Health

18 HEALTH • Winter 2018 W hen somebody is charged with a crime, oftentimes their lives are changed forever. The job of highly-educated legal professionals, like Worcester lawyer Nicole Colby Longton, is to zealously defend that client to the best of their ability while keeping work out of their personal lives, and vice versa. That demand can eat attorneys alive, lawyers and advocates say. "I feel for them just as I would myself," said Longton, a Harvard-educated criminal defense lawyer. No matter how large or small the case, clients carry stress until it's over, and that stress is sometimes absorbed by their attorneys, Longton said. It's that stress and documented mental health and substance abuse issues of attorneys that is now leading to new efforts to focus on the well- being of the state's attorneys. Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants announced in October that the Steering Committee on Lawyer Well- Being will take up the task of address- ing what was found in a 2016 study published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine: As many as 36 percent of 13,000 practicing lawyers qualified as problem drinkers. Another 28 percent of those sur- veyed struggled with depression, 19 percent struggled with anxiety and 23 coped with stress. Many in the courtroom or jury shudder when told of the details of an alleged crime, but lawyers like Longton are in those case files every day. "It's always bothered me that I have to pretend I'm devoid of all emotions," Longton said. "However, in almost every situation, you have to remove emotion in order to zealousy advocate for your client." Longton, referring to herself as a stressed-out person to begin with, said it's the more empathetic lawyers that may have a hard time discon- necting themselves from their clients' or even their clients victims. The issue of long hours and a huge workload leading to stress, anxiety and depression isn't just attributed to litigators, said Margot Botsford, a retired Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justice who is coordi- nating the steering committee. "There's a lot of pressure about suc- ceeding. There's pressure about get- ting business," Botsford said. "There's pressure about being able to rise in the particular firm. There's also the pressure of hours." During her time as a private lawyer, prosecutor and then a judge, Botsford said it can be easy to tell when a law- yer is frazzled. "They work very hard not to show whatever they're feeling that may not be positive," she said. "They work hard at starting in control." The goal of the steering committee, Botsford said, is to help the state's court system help alleviate these issues. That includes fewer meaningless delays over the life of a case and more flexibility when scheduling court dates so lawyers can vacation with their families. The steering committee includes Botsford and 14 others in the legal profession, including those in the public and private sectors of law. Like any profession or in life, there's still an enormous stigma on acknowl- "It's always bothered me that I have to pretend I'm devoid of all emotions... You have to remove emotion in order to zealousy advocate for your client." Nicole Colby Longton, defense lawyer, Worcester LITIGATING HEALTH The well-being of the state's lawyers is at the focus of a new SJC initiative to combat depression and anxiety in the legal industry. \\ By Zachary Comeau

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