presentation, our recommendations, generated the most interest and largest number of questions from attendees.

For the most part, recommendations revolved around the idea of improved and increased communication between faculty and students. For example, educators understand that students place an inordinate amount of emphasis on comments made by their professors. Students long to hear positive comments from their professors but are loathe to hear the negative. We recommended that professors temper their negative comments, not with false praise, but with additional information. For example, an invitation to visit a professor during office hours can indicate that someone in the law school truly cares about that student’s performance. Similarly, a professor who notices that a student has been absent for several days, or is falling asleep in class, or suddenly seems lost and raises the issue with the student is demonstrating concern for that student’s well-being. In a large lecture hall setting, students value any hint of personalized attention.

We next moved on to communication in the form of individualized feedback. One of the most common complaints voiced by law students is the lack of feedback they receive from their professors. The problem is particularly acute in first-year classes where professors assign grades based solely on a final examination, or possibly a final and a midterm. At Suffolk, our current grading procedures preclude professors from providing students with graded feedback other than in the form of a midterm and final examination. We noted that no professor should be compelled to provide graded feedback throughout the semester, but that precluding a professor from doing so seemed inconsistent with academic freedom.

Our final recommendation to the faculty involved student study habits. Most professors agreed that students should spend approximately three hours studying outside of class for every hour in class. At Suffolk, where first-year, full-time students are enrolled in 15 credit hours of classes, this adds up to approximately 60 hours a week devoted to law school. During weeks when important writing assignments are due, this number may climb to 70 hours a week.

Some of the literature we reviewed in preparing the presentation asked why law school should consume so much of a student’s time. In presenting this issue to the faculty, we took a slightly different tack, fearing that a discussion of fewer hours studying would devolve into a discussion of changes to the curriculum. Instead, we focused our attention on the idea of maintaining balance.

In the surveys they had completed for us, professors noted that they had dealt with stress by engaging in activities unrelated to law school. Common examples included getting physical exercise, spending time with family and friends, reading for pleasure, and going to movies. We suggested to the faculty that they dealt with stress by maintaining balance in their lives, and that we had the responsibility to recommend the same to our students. Too often, we emphasize only the need for additional studies. We do so both explicitly and implicitly when we relate stories about ourselves, our successful careers, and how much time we spent studying. While additional studying can be important, we should mention another important ingredient to our success—time spent away from law school.

The faculty’s response to the colloquium was a pleasant surprise. The session was well enough attended that additional tables and chairs had to be brought into the room. The faculty listened attentively throughout the presentation, and no one suggested that the issue was unworthy of further discussion.

When we presented the data we had gathered from the literature, most faculty members were shocked at the prevalence of the problem and even accepted some responsibility for helping to deal with it. In fact, several faculty members suggested that the dean create a committee whose sole responsibility would be to research the topic further and make recommendations to the faculty on how to proceed. Others asked if we would make a similar presentation to their classes later in the semester.

In the days since the presentation, we have received many e-mails from faculty thanking us for bringing the topic to their attention. Our modest approach of simply informing the faculty that this issue exists seems to have had the desired effect. The issues of student stress and depression are now on the faculty’s radar screen.

Herbert N. Ramy (hramy@suffolk.edu) is director of Suffolk University Law School’s Academic Support Program. He also is a member of the executive board of the Association for Humanizing Legal Education. His article is adapted from one that appeared in fall 2004 issue of The Learning Curve, the newsletter of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Academic Support.

Read the article “Humanizing Law School” (Student Lawyer, November 2002) at www.abanet.org/lsd/studentlawyer/online.

Student Lawyer welcomes contributions to Opinion. Views are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the American Bar Association or Law Student Division. Details for submitting Opinion essays and letters to the editor can be found in our writers’ guidelines.

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