2/3 Lawyers Are Mentally Unwell - The Law Society Report, An Interesting Read
The Anthro-LawSoc Legal Profession Sustainability Study, commissioned by The Law Society of Singapore and conducted by people insights company Anthro, draws on 31 in-depth interviews totalling 38 hours, with former judges, legal academics, practitioners across firm types, and lawyers who have left, alongside a survey of 855 practising and former lawyers. It pairs statistical modelling with thematic analysis of what lawyers said in their own words, so that each headline finding rests on both numbers and lived experience.
The study was prompted by the late Mr Adrian Tan, President of the Law Society until 2023, who warned in his 2022 Opening of the Legal Year address of a "perfect storm" facing young lawyers as record numbers left while fewer entered the profession. In 2021, 538 lawyers did not renew their practising certificates, a 30 per cent rise on the year before. The problem of attrition in Singapore’s legal sector is decades old.
This study perked the interest of the management scientist in me. Clearly this is a rigorous report akin to the sort I would do myself when I worked in management research. 4 painstaking years, 31 interpretivist interviews, a whopping 855 surveys with lawyers and some sort of grounded theory building which utilises inductive reasoning and coding to flesh out themes.
I later discovered that the founder of Anthro Issac Lim is in fact trained in the social sciences via a DPhil from Oxford and an MS in Management Science. No wonder this research is so rigorous, very few research firms in industry conduct their research in such a rigorous and scientific manner, most are quite shaky and lack rigour.
The study said the issue stems not from individual failings, but from structural and cultural conditions that may have remained unchanged fo
Channel News Asia also reported on this. Two key charts from their article follow below.
The findings that struck me the most was that roughly 2/3 lawyers reported mild to severe depression and anxiety and are mentally unwell to the extent it impacts their daily function. That is a whopping 66% of lawyers who are mentally unwell.
The Straits Times also hosted a discussion with 2 lawyers and they described a toxic culture that permeates the industry including routine verbal abuses, shouting, throwing of files, staplers and verbal insults.
The lawyers described a culture of 'we suffered, this is how it is, so we continue it'. The senior lawyer is especially and appreciably honest and insightful in this discussion. I was half expecting the usual 'work hard, don't complain, people have tempers, this is working life, don't be a strawberry, maybe you are the problem' spiel but the senior lawyer was very on point with many things.
Personally, I have always treated my subordinates nicely and I think all of them (perhaps except 2 out of dozens) who reported to me directly over the years would agree.
I think our younger generations are educated and smart enough to improve on such behaviour, which exists in all companies in Singapore. These behaviour are counterproductive and harms productivity, morale and mental well being.
Kudos to the Anthro, the lawyers and the mainstream media for being honest and speaking truthfully.
Societies and organisations are ever changing and often they take 1 step forward and half a step back but slowly norms are changing. I just hope to avoid working with the less progressive ones personally because they are an affront to basic adult maturity and intelligence.
