Law Schools Incorporate Student Development Programs to Drive Student Wellbeing and Career Readiness

Earlier this month Bloomberg Law released the results from its second annual Law Student Preparedness Survey. And the results on student wellbeing were… not great. The survey, administered in December 2022, showed that over half of the 1,000 students reported that their wellbeing worsened slightly (32 percent) or significantly (26 percent) during the fall 2022 semester. Additionally, most of the law students, over three-quarters, reported experiencing mental or physical health problems due to law school related issues: 77 percent experienced anxiety, 71 percent experienced disrupted sleep, and 51 percent experienced depression. Just 11 percent said they did not experience a mental or physical health issue due to law school. 

Luckily, more law programs, recognized by Bloomberg Law’s Innovation Program, are creating programs to offer better support to students in terms of their law school experience and career readiness. Each of the schools named as a finalist also track the student outcomes related to their programs via qualitative and quantitative data, ensuring that the programs are actually bolstering student development and not just paying lip service to the idea. 

We’ve highlighted a few of the programs recognized for innovation in student development below, and the full list is available on Bloomberg Law. You can also find Bloomberg Law’s lists for law school innovation in other categories (technology, business, pedagogy, etc.). 

Elon University School of Law: Elon offers a redesigned curriculum with an emphasis on experiential learning, an academic period of seven (rather than eight) semesters, and lower tuition. The shortened law school year allows graduating students to take the bar in February and commence professional life earlier. Elon Law’s Interim Dean Alan Woodlief, in an interview with Bloomberg Law, described the school’s improved admissions, bar passage, and career placement rates since adopting the new curriculum. “These data points demonstrate a strong demand for law schools that place student needs and development at the center of their approach to educating future attorneys, and we’re proud of the strides we have made together as a community in our noble mission,” he said.

Fordham University School of Law: Fordham offers the Peer Mentoring and Leadership Program, which pairs third-year law students interested in being mentors with second-year students. The school identified the second-year period as a critical time for students, who are often under intense academic and career pressure. The benefits of the program include increased support of students in a high pressure period, cross-cultural understanding, growth in friendships and professional networks, and improved leadership skills for the mentors. The program’s founder, professor Linda Sugin, described the aims of the program to Bloomberg Law, “All the mentoring and leadership skills developed in the program are essential for lawyers—regardless of the type of work they do. All lawyers need to develop self-awareness, work cross-culturally, handle challenges and setbacks with resilience and equanimity, and care for their own well-being,” she said. 

The University of Tennessee College of Law: The University of Tennessee developed the Institute for Professional Leadership (IPL) to offer students a curriculum curated to develop legal and professional leaders. Specific leadership courses are combined with pro bono, public service, and career advancement opportunities, and events to develop students’ leadership skills and prepare them for careers in law, government, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations. The Interim Director for the IPL and law professor, Joan MacLeod Heminway described the reasoning behind the Institute’s creation to Bloomberg Law. "Leadership education in the law school setting fills a gap in the traditional program of legal education. Robust leadership education in law schools focuses students on intentional introspection and the identification and development of skills, values, professional identity, and career paths through interdisciplinary programming beyond a strictly legal context,” she said.

AAMC’s President and CEO Addresses Top Challenges Facing Academic Medicine

Last weekend, the President and CEO of the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), David Skorton, MD, addressed over 4,200 leaders in academic medicine on the “four things that keep me up at night.” These include structural and cultural inequities in academic medicine, deteriorating student wellbeing, external threats to the doctor-patient relationship, and a lack of mutual respect. On these challenges, Skorton called for collective action. “The health and mental well-being of our communities and our colleagues are at stake. Through meaningful, open, and honest dialogue, partnership, and collective action, we can and will tackle these problems in service of the greater public good,” he said. Below, we summarize his concerns. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion and anti-racism. Within academic medicine, Skorton noted that this work includes diversifying medical schools’ student populations, faculty, and staff. It also goes further. Each academic institution should review their culture to ensure that the climate supports every student with the “opportunity to excel.” 

Student well-being and mental health. Skorton notes that medical students show higher rates of depression and risk of suicide than their age-matched peer populations, and that the comparisons have worsened in recent years. He encouraged academic leaders to prioritize the mental health and wellbeing of students by understanding their existing stressors (financial, academic, and social) and reducing them, as possible. Medical school faculty and staff should also ensure that they make mental health and wellbeing resources accessible to students. 

External threats to the doctor-patient relationship. While not speaking to abortion rights specifically, Skorton spoke to the more generalized threat that legislation and/or judicial opinions can impose on a physician’s ability to exercise clinical judgment in partnership with the patient. He encouraged leaders to “stand firm” against such external action in order to protect the doctor-patient relationship.

Humility and mutual respect. While Skorton emphatically noted that physicians are duty-bound to speak out against racism or hate speech, he called for greater mutual respect. He noted that leaders in academic medicine should show humility in their interactions and discourse, and called for physicians to model using an open-mind and empathy in encounters with those holding differing viewpoints or conflicting ideologies. 

Law Student Wellbeing Study Showed Increase in Mental Health Struggles

A new study on law student wellbeing shows that, despite efforts to improve student well-being, even more students are struggling with mental health. The study, It is Okay to Not be Okay: The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-being, recently published in the University of Louisville Law Review, provides an analysis of law student mental health for comparison with a similar effort from 2014. 

The survey, administered in the Spring of 2021, garnered 5,400 student responses. 

• Over two-thirds of respondents, 69 percent, reported needing help for emotional or mental health problems in the past year. This was an increase from 42 percent from the 2014 study. Of the 69 percent, 56 percent received counseling or help from a mental health professional. Females were more likely to report that they sought help than males. 

• A larger percentage of students, 11 percent, reported experiencing suicidal thoughts in the past year. This is an uptick of five percentage points from 2014. About 5 percent of students reported that they had thought seriously about suicide in the last 30 days. 

• A larger subset of the law student population reported that they started law school with a previously diagnosed mental health issue. Nearly one-third of respondents reported that they had been diagnosed with depression (18 percent of this group was diagnosed after starting law school), compared to 18 percent in 2014. Nearly 40 percent of respondents reported they had received an anxiety diagnosis at some point in their life (22.5 percent of whom received the diagnosis after starting law school), a dramatic increase from 21 percent in 2014.

• A slightly larger percentage of respondents reported using (with a prescription) sedative/anxiety medications in 2021 (15 percent) compared with 2014 (12 percent), while the percentage using antidepressant medication (again, with a prescription) almost doubled jumping from 12 percent in 2014 to 23 percent in 2021. Fewer students reported using prescription drugs without a prescription in 2021 (less than 12 percent) compared to 2014 (14 percent). 

• A bright spot amidst the alarming findings came in decreased binge drinking. The number of students who reported that they drank enough to get drunk in the past 30 days fell from 53 percent in 2014 to 44 percent in 2021. Similarly, the number who reported binge drinking at least once in the past two weeks fell from 43 percent to 33 percent. The researchers did note that the timing—spring of 2021—may have contributed to this decrease, as there were possibly fewer opportunities for “social drinking” during the pandemic. 

David Jaffe, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at American University’s Washington College of Law and study co-author in 2014 and 2021, spoke to the findings in an interview with Reuters. "It's disappointing that we didn't make more headway as law schools generally," he said. "We still have our work cut out for us."

The Medical School Admissions Process is Long and Stressful. How are you Coping?

Earlier this month, Dr. Anne Thorndike, a physician in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote that physician burnout starts with the medical school admissions process, which takes almost twice the length of time as other graduate admissions processes. In an opinion piece for STAT, an online health, medicine, and scientific discovery publication, she called for a shortened admissions timeline for medical school applicants and says the current process is time-consuming, expensive, highly-competitive, and intensely stressful. 

Referencing a plethora of studies, she goes on to describe the stress that medical school applicants face prior to even beginning their professional journey. A 2012 study showed higher emotional exhaustion, a symptom of burnout, in pre-medical students compared to non-premedical students. In another study, 33 Black and Hispanic medical students interviewed from across the country described medical school admissions as “very negative” because it was overwhelming and required an “extensive investment of time.” A 2020 online survey found that 73 percent of 556 medical school applicants had depression or anxiety symptoms, with half reporting uncertainty related to the application timeline.

So, how can you manage effectively this daunting process as an applicant? We encourage you to explore and refine various coping mechanisms—exercise, mindfulness, talk therapy, and/or outside adventure activities—that work for you. Taking this step will be just as critical to any application prep course you will take. And you will certainly carry with you these practices into your future career in medicine. 

A recent article in the Washington Post covers the physical effects of stress and the practices that may mitigate its impact. Ahmed Tawakol, Director of Nuclear Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, recommends regular exercise, and high-quality sleep which “...can reduce stress activity in the brain, systemic inflammation, and your risk of developing cardiovascular disease.” Others interviewed point to the power of deep-breathing exercises, muscle relaxation techniques, meditation, and/or yoga, which can actually decrease your body’s reactivity to stress.

As you prepare for medical school, consider carefully how your habits may help or hinder you. Then you can work to integrate stress-reducing practices and positive choices into your daily life.  

Related Blogs:

Medical Students Offer Recommendations to Improve Medical Schools’ Ability to Promote Student Wellbeing

Pre-Med Students Face Stress as Clinical Experiences Become Harder to Find

Narrative Medicine Helps Physicians Gain Empathy, Make Connections, and Accept Difficult Experiences