Lawyers report depression, anxiety, and substance use at rates well above the general population, and research suggests the problem starts in law school: students arrive no more anxious or depressed than their peers, and often less so, but many decline within the first semester. Professor Peter Huang, who co-authored the law review article "Lawyer Zombie Apocalypse," argues that legal education and practice can "zombify" lawyers, training them in emotional detachment and hyper-analytical reasoning until they feel like cogs going through the motions.
In this TalksOnLaw interview, recorded in 2022, Joel Cohen speaks with Huang, then a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, who holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard and has written widely on emotions, mindfulness, and lawyer well-being. They discuss why the lawyer mindset is so hard to switch off, the costs of chronic stress, and practical ways that lawyers, law students, and law schools can respond.
Thinking Like a Lawyer, Feeling Like a Zombie
Huang explains how "thinking like a lawyer" rewards looking for what can go wrong, and how that habit spills into personal relationships. He discusses the tension between compassion and zealous advocacy explored in Scott Peppet's "Can Saints Negotiate?", the role of lawyers as emotional shields for their clients described by economists Orley Ashenfelter and David Bloom, and why litigation, unlike surgery, puts a skilled professional on the other side working to undo everything you do.
Stress, Mistakes, and Ethics
Stress itself is not the enemy, Huang argues; it can sharpen attention and motivate. The danger is chronic stress and how we respond to it. Anxiety and fatigue impair judgment, opposing counsel may try to provoke rash decisions, and stressed junior associates may miss or defer ethical problems, especially when, as he puts it, securities fraud is framed as "cosmetic accounting." He advocates teaching students to respond rather than react, and recounts bringing guest speakers into his legal ethics course to address the neuroscience of stress, sleep, nutrition, cognitive behavioral therapy, and the risks of self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, or food.
Mindfulness as a Practice
Huang describes mindfulness as a practice, not a quick fix: a minute a day counts, and missing a day is no reason to quit. He discusses how mindfulness is often marketed as a productivity tool when its deeper aim is greater awareness and compassion, extending outward in concentric circles from oneself to others and to all living things. He also talks openly about his own lifelong anxiety, rooted in perfectionism and in starting Princeton at 14, and about growing anxiety among young people, including the role of social media and of parents who accommodate rather than build resilience.
Loneliness in Law School and Practice
Loneliness, Huang explains, is the gap between the connection a person wants and what they have, not the number of friends. He discusses a survey of law students by Olivia Ash, which found that most reported more loneliness after starting law school, with some improvement in the second and third years as students formed study groups and friendships, and how COVID-era isolation affected people differently, with some introverts thriving while others struggled. He argues that law schools can reduce stress without compromising rigor, and closes with the "pandemic positives" he sees, including a greater willingness to talk openly about mental health.
What to Know Now
Professor Huang has since retired from the University of Colorado Law School. Lawyer well-being has continued to gain formal recognition in professional regulation: since July 1, 2024, Minnesota has required lawyers to complete at least one hour of CLE on mental health and substance use in the legal profession, and North Carolina renamed its substance abuse and mental health CLE category "Professional Well-Being" in 2024. In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory declaring loneliness and isolation a public health epidemic in the United States.
