The Importance of Financial Wellness for New Lawyers
By: Robert J. Hartigan
The path to becoming a lawyer is not cheap and student loan debt affects many areas of a new lawyer’s life. A recent report authored by the American Bar Association (ABA) found that student loan debt has a significant impact on new lawyer’s life milestones including getting married, having children, and buying a house. [1] That same survey found that around 90 percent of the respondents owed approximately $108,000 in law school loans and $130,000 in combined undergraduate and graduate loans. These figures do not include other forms of debt including credit cards and personal loans that new lawyers may be carrying.
Being burdened with such a high amount of debt can cause significant stress to new lawyers as they navigate through their first years of practice and can impact their career path as well. One of the biggest and arguably most important areas of a new lawyer’s life that gets impacted by financial stress is mental health.
In July 2019, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Steering Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, published a report detailing mental health issues both lawyers and law students deal with as a result of various stressors. [2] Specifically, the report addresses how financial pressures affect attorney well-being:
“In virtually every sector of law practice, financial pressures drive or exacerbate the current challenges to lawyer well-being. Although these pressures manifest in different ways, they make it extremely difficult for lawyers to attend to their own wellness.
Solo practitioners described the financial pressures associated with the lack of a steady paycheck despite recurring bills [office rental, mortgage, liability insurance, etc.] Lawyers in solo or small practices face the added pressure of trying to collect payments from clients, especially those who receive an adverse outcome...”
It was also reported that law students were overwhelmed with the cost of law school and the burden of student loan debt, which they will have to deal with when they do enter the profession.
So what are some ways that the legal profession can address financial well-being for new lawyers and law students? A great place to start would be creating free financial education programs for law students. Additionally, bar associations could create similar programs for new lawyers, which could earn them CLE credits. These programs could help law students and new lawyers improve their quality of life and have a positive impact on mental health as well. And less stressed-out lawyers would greatly benefit our profession as a whole.
About the Author
Robert J. Hartigan has been litigating personal injury matters since being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 2016. He is a graduate of Suffolk University Law School in Boston and is a partner at Mazow & McCullough in Salem, MA where his practice focuses on personal injury litigation and trials. In 2022, he was a recipient of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s Excellence in the Law Up and Coming award and was selected as a Top Lawyer by Boston Magazine in 2021. Robert currently serves on the Massachusetts Bar Association Young Lawyers Division’s board of directors, the Essex County Bar Association’s board of directors, and the AAJ NLD Publication Committee. Robert represents individuals and their families in a variety of cases involving motor vehicle collisions, premises liability, catastrophic injury, and wrongful death.
Robert J. Hartigan
Mazow & McCullough, PC
Salem, MA
rjh@helpinginjured.com
www.HelpingInjured.com
[1] Student Debt: The Holistic Impact on Today’s Young Lawyer. https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/young_lawyers/2021-student-loan-survey.pdf
[2] Supreme Judicial Court Steering Committee on Lawyer Well-Being Report to the Justices (submitted July 15, 2019). https://www.mass.gov/doc/supreme-judicial-court-steering-committee-on-lawyer-well-being-report-to-the-justices/download