This conversational-style article explores the ways that we, as family law attorneys, must address mental health issues, from our clients’ cases to our own lives.

More importantly, we have to start looking at how we best address mental health struggles in our practice and lives.

We are Called ‘Counselors!’

Have you ever asked yourself why they call us counselors? According to Etymonline, the term counselor comes from Old Friench “counseiler” – “one who gives counsel or advice, a confidante.” The role of the lawyer is to help people understand their legal rights, responsibilities, and options.

Calling someone a counselor or counsel is a professional courtesy, but really, we are counselors. We listen every day to our clients’ problems. In an hourlong consultation, most of that time (perhaps 45 minutes) is listening to the client’s story, through tears, anger, fear, and any emotion in between. They ask us what to do. We try to make them feel better.

How many phone calls do you get a week or even on a day where you have to calm your client down, talk them off the ledge, or work through the emergency or crisis that they are currently experiencing?

How do we as lawyers accomplish this task?

Our Clients Can Apparently Provide Mental Health Diagnoses as Well as the DSM-5 (#sarcasm)

Most of our clients are certainly not mental health professionals, psychiatrists, or doctors who can diagnose disorders identified in the DSM-5. However, every single day they come to us with such diagnoses:

• “My spouse is a narcissist.”
• “My wife is manic.”
• “My husband has bipolar tendencies.”

And they expect us to agree. Somehow 95% of my client’s spouses are narcissists when the disorder only occurs in up to 5% of the entire United States population.[1] Narcissism is apparently an epidemic among individuals going through a change in their family.

But really, what qualifies us to make such diagnoses or concur in the diagnosis? And are we doing our clients a disservice if we dismiss the concerns with their spouse’s mental health?

Of course, mental health issues abound with significant family changes. But we need to know how to appropriately deal with those issues and our clients who feel those issues are the root of their entire case.

We Have to Deal with Our Clients’ Emotions from Our First Day of Practice

The practice of family law is exceedingly difficult. Sorry to be the master of the obvious. Lawyers get overwhelmed by the intense emotions their clients exhibit. New lawyers have a very difficult time dealing with the highs and lows and intensities of their clients’ lives and alarms. New lawyers experience these things to the point of wanting to quit. Serious traumatization occurs.[2]

We Experience Secondary Trauma

A lot of attorneys experience secondary trauma from client cases. Compassionate attorneys, which we strive to be, may be most affected. Internalizing trauma from your clients is an occupational hazard, not a personal failing. Such trauma that we internalize from our clients can lead to serious mental health problems.[3]

Mental Health and Substance Abuse Struggles of Lawyers Abound

We all know the sad statistics that lawyers experience a high rate of substance abuse and addiction and mental health problems (a chicken and the egg conundrum). “The legal profession is languishing in a well-being crisis.”^[4]

Attorneys experience problematic drinking that is hazardously harmful or otherwise consistent with alcohol use disorder at a higher rate than other professional populations. Mental health distress is also significant. This data underscores the need for greater resources for lawyer assistance programs, and also the expansion of available attorney-specific treatment interventions.^[5]

The State Bar is aware of the problem – and has its Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program (WisLAP) available to member attorneys and judges, as well as to law students and bar applicants. WisLAP offers confidential well-being support to the legal community. WisLAP staff are available for consultations, mental health trainings, and well-being presentations. Additionally, WisLAP trained volunteers are available for individualized peer-to-peer support upon request.

The State Bar in July also asked members to participate in a national study to better understand the state of mental health and well-being in the legal profession. Approximately 17,300 randomly selected State Bar members were invited to participate in an anonymous and confidential survey. The survey examined a wide range of individual and workplace-related factors that influence lawyer well-being, including mental health indicators such as stress, anxiety, and depression; substance use behaviors and attitudes; workplace culture, including burnout, workload, and access to support; and protective factors that promote positive mental and physical health.^[6]

A Parent’s, Party’s, or Other Person’s Mental Health Negatively Affects Kids – and is Relevant to Custody and Placement Decisions^[7]

From a substantive practice perspective, we have to respond to requests by clients to move for psychological evaluations. And we have to determine whether a psychological evaluation should actually be requested in any given case. But again, we are not equipped or trained in the area of mental health or recognizing whether those areas truly exist.

Time and time again we have to tell clients the law does not recognize emotional abuse in a run-of-the-mill family case, outside of that in a child abuse restraining order case where you have evidence from a mental health professional of the diagnosed emotional damage.^[8] Proving such damage is a daunting if not impossible task in a restraining order situation where you have less than two weeks to present your case.^[9]

Emotional abuse and mental abuse are not recognized in Wis. Stat. section 767.41 or anywhere else in Wis. Stat. chapter 767, outside of the one out of 14 factors that focus on how “the mental or physical health of a party, minor child, or other person living in a proposed custodial household negatively affects the child’s intellectual, physical, or emotional well-being.”^[10]

But so many clients talk about the emotional and mental abuse they or their children endure at the hand of their spouse or other parent. Can we effectively or zealously advocate for our clients or convince the judiciary or legislature that mental and emotional abuse is a real problem that negatively affects our clients (and their kids) if we cannot truly understand the abuse because we do not have proper training?

So, What Do We Do About It?

As the term counselor has been around for centuries, I doubt that the title is going to quickly dissipate. How can we better fulfill our role as counselors?

Finding the exact number of law schools that offer psychology or mental health related coursework was difficult (if any law schools even offer such classes, that information is not readily available). A number of schools provide law and psychology dual degrees.

But this is not what law students (who eventually become lawyers dealing with mental health – their clients’ and their own) need (or want). You are looking at doubling the amount of time you are in school then. Three years of law school and three years of getting your Ph.D. – who wants to do that? Even if there is a shorter dual program (four years total, perhaps), that is still a long time to be in school – and extremely expensive.

A better solution is to add a simple mental health training component to law school.

Research has found that adult depression is linked to educational attainment, aspirations, and expectations.^[11] Law students and then lawyers are generally high-achieving individuals. Thus, we are predisposed just by our own nature. However, a full psychology degree is not needed.

Law schools can offer an elective class focusing on mental health and the law. Adjunct faculty comprised of psychologists or even licensed therapists can be employed to teach such classes. Not only will this help lawyers relate to their clients, but lawyers can also benefit from gaining some insight into their own mental health struggles they are likely to face as a lawyer.

Clearly, there has been and continues to be concerns with lawyers’ mental health and substance abuse problems. But the discussion (much less the solution) on how to deal with those problems is lacking. And if we examine workable solutions, we do so after the problems have already begun. But we, as family law lawyers, have compounded mental health challenges, not only our own, but those of our clients.

How can we best help our clients and ourselves? Law school training seems to be the right place for the task – it is early and can even be mandatory as part of the requirements to graduate.

If we can learn through law school how to effectively listen to our clients and also have insight into our own struggles, lawyers will undoubtedly benefit. We will be happier. Also, we will be providing more of a holistic service to our clients.

Endnotes

[1] Jenette Restivo, Narcissistic personality disorder: Symptoms, diagnosis, and treatments, Harvard Health Publishing, Jan. 8, 2024. ↩

[2] Credit to Johnson and Marta Meyers of Boardman & Clark LLP, Clashes vs. Conversation in Family law, August 2025. ↩

[3]Id. ↩

[4] Restivo, Narcissistic personality disorder. ↩

[5] Patrick R. Krill, Ryan Johnson, and Linda Albert, “The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys,” Addict. Med., 10, 1, Jan/Feb 2016. ↩

[6] State Bar of Wisconsin, “Wisconsin Lawyers Invited to Participate in National Mental Health Study,” July 10, 2025. ↩

[7] Wis. Stat. § 767.41(5)(am)10. ↩

[8] Wis. Stat. § 813.122, referencing Wis. Stat. § 48.02. ↩

[9]S.O. v. T.R., 2016 WI App 24, 367 Wis. 2d 669, 877 N.W.2d 408, 15-0548. ↩

[10] Wis. Stat. § 767.41(5)(am)10. ↩

[11] Benjamin David Pyle; Clifford Rosky, “Measuring Lawyer Mental Illness: Evidence from Two National Surveys,” Boston Univ. Sch. Of L., 2025. However, note the differences between the two national surveys cited in the article. ↩