May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This month-long campaign aims to raise awareness about mental health, fight stigma, educate the public, and advocate for policies that prioritize mental health. It also encourages open and honest conversations about mental health. By normalizing these conversations, we move toward empathy and understanding rather than stigma and judgment. These efforts help create an environment in which people feel more confident seeking help and support for their mental health needs.
In the legal profession, these conversations carry particular significance. Research conducted by the American Bar Association and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation drew attention to the mental health challenges facing lawyers. The 2016 study found that roughly 1 in 3 attorneys struggle with problems related to alcohol use, more than a quarter experience symptoms of depression, and nearly 20% report symptoms of anxiety. These findings have contributed to a growing conversation about lawyer well-being and the need to address mental health within our profession.
Our Shared Experience
There is a shared understanding among those who practice law. We understand the pressure of deadlines, the demands of billable hours, and the weight of decisions that affect other people’s lives. The profession often asks us to be sharp, composed, and decisive, even when we may not feel up to the task. That shared understanding can create a sense of connection.
The nature of our profession also tends to attract individuals who are ambitious, driven, and highly self-reliant. Those traits serve our profession well, but they can also make it difficult for us to acknowledge strain or ask for help. There is an emotional and psychological toll that accompanies the role, and the pressures accumulate. Strength and composure are often valued in adversarial environments, and vulnerability can feel risky in a profession built on competition and credibility. These realities are part of why conversations about mental health in our profession matter.
Even within these shared pressures, the experience of practicing law is not the same for everyone. We may appear in the same courtrooms and navigate the same professional demands, but each person carries their own lived experiences into that space. The shared experience of practicing law can make it easy to assume we understand one another, but the truth is that much of what shapes a colleague’s day or their capacity to carry the demands of the profession remains unseen. In many ways, we get each other. And yet, in other ways, we don’t.
Beyond Our Shared Experience
Each of us brings our lived experience into our practice. We may carry burdens and responsibilities that others cannot see. We may be grieving a loss, facing financial strain, managing health concerns, or navigating challenges at home. Some of us are balancing the demands of the profession while caring for young children, aging parents, or sometimes both. Others may be navigating illness, loss, or struggles that remain largely invisible to the people around them. Those realities do not disappear simply because we are at work.
Much of what shapes how someone shows up on a given day is not visible to those around them. We meet one another in professional roles, across conference tables, in courtrooms, and through emails, often seeing only a small part of the person in front of us. As lawyers and advocates, we have a job to do. But we are also human beings whose lives extend far beyond the roles we occupy in the practice of law.
Try Walking in My Shoes
Most of us have had that moment when we felt misunderstood or judged and said to ourselves, “They should try walking in my shoes.” The phrase is often an expression of frustration, but beneath it lies something deeper: a desire to be seen, heard, and understood — one of our most basic human needs.
Depeche Mode captured this idea in the song “Walking in My Shoes.” The song suggests that if we tried walking in someone else’s shoes, we might stumble in their footsteps. Its message is simple but powerful: Before we judge another person’s struggles, we should pause and consider how little we may truly know about what they are carrying.
At its core, the song is a plea for empathy, a reminder of how easy it is to judge another person’s struggles without fully understanding what they are experiencing. For some, empathy comes naturally. For others, it is a skill that must be intentionally cultivated. Empathy asks us to feel with someone rather than feel for them. It differs from sympathy. It requires perspective-taking, nonjudgmental listening, emotional awareness, and a willingness to communicate understanding.
Empathy also requires vulnerability. In her book “Dare to Lead,” Brené Brown explains that empathy is not about connecting to someone’s experience but rather connecting to the emotions that underpin that experience. In truth, none of us can fully walk in another person’s shoes, but we can lean in with curiosity and compassion. There is real power in sitting with someone in their dark moments without trying to fix the problem or offer a silver lining. As the song reminds us, “Before you come to any conclusions, try walking in my shoes.”
Walking Together
Practicing law is only one part of our lives. We each have roles and responsibilities beyond the profession, and those experiences shape the lives we bring with us into our work. While we may share a professional role and the pressures that come with it, we do not share the same lived experiences. That is why it is possible to sit in a room full of colleagues who “get it” and still feel alone, appearing self-assured while quietly wondering whether you truly belong.
Mental health affects all of us. Mental Health Awareness Month offers an opportunity to reflect on the realities within our profession. It reminds us to care for our own well-being, challenge the stigma that still surrounds mental health struggles, and look out for one another with greater awareness and compassion. At the same time, mental health struggles are not always visible. People may suffer quietly, and the signs may be subtle — or not apparent at all. For those who have lost someone to mental illness, it can be easy to look back and wonder whether something more should have been seen or done. Hindsight often makes things appear clearer than they ever were in the moment.
Practicing law does not remove us from the human experience. Rather, it simply unfolds within it. Remembering that makes room for empathy and quiets our impulse to judge. While we each walk in our own shoes, we are still walking this journey together.
————————
Sarah E. Kuchon, of Hohauser Kuchon, is the 93rd president of the Oakland County Bar Association.
In the legal profession, these conversations carry particular significance. Research conducted by the American Bar Association and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation drew attention to the mental health challenges facing lawyers. The 2016 study found that roughly 1 in 3 attorneys struggle with problems related to alcohol use, more than a quarter experience symptoms of depression, and nearly 20% report symptoms of anxiety. These findings have contributed to a growing conversation about lawyer well-being and the need to address mental health within our profession.
Our Shared Experience
There is a shared understanding among those who practice law. We understand the pressure of deadlines, the demands of billable hours, and the weight of decisions that affect other people’s lives. The profession often asks us to be sharp, composed, and decisive, even when we may not feel up to the task. That shared understanding can create a sense of connection.
The nature of our profession also tends to attract individuals who are ambitious, driven, and highly self-reliant. Those traits serve our profession well, but they can also make it difficult for us to acknowledge strain or ask for help. There is an emotional and psychological toll that accompanies the role, and the pressures accumulate. Strength and composure are often valued in adversarial environments, and vulnerability can feel risky in a profession built on competition and credibility. These realities are part of why conversations about mental health in our profession matter.
Even within these shared pressures, the experience of practicing law is not the same for everyone. We may appear in the same courtrooms and navigate the same professional demands, but each person carries their own lived experiences into that space. The shared experience of practicing law can make it easy to assume we understand one another, but the truth is that much of what shapes a colleague’s day or their capacity to carry the demands of the profession remains unseen. In many ways, we get each other. And yet, in other ways, we don’t.
Beyond Our Shared Experience
Each of us brings our lived experience into our practice. We may carry burdens and responsibilities that others cannot see. We may be grieving a loss, facing financial strain, managing health concerns, or navigating challenges at home. Some of us are balancing the demands of the profession while caring for young children, aging parents, or sometimes both. Others may be navigating illness, loss, or struggles that remain largely invisible to the people around them. Those realities do not disappear simply because we are at work.
Much of what shapes how someone shows up on a given day is not visible to those around them. We meet one another in professional roles, across conference tables, in courtrooms, and through emails, often seeing only a small part of the person in front of us. As lawyers and advocates, we have a job to do. But we are also human beings whose lives extend far beyond the roles we occupy in the practice of law.
Try Walking in My Shoes
Most of us have had that moment when we felt misunderstood or judged and said to ourselves, “They should try walking in my shoes.” The phrase is often an expression of frustration, but beneath it lies something deeper: a desire to be seen, heard, and understood — one of our most basic human needs.
Depeche Mode captured this idea in the song “Walking in My Shoes.” The song suggests that if we tried walking in someone else’s shoes, we might stumble in their footsteps. Its message is simple but powerful: Before we judge another person’s struggles, we should pause and consider how little we may truly know about what they are carrying.
At its core, the song is a plea for empathy, a reminder of how easy it is to judge another person’s struggles without fully understanding what they are experiencing. For some, empathy comes naturally. For others, it is a skill that must be intentionally cultivated. Empathy asks us to feel with someone rather than feel for them. It differs from sympathy. It requires perspective-taking, nonjudgmental listening, emotional awareness, and a willingness to communicate understanding.
Empathy also requires vulnerability. In her book “Dare to Lead,” Brené Brown explains that empathy is not about connecting to someone’s experience but rather connecting to the emotions that underpin that experience. In truth, none of us can fully walk in another person’s shoes, but we can lean in with curiosity and compassion. There is real power in sitting with someone in their dark moments without trying to fix the problem or offer a silver lining. As the song reminds us, “Before you come to any conclusions, try walking in my shoes.”
Walking Together
Practicing law is only one part of our lives. We each have roles and responsibilities beyond the profession, and those experiences shape the lives we bring with us into our work. While we may share a professional role and the pressures that come with it, we do not share the same lived experiences. That is why it is possible to sit in a room full of colleagues who “get it” and still feel alone, appearing self-assured while quietly wondering whether you truly belong.
Mental health affects all of us. Mental Health Awareness Month offers an opportunity to reflect on the realities within our profession. It reminds us to care for our own well-being, challenge the stigma that still surrounds mental health struggles, and look out for one another with greater awareness and compassion. At the same time, mental health struggles are not always visible. People may suffer quietly, and the signs may be subtle — or not apparent at all. For those who have lost someone to mental illness, it can be easy to look back and wonder whether something more should have been seen or done. Hindsight often makes things appear clearer than they ever were in the moment.
Practicing law does not remove us from the human experience. Rather, it simply unfolds within it. Remembering that makes room for empathy and quiets our impulse to judge. While we each walk in our own shoes, we are still walking this journey together.
————————
Sarah E. Kuchon, of Hohauser Kuchon, is the 93rd president of the Oakland County Bar Association.
