A Lawyer Dies. Is Big Law To Blame?
Blaming Big Law’s extreme work ethos is the low-hanging fruit. This is the fourth installment on my series on mental health.
Ever since the coroner’s findings came out about the death of Vanessa Ford, a law partner at Pinsent Masons, readers have been urging me to say my piece.
The bare fact of her death is this: Ford, 47, fell onto a railroad track in London on September 23 and died when she was hit by a train. Though the coroner inquest concluded there was “insufficient evidence to suggest that she intended to take her own life,” it emphasized there was “clear evidence” that “Vanessa was experiencing some form of mental health crisis.” The toxicity report found “incredibly high” levels of alcohol in her system.
Her husband also issued a statement that portrayed Ford as an exhausted lawyer and mother who worked 18-hour days on the high-stakes acquisition of Everton Football Club by a private equity firm, while being wracked with guilt about not spending enough time with her two children while working on the deal. (She closed the deal just days before her death.)
There’s a lot to unpack here, and much of this seems to fall in my bailiwick—Big Law, women, and mental health—topics I’ve covered for decades. So why was I so reluctant to weigh in?
First, I felt a deep unease about opining on what led Ford to those train tracks on that fateful day when there’s so much we don’t know. To me, there’s often an exploitative, sensationalistic aspect to writing about this sort of tragedy when the news is fresh and jolting. Second, I didn’t want to join the chorus that’s chanting: Big Law Kills.
It’s easy to blame Big Law. Everyone knows it sucks and that many people burn out and leave the profession (I did). My main concern is oversimplifying what’s undoubtedly a very complicated, personal situation.
Women Are Pissed
Understandably, there was a lot of anger and frustration voiced on social media about what happened to Ford. For women, in particular, there was a strong identification with her mighty struggle to balance the demands of work and home. But some made their own projections, suggesting that Ford’s death was a “suicide,” despite the coroner’s findings. Almost all pointed the finger at her job as the culprit.
Inevitably, some directed their anger directly at Ford’s firm, Pinsent Masons, for allegedly creating the conditions that led to her mental health crisis and being oblivious to her state of mind. It didn’t help that the firm initially made a rather lame statement that Ford didn’t show signs of stress prior to her death and that there was a 24-hour helpline available to employees. (For whatever it’s worth, the firm didn’t have an especially notorious reputation as a sweatshop. It placed 54 out of 72 on RollOnFriday’s work/life balance rankings for U.K. law offices; an American firm, Paul Hastings, ranked last.)
“I don’t know if blame is helpful here; it only engenders a defensive reaction,” Patrick Krill, a former lawyer who’s an expert on mental health in the legal profession told me. He added, “working fewer hours is the promised land.”
Like most promised lands, it’s illusory. There’s a tendency to say, oh, if only law firms got fixed–like getting rid of the billable hour, being less solicitous of client demands, and mandating that overworked lawyers take time off—the mental health crisis in the profession will abate and tragedies of this sort will be averted.
Extreme Hours or Something More Insidious?
Undoubtedly, those changes will help improve the quality of life for those in Big Law, but is that the end of the problem? In my view, it’s not the workload per se that drives people to the brink of a mental breakdown but something much more inchoate and insidious—that elusive thing called culture. More precisely, I’m talking about the sense of isolation that comes from laboring in a system that feels alienating, oppressive, and unfair.
From what I’ve seen (and experienced), people can put up with a lot of extremes, at least in spurts—insane hours, intense pressure, even impossible demands. At those times, the adrenaline kicks in, and you’re performing magic. It can even be thrilling, if you’re working on an interesting, high-profile project and you feel you’re part of some greater endeavor. But what happens if you don’t feel supported by those around you and have little sense of ownership?
In a 2023 study on lawyer suicide risks by Krill and members of the University of Minnesota’s psychiatry department, mental wellbeing was found to be strongly correlated with “a sense of relatedness, i.e., how you connect, or relate to others, and whether you feel a sense of belonging at work.” (The study surveyed almost 2,000 lawyers in California and Washington, D.C.) But what makes the loneliness so acute for lawyers at times is the individualistic nature of the job and the competitiveness of the profession.
Toxic Culture and Women
For women in the workforce generally, that essential connectedness and esprit de corps seem to be missing. More troubling, women are experiencing the exact opposite of an inclusive environment.
According to a 2023 study published in the MIT Sloan Review, women are 41% more likely to experience “toxic culture,” which is defined “as a workplace culture that is disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, or abusive.” (The study analyzed 600,000 Glassdoor reviews from 2020 and 2021.) That culture exacts a heavy toll on mental health, says the study: “Sustained exposure to a toxic culture increases the odds that employees will suffer from anxiety, depression, burnout, and serious physical health issues.”
The experience of women in Big Law seems to echo these points: According to Leopard Solutions, a staggering 90% of female lawyer respondents felt “frustrated with the support they had received from their law firms,” with only 26% agreeing that assignments at their firm were allocated fairly. Krill’s study also finds that female lawyers were more likely than male lawyers to experience anxiety, depression, work/life conflicts, and alcohol abuse. (Interestingly, though, male lawyers were twice as likely have suicide ideation.)
The Guilty Party
Ford checked a lot of those boxes. But where does that leave us? What was the tipping point for her—the onerous hours, the ethos of extreme work or the sense of isolation? Or was it a mixture of those factors and more that set her on her path to self-destruction? We will never know—and that’s precisely the point.
Still, I understand it’s hard not to seek an explanation. What’s mystifying to me is how Ford kept things under wraps when she was spiraling out of control. I find it especially heartbreaking that she tried to contact her medical provider about her depression and alcohol dependency just hours before her death but was unable to get an appointment.
There are many vexing, unanswered questions about this tragedy. The only thing that’s clear is that in her final hours she was adrift and alone, and, for whatever reason, she didn’t get the help she desperately needed. For that, there’s plenty of blame for everyone to share.
Contact: chen.vivia@gmail.com
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