Jan. 17, 2024 – According to a December 2023 survey conducted for the American Psychiatric Association, most Americans intended to make new year’s resolutions for 2024, and a third expressly identified improving their mental health as an important goal.

Respondents identified several smart strategies for addressing mental health concerns, including exercising, connecting more with nature, journaling, and meditation.

Importantly, of those hoping to improve their mental health, one-third intend to seek out a professional therapist.

How This Applies to You and Your Clients

This means at least two things for lawyers.

First, those legal professionals who feel the need to address anxiety, depression, relationship strains, professional stressors, or the unhealthy use of substances or other self-sabotaging coping strategies are far from alone.

Second, people seeking legal counsel also often need help with mental health. Anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, overwhelming stress, cognitive impairment, and other mental health issues among clients can make the work of attorneys more challenging, given how these conditions can interfere with focus, organization, emotional regulation, impulsivity, memory, and communication.

7 Practical Tips to Support Your Clients’ Mental Health

What can lawyers do to support their clients’ well-being and ability to fully participate in the legal process without becoming mental health workers themselves?

In a recent essay, attorney coach and former lawyer Jamie Jackson Spannhake mapped out seven practices attorneys can adopt to support their clients' emotional comfort, thereby improving the experience for all involved.

Spannhake identifies these practices as especially helpful to clients when they experience them in their relationships with lawyers:

• maintaining clear communication;

• setting proper expectations about the attorney’s role and boundaries;

• keeping clients “in the know” about the status of their cases;

• ensuring accurate and timely billing that allows clients to plan for legal expenses;

• establishing responsiveness in time and content, so clients feel connected, in control, and a priority;

• creating a welcoming environment; and

• offering nonlegal information and assistance.

While most of these will likely strike lawyers as simple competent pr​​actice, it’s the last item on the list that offers clients “value added” experiences with their attorneys.

And when the “nonlegal assistance” is a referral to a professional mental health provider, attorneys and their outcomes can benefit too – a mental health provider can become an important member of the client’s team, helping them address trauma, manage anxiety, and find hope even in the midst of challenging legal situations.

How to Find Competent Mental Health Professionals

Ideally, every attorney practicing in an area of law that involves emotional intensity, conflict, or pain will develop professional connections with mental health providers in whom they feel confident. Just as attorneys regularly refer people to legal colleagues, they can help clients by referring them to specific mental health providers.

Knowing competent mental health providers – particularly those who specialize in the kinds of emotional challenges often experienced by the clients they serve – allows attorneys to comfortably say, “in cases like this, people often experience a great deal of stress, so I always think it’s a good idea to have a counselor on my clients’ teams. Here are the names of a couple of counselors my clients have previously seen and endorsed.”

Some attorneys may feel reluctant to make the recommendation for mental health services, reflecting the stigma still attached to seeking help. Even when a lawyer doesn’t know a specific therapist to recommend, they can learn to advocate for mental health treatment without shaming or stigmatizing a client.

Here’s an example of an empathic recommendation:

I can see you’ve been carrying this a long time, and how burdensome it has been. I can address the legal pieces of this situation, but would like to recommend that you add a mental health worker to your team to explore the emotional elements and help you prepare emotionally for the legal process still ahead.

12 Questions to Ask when Screening a Therapist

If you don’t know a specific mental health specialist to recommend to your clients, you can offer them a set of screening questions to ask potential therapists, as part of the value-added experience in your practice

Like many attorneys, many therapists are willing to offer prospective clients a brief, no-fee, initial consultation to assess for “fit,” so that they can determine whether their skill sets are appropriate for a client’s needs, or whether a colleague would be a better match.

Here are a dozen WisLAP-recommended questions to ask a therapist before even a first appointment:

1. Are you independently licensed or practicing under supervision?

2. How long have you been in practice?

3. How do you approach diagnosis and treatment planning?

4. Where did you do your clinical internships?

5. Have you completed any specialty training? If so, what was the focus?

6. Have many clients have you helped who have the kind of challenge I’m working through, and what have their outcomes been?

7. Which treatment modalities do you use when you’re working with someone with this concern?

8. In your experience, what is the timeline for treating this kind of concern?

9. How would you describe your treatment style?

10. How do you approach working with someone from my particular social group?

11. When you say you offer “CBT, DBT, Trauma-informed care, couples therapy,” etc., what specific training or skills are involved?

12. How comfortable and experienced are you with supporting folks navigating a legal situation?

When lawyers recommend a client consider finding a mental health therapist, following up later with an inobtrusive, “have you been able to talk with a counselor about the stresses of this case?” lets a client know that you care about them.

It also lets them know you value the benefits of mental health therapy, both in general and as part of promoting the best outcomes possible in their legal process.

For a Better New Year

As we begin 2024, take a moment to assess how much easier the practice of law would be if Americans could fulfill their new year’s resolutions to attend to their mental health.

How would it make a difference in everyone’s experience of the legal world if judges, colleagues, opposing counsel, and clients felt less anxious, stressed, depressed, and worried – and more calm, focused, and hopeful?

By becoming more courageous in seeking mental health services and encouraging others (especially clients) to do so, lawyers can benefit everyone – including themselves.