When I attended law school in the fall of 2001, I was excited but also very wary. I was dealing with the aftereffects of my substantial history of personal trauma in a major way (mainly by trying not to deal with it, although my body and brain were not being cooperative). I was just coming off of a terrible year in which I had to leave my PhD program after my first year of studies due to how much I was suffering and unable to function. I was devastated because I had a deep commitment to that work and it pained me greatly to leave it behind. Rather than take some time off, I decided to use my time productively by going to law school. I felt that if I took time away I would never be able to go back. Also I didn't have the financial means to simply take a year off and figure out my health. If it weren't school, it would have to be a full-time job, which would be just as hard on me, if not more so. And I was perfectly capable of doing the work, so it was an entirely valid decision.
Without pointing fingers at anyone, I will simply say that law school for me as someone with a personal history of significant trauma was a tremendously re-traumatizing experience. Although I felt hopeful when law school started and was in a reasonably good place emotionally compared to the preceding year, some events beyond my control early in law school reignited my symptoms of trauma resulting in a need to seek some accommodations. While the accommodations were ultimately granted, it was a difficult process and the response did not feel at all supportive from my perspective. It causes me harm to this day to recall it.
Moreover, I was not emotionally prepared for the experience of being surrounded by so much apparent privilege (whether that was actually the case or not). First, let me acknowledge that I myself benefit from all kinds of privilege, most notably, but not only, by virtue of race. But given my personal background and issues (which I won't specify here), law school felt like being thrown into an alien environment, and I wasn't at all ready for how that would make me feel on top of everything else that I was going through. Just as an example of how I felt different from those around me, my socioeconomic background was nothing like those of most of my classmates. Not only was I a first generation student, I knew all too well for as long as I could remember the experience of poverty and disadvantage. Further, the laudable push by professors to ensure that we all knew how privileged we were enhanced my sense of alienation. I definitely was privileged in some ways but not in the ways they were asserting. Was someone like me not supposed to be there? Why were they speaking as if the only people who could be law students were from very privileged backgrounds as if the rest of us couldn't possibly even exist in that space?
In addition, in my experience, law school was not a trauma-informed environment. Discussions around highly traumatic issues like sexual assault proceeded with no sensitivity to the fact that several of us, especially many women, were statistically certain to have had our own personal experiences with it. Victims of such events were talked about as if they were alien beings "out there" in the world, whose only relevance to the discourse was that we might someday (depending on our career ambitions) either try to prove them to be credible or not. Casual comments were thrown out in a haphazard way with no one ever seeming to consider whether there was a way to make the same points in a manner that was more respectful of those whose lived experiences might include the same or similar trauma. (I'm not suggesting any ideas should have been censored--just that the manner in which they might reasonably have been approached and framed could have been far less hurtful if there were some explicit awareness that some of the people in the room could be personally affected by these issues).
The attitude of law school generally seemed to be that as aspiring lawyers we were expected to simply be tough and impervious to the pain and trauma of it all (as I wrote about here with respect to the same attitude in the profession itself: https://traumaandlawyersmentalhealth.blogspot.com/2019/07/toughness-and-legal-profession.html ). No regard seemed to be paid to the fact that we weren't even lawyers yet and were just in the beginning stages of learning how to cope with all this very difficult material. We seemed to just be expected to know how to do it from the outset. And we seemed to also be expected not to have any vulnerabilities that might make it more difficult (but not impossible) for us to cope.
I made it through law school by taking a step back and doing the bare minimum to get through it. The thought of dropping out or even flunking out was constantly live for me. It was tough for me to live with that since I had taken pride in my academic achievements in the past. But it was okay: my grades were not as good as they had previously been but they for the most part weren't bad. I didn't excel the way I had before because my greatest need was simply to survive. For some of the time, I found a sense of purpose and meaning outside law school by volunteering at the local animal shelter (until the high intensity of life and death issues there rendered that unhealthy for me) and making new friends that way. My attendance at law school was poor but I passed all my exams (open book exams were my friend and I managed to pass even without having attended classes and with minimal preparation). I'm not sorry about that: I did what I needed to in order to get through it. I didn't think ahead to what my career would look like and had no idea if it would even involve the practice of law.
Ultimately I did get through and decided after it was all over to give the law thing a try after all. Initially, I moved back to my hometown of Edmonton after law school ended with no plan for what to do next. However, I soon realized that I would need a job and articling was as good a post-graduation job as any while I figured it all out, so I made a last minute decision to attend the bar admissions program just a few days before it started. I showed up in Toronto having borrowed money for first month's rent and with no plan for how I would pay for the course or for the subsequent month's rent or living expenses. Fortunately, I found an articling position towards the end of the summer just as the course was about to wrap up. It ended up being a very good placement for me in a firm with an excellent commitment to ethics and first rate mentors. My career in law was officially back on track.
That having been said, the law school experience (compounded by subsequent experiences) set my healing back substantially. I made it through it but not without a cost. More than 15 years have now passed, and I hope that others will have a better experience (I am aware of others who have in fact had a supportive experience, so maybe it truly has improved). But I know we still have so far to go. I also have all sorts of things to say about the legal profession itself and how far we still have to go in being more trauma-informed as a profession and dealing better with lawyer mental health and wellness (hence the blog). My experiences in that regard, if I choose to share them, will be a topic for another day. For today, my thoughts are with current and aspiring law students. If you're reading this and have a similar background or experiences, please know that you are in my thoughts. Hopefully the environment is more supportive than it was for me, but even if it isn't, I know that you can make it through (if you still want to). That said, if you need to take time off, or step away, please be aware that those are perfectly valid choices too. Also please know that, although it may not always seem like it, there are lawyers and students, with varying degrees of seniority, who know what you are going through. You are not alone.
As always, please note that I am a lawyer, not a mental health professional of any kind. I have no expertise in trauma or mental health. Also, please note that any opinions and views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are not intended to represent the views or opinions of my employer in any way. For more information about the purpose of this blog, please see here and for a bit more information about my personal perspective on this issue, please see "my story" here
I am very grateful to have received a "Clawbie" Award for this blog (which reflects the importance of this topic): https://www.clawbies.ca/2019-clawbies-canadian-law-blog-awards/
For some of my external writing on this topic, see:
- https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/a-more-inclusive-discussion-on-the-impact-of-trauma-on-lawyers-mental-health-is-needed/276166
- https://www.cbabc.org/BarTalk/Articles/2020/February/Features/Speaking-Up-About-Trauma-and-Mental-Health
- https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/changing-the-conversation/326240
Came across your blog by accident and found it interesting. Contact me if you’re considering mental health support.
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ReplyDeleteapu.t.chakraborty@gmail.com