McGill Law Mental Health Check-In
This Letter from the Editor will be a little different from my previous articles, and instead will be a PSA for McGill Law Student Wellness. Many of us are currently facing one of the most trying periods of our lives, as the stress from law school is combined with the isolation of COVID-19. Personally, my days have become a dystopian version of Groundhog Day. I wake up at the same time every day to receive instruction from professors who only live on my laptop screen, then try to do my readings on the same screen, write papers on the same screen, keep up with McGill Law Facebook groups on the same screen, attend meetings on the same screen, chat with friends on the same screen, and occasionally watch a movie on the same screen. We are social creatures not designed to be sitting still in front of our computers all day, yet we cannot take a break from these screens without falling behind in school. Increased screen time is linked to poor sleep quality and a lack of exercise, which both contribute to anxiety and depression. For some of us who live alone, we now go several days at a time without speaking to a human in real life. Law school can be stressful at the best of times, but with an increase of isolation, lack of sleep, and sedentary lifestyle, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy mind.
The 2017 McGill University Faculty of Law Student Psychological Study found that 2 out of 3 McGill law students experience psychological health challenges, and they do so more often than before entering the program. The study also found that half of all McGill law students identify their experience at McGill Law as having a negative impact on their well-being. In their response to open-ended questions, most McGill law students identified their workload and schedule constraints as the two greatest obstacles preventing them from being able to practice self-care. Personally, I believe that students would not feel as anxious if McGill law professors reduced the number of required readings. When seeing friends in person was allowed last year, the most frequent complaint I heard from my peers was that there are too many readings. As students who were accepted into McGill Law, we are by nature intellectually curious and should be encouraged to explore our own passions. I firmly believe that the best learning comes from real-world exposure, not from frantically rushing to finish readings before class. If readings were minimized, it would help to create a more well-rounded McGill student who could explore the law through community exposure and public lectures. I would love to watch Supreme Court hearings on today’s most pressing issues, or have more time to visit the Montreal Courthouse, but there isn’t sufficient time to delve into other legal interests with the number of readings we have for each class.
One of the Faculty of Law’s Local Wellness Advisors recently told me that this struggle to keep up with class readings is universal to almost every student. There needs to be a larger focus on the quality of the texts we read rather than the quantity. Personally, when I try to do every assigned reading, I find I lose part of my identity by not being able to enjoy passions and activities outside of law school. On the other hand, if I don’t do the readings, I feel immense guilt about not being up to date in my courses and fear I will be judged by my peers. In short, this creates a system where one feels down whether they do the readings or not. I believe that McGill students will both be happier and wiser if they could spend less time doing required readings and more time developing legal interests outside of the classroom.
I am also concerned about our long-term mental health after we graduate from McGill Law. In October, the École du Barreau du Québec issued a mental health survey to its students. The results are frankly terrifying:
En se rapportant à l’échelle Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), 27,6 % des répondants présentent des symptômes de dépression modérée, 14,8 % des répondants, des symptômes de dépression modérément sévère et 5,1 % des répondants, des symptômes de dépression sévère, pour un total de 47,4 % des répondants présentant des symptômes assez importants pour nécessiter une évaluation psychologique et possiblement une prise en charge.
En se rapportant à l’échelle Five Well-Being Index WHO-5 (World Health Organization), ce sont 61,7 % des répondants qui présentent un niveau de bien-être assez bas pour être assimilé à une dépression.
En se rapport à l’échelle Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, 42,9 % des répondants présentent un niveau de détresse psychologique modérée, et 36,2 % des répondants, un niveau sévère, pour un total de 79,1 % des répondants vivant une détresse psychologique significative.
These results actually make me want to draw out my degree longer to postpone exposure to such an unhealthy environment. Evidently there is a mental health crisis in legal education, but these negative feelings appear to permeate in the profession as well. A report from Canadian Lawyer Magazine notes that lawyers suffer depression at a rate that is 3.6 times greater than the general population, and lawyers have the highest rate of depression among all professions. Moreover, while suicide is the ninth leading cause of death among the general population, it is the third leading cause of death for lawyers. According to Canadian Lawyer Magazine, part of the problem is that law is a high-pressure, competitive and adversarial environment where you are “trained to be a pessimist.” Not only do you fight competitors for business, but competition within law firms for recognition can also be intense.
We will get through this bizarre time together, and in a little over a month we’ll have a chance to relax over the holiday break. There is no magic solution that I can offer here to immediately reduce your stress, but I have a few recommendations. For the last two months I began meditating every morning using Sam Harris’s Waking Up app and I find it incredibly helpful. The app is free for anyone who cannot afford it (i.e. students), and you can receive a free one-year subscription by emailing support@wakingup.com. I find Stoicism to be a helpful philosophy in grounding my mind and reducing law school worries, and I recommend The Daily Stoic newsletter for beginners. If you would like to speak to a Local Wellness Advisor, it is very easy to book an appointment online with law LWAs Heleen Loohuis and Shrabani Debroy. As we head into exams, a time that is unanimous with stress, I hope that professors recognize how difficult this semester has been for students. I find it very helpful when professors walk through old exams in class, as it allows students to see what is expected of them. Please ask your professors to review old exams if they have not already scheduled a class to do so. Exceptionally, I would urge any professor reading this to consider making this year’s exams more straightforward and direct than in previous years to help reduce student anxiety.
This is my last Letter from the Editor of 2020, and I wish you the best of luck on your final exams. Please feel free to reach out if you ever feel distressed about school and need someone to speak to. I’m easy to reach these days, always in front of my screen.