“Ethics is the difference between knowing what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”
~ Potter Stewart
The legal profession is filled with high professional stress, long working hours, skipped meals and hard work for days and months to achieve the desired results. This means the profession is tantamount to neglected self-care, physical and mental health, well-being and increased hours of exposure to chaos. Can this lead to deterioration in the mental health of an advocate in the longer run, making him incapable of representing his clients and, does he have an obligation to reveal this to his clients?
The Blue Ocean of Ethics
The fact that India is burdened with such cases that display an array of difficulties and psychological setbacks is not new. What is new is that advocates are entrapped in this web each day. They make everyone’s problems, their own and try to win cases as their best case might be. Advocacy has become sensitive and empathetic than before. A 100 points to modern advocacy, however, does such a trend lead to a phenomenon where the ever-helping advocate becomes bound to disclose his mental issues with the clients?
It is only obvious you would want to be represented by a sane man, but do the ethics of the client and advocate intersect when the tables turn and now the spotlight of issues shifts to the burden of an advocate to prove? And does this create gaps in advocacy and professionalism when the same clients to whom the advocate was so empathetic, now turns hostile?
These are the most untouched areas of professional ethics in the legal profession that now need discussion. It’s fair to point out that law is all about the client and courts, but how does it stop accommodating its torchbearers—its advocates?
Law encapsulates multiple dimensions of psychological and mental health concerns and it is only inevitable that this might start taking a visible toll on advocates if unaddressed any further.
What is a lawyer’s law?
The status quo of lawyers needs to be duly updated to the clients undoubtedly. Still, it should not be a societal stigma to disdain a hardworking lawyer who expresses his mental health concerns. Lawyers are looked at as machines and this trend needs to be broken.
However, a lawyer is also bound by the duty towards his client to not mislead the client into darkness once, he understands his incapacity to take the case forward. This in no way shall deem the lawyer unfit and not question his work professionalism, rather it shall construe that he respects the law and bows down his services to the court until his fullest potential.
The Prevalence of Mental Health Issues in the Indian Legal Profession
In a study conducted by Juvekar and Murali on the Effect of Empathy and Vicarious Trauma on Wisdom & Psychological Distress[1]As per the statistics of current data, reveals that, there are 19 judges per 10 lakh people and around 4 crore pending cases, all of which are not only taking a toll on a judge’s mental health but an advocate as well.
Hence, there is a possibility that this causes lawyers in India to be overburdened, therefore directly affecting their wellness and health. Various other reasons cause mental health issues among people practising the legal profession. A counsellor must listen to many traumatic experiences of their clients, which triggers the trauma in them too. Some of the symptoms of the same could be burnout, indirect trauma, etc.
As a lawyer is expected to always stay sharp, be on the spot with their legal advice, develop strong critical thinking and should always be prepared to face whatever may come in the courtroom setting or in the field and these instances often lead to causing them to deal with stress and worry which they too fail to address because of extreme work pressure.
A study indicated that lawyers and students in the law field are at a greater risk of experiencing psychological distress compared to other professions. There were positive correlations found between psychological distress and disordered eating, weight and shape concerns, and maladaptive eating habits among lawyers and law students[2].
An article published under SCC online times brought many such concerning statistics regarding the mental well-being of lawyers into light. This included not only India but the whole of the world. As per the reports mentioned in it, 60% of the individuals either are working for longer hours or fail to take breaks in between. Not only this but students pursuing law are at even more risk. Studies showed that a huge percentage of them are either at risk of alcoholism or are dealing with severe anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts[3].
Bar Council Rules on Mental Health
On 6th November 2024, the Supreme Court declined to consider a petition which focused on the mental well-being of lawyers. The Supreme Court suggested that this should be tackled by the Bar Association and hence should take the responsibility for working towards it. During the hearing, the Chief Justice remarked, “Bar associations must take the lead and address the issue of mental health”[4].
Currently, there are no laws that address the mental health issues of lawyers. While the Bar Council of India (BCI) has suggested the bar associations and the judiciary to address these issues, no concrete plan or policy has not been implemented or surfaced the news yet. BCI keeps suggesting evaluation and orientation of Judges’ mental health but, no action has been taken towards the same for lawyers[5]. Understandably, the Judges are under a lot of workloads, and it is a tedious job with a lot at stake, but it should not come at the cost of neglecting the officers of the court, ‘the advocates.’
The question remains the same, “is it ethical on the part of the administration to not work towards the mental well-being of the advocates?” While this may not be such a pressing issue for them today, the future repercussions can be grave. Suppose a lawyer is not in the right frame of mind. In that case, it is not only a concerning cause for their family, colleagues, the court of law and their client but the whole society, as this would lead to a domino effect which in turn will be affecting everything.
Even the Mental Healthcare Act[6] of 2017 fails to address the issue explicitly for people employed in the legal profession. While the law does address people dealing with mental health issues, it does not talk about how to deal with them at the workplace and no rules have been there for people with professional degrees like law which hold an important stature, and have a much larger impact on society and if they aren’t taken care of the larger impact is first the on society than on themselves[7].
All in all, the advocates lose agency certifying their soundness over and over in this tedious and recurring process wherein their actions and reputation lead to outcomes than their merit of sheer advocacy. This becomes a problem not because now they have to disclose their mental state to their beneficiaries, but because they will be looked down on doing so.
What the challenge of doing this is a societal advocacy led taboo that the legal fraternity doesn’t try to erode and handle and that is exactly what leads us to question this ideal of advocacy based mental wellness.
Conclusion
It is only feasible to understand that a lawyer cannot be forced to memorise his ethics and duties and some of it is solely left to be addressed by him in his consciousness. However, mental health, being a critical concern cannot be left hanging on the lawyer in distress to decide what would his best ethical conduct be.
The blog does not expressly raise concerns over the absence of ethical dilemmas of mental health concerns, but it also questions the challenges of unaddressed aspects of an important professional in law. It creates cynicism in accepting the faulty patterns of the profession as its new normal and adapting to the changes that were meant to be adapted.
‘ETHICS OF ADDRESSING MENTAL HEALTH IN A LEGAL PROFESSION’ is so underrated that it loses sight and vision, however, it needs urgent attention with the advancing age of technology and intelligence, where life is fast and adjustment is slow.
Advocates should be able to access strengthened regulations in their workplace for better mental peace, abiding by all ethics, but the ethics of lawyers only come into the role play if there is a guaranteed accepting environment that does not exclude them from their work. This inclusion is a prerequisite to the numerous challenges that the advocate shall undertake while carrying out their duties as an ideal of profession and ethics. This calls for advancement towards a law that is inclusive of newer challenges and not detrimental in scope and nature.
The importance needs to be thus felt and the laws need to be formulated because ethics do not arise overnight, they are imbued with dedicated practice and eradication of a stigmatising mindset that hinders change and progress at the cost of faulty patterns of negatively reinforced ethics.
[1] Juvekar J and Murali R, “Effect of Empathy and Vicarious Trauma on Wisdom & Psychological Distress” [2022] Indian Journal of Mental Health https://indianmentalhealth.com/pdf/2022/vol9-issue2/8-OR4.pdf
[2] Skead NK, Rogers SL, Doraisamy J. Looking beyond the mirror: Psychological distress; disordered eating, weight and shape concerns; and maladaptive eating habits in lawyers and law students. Int J Law Psychiatry 2018;61:90-102
[3] Indulia B, “Break the Silence: Let’s Talk about Mental Health | SCC Times” (SCC Times, March 24, 2023) https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2023/03/24/break-the-silence-lets-talk-about-mental-health/#:~:text=The%20findings%20of%20this%20research,thoughts%20during%20the%20academic%20semester.
[4] Sethi M, “”Bar Associations Must Take The Lead & Address The Issue Of Mental Health”: CJI Declines Plea” (LawChakra, November 6, 2024) https://lawchakra.in/supreme-court/mental-health-lawyers-cji-declines-plea/
[5] https://www.moneylife.in/article/bar-council-suggests-mental-health-evaluation-of-judges-code-of-conduct-to-curb-inappropriate-judicial-conduct/75346.html
[6] THE MENTAL HEALTHCARE ACT, 2017 https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2249/1/A2017-10.pdf
[7] “Mental Healthcare Act, 2017” (April 7, 2017) https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2249#:~:text=India%20Code%3A%20Mental%20Healthcare%20Act%2C%202017&text=Long%20Title%3A,connected%20therewith%20or%20incidental%20thereto
Author: Saumya Thakur and Saransh Lunawat, Students at the Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
