Reducing Anxiety, Depression, and Substance Abuse in Legal Education

"But students are not the source of the problem, so individual stress-reducing activities cannot be the solution. Self-care is not a cure for institutional brutality. Student suffering is built into the structure of legal education because the market for lawyers demands it.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

The legal profession needs to stop perpetuating the norms that make anxiety, depression, and substance abuse so prevalent among lawyers and law students."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"Legal education can be more academically rigorous, if it treats students with dignity and kindness. Student learning will be deeper, if we focus on developing all the tools that students will need to succeed in the profession."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

from Does Law School Have to Suck? (Part 1)
by Linda Sugin @FordhamLawNYChttps://t.co/H6ub75qGO9

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"We all need to better communicate the importance of every student finding a personal career match and encourage students to pursue work that that aligns with their individual values, strengths and interests.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

It is the profession’s responsibility to counteract the narrative that causes students to compete for jobs that make some of the lucky ones who land them miserable."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"[L]egal educators create a culture of competition by measuring achievements on an individual basis—through exams, papers, writing competitions and oral arguments.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

The structure of legal education creates the mistaken impression that legal work is performed independent of other people and that success depends on individual achievement."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"When I ask students why they do not raise their hands in class to ask for clarification or attend faculty office hours to ask questions, they answer that they are too embarrassed by their ignorance to reveal it to their teachers or classmates. Shame is interfering with learning.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"Law schools need to interrupt the feelings of shame by normalizing struggle as part of learning.  We should celebrate struggle so that students recognize it in themselves and their classmates and treat it as part of their professional growth."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

from Does Law School Have to Suck? (Part 2)
by Linda Sugin @FordhamLawNYChttps://t.co/MklQ9DdQvJ

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"The first thing legal education does is teach students to think like lawyers, a process that includes stripping them of much of the inspiration that brought them to law school in the first place."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"The Socratic method exacerbates imposter syndrome and students’ feelings of not belonging.  Imposter syndrome—the fear of being discovered to be incompetent—is rampant at law school, particularly for women and students of color."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"Treating students as individuals and celebrating the reasons they were drawn to law can counteract the spiritual disaffection they feel."

<YES YES YES YES YES a million times YES>

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

The current system of large, required courses and anonymity in a crowd is alienating and infantilizing for students, many of whom arrive at law school with records of accomplishment and experience in the world."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"Most law schools still teach the same subjects in the same way they did decades ago. My current students would feel comfortable time traveling into my first year of law school almost 40 years ago.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

They would study the same topics, read many of the same cases, sit in the same type of lecture hall and face the same sort of questioning."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

<This is because our current system of legal education was designed in and for a period of time — the Second Industrial Revolution — that ended 100+ years ago.>

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"It is difficult for faculty to attend to the individual learning needs of every student: Class sizes are too large and the incentives for faculty are virtually all skewed towards scholarship. Students perceive this as callousness."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"Our scholarship is a public good, so it primarily benefits society. Faculty are engaged in an important project that has nothing to do with students, but we have yet to sort out how the teaching project and the scholarship project can better coexist."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

"Debt burdens help explain why there are too few lawyers meeting the needs of regular people, and too many competing for jobs at large law firms. There is some debt forgiveness, but it is not robust enough to solve this problem."

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

from Does Law School Have to Suck? (Part 3)
by Linda Sugin @FordhamLawNYChttps://t.co/9lJ37DCInF

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

Law school doesn't have to suck.

It doesn't suck for everyone. Some folks love it!

And, it does suck for too many.

I created the Design a Life in the Law course at @vanderbiltlaw to address many of the issues Linda cites in her articles.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

Of the 16 students in the course, some had wonderful law school experiences. Others, not as much.

And, guess what?

The work we did to connect values and meaning to their work as law students (and soon, as lawyers), and to address imposter syndrome, and

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023

to explore what *thriving* in a life in the law looks and feels like for them as individuals?

This was work that everyone learned and benefitted from.

We know so much more now about how we as humans thrive, then when the current legal ed paradigm was designed.

— Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) April 17, 2023