Higher suicide rate

Personality characteristics often associated with lawyers, such as perfectionism and competitiveness, when combined with depression may be contributing to a higher suicide rate in the legal profession, an expert says.

Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, a group devoted to suicide prevention, says risk factors for suicide include depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide ideation, divorce and stress. And lawyers experience many of these risk factors at higher rates than the general population, he says. Lawyers are also more likely to be perfectionist and competitive, personality traits that make a person considering suicide less likely to seek help.

"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, two men are called a law firm, and three or more become a Congress."

 - John Adam's