A ten-year update to the landmark 2016 research is in peer review. Here is the 2016 baseline, what the new study measures, and what a legal employer should have ready before the findings land.
Status. As of 1 September 2026 the primary findings had not been published. This page carries the 2016 baseline and the study's stated scope, and will be updated with the published figures when they are available. Attorney Wellness Project is independent of the researchers and of the American Bar Association, and has no involvement in the study. Everything here is drawn from public announcements, which are linked throughout.
The ABA, through its Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, entered a cooperation agreement with Krill Strategies to conduct a new nationwide survey of lawyer mental health, substance use, and burnout. The research is led by Patrick Krill with Dr. Justin Anker of the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. ABA announcement, June 2025
State bars distributed an anonymous survey to randomly selected members. Twenty-eight jurisdictions participated, producing a nationally representative sample of roughly 36,000 lawyers. The manuscript reporting the primary findings has been moving through peer review. Project update
Three things distinguish it from what already exists. It updates prevalence benchmarks that are now a decade old. It produces the first national estimate of work-related burnout in the legal profession, which has never been measured at this scale. And it examines how distress, burnout, and drinking relate to practice environments and work demands, rather than treating them as individual characteristics.
That third element is the one that matters to employers. Prevalence tells a firm how common a problem is. Conditions tell a firm what it is doing to cause it.
The study being updated surveyed roughly 12,800 licensed, employed attorneys and remains the most cited research on lawyer impairment in the United States. These are the numbers the new work is measured against.
Attorneys screening positive for symptoms of depression.
Krill, Johnson & Albert (2016), Journal of Addiction Medicine ↗Screening positive for problematic drinking, a rate substantially above comparable professional populations.
Krill, Johnson & Albert (2016) ↗The finding that surprised the profession. Risk was concentrated among younger attorneys and those in the first ten years of practice. The prior assumption had run the other way, that impairment accumulated with seniority. It does not. It arrives early, which means it is shaping the careers of the people a firm has most recently invested in.
Nobody outside the research team knows the findings. But the decade between the two surveys is not neutral, and the surrounding evidence points in one direction.
Gallup's 2026 report put global employee engagement at 20 percent, the lowest level since 2020, with manager engagement dropping from 27 to 22 percent in a single year, the steepest fall it has recorded. Gallup Whatever the legal-specific figure turns out to be, it is being measured against a deteriorating baseline across all professional work.
Associate attrition reached 20 percent in the most recent NALP Foundation data, with departures now clustering nearer the four-year mark than the historical five. NALP Foundation Separately, the share of associates leaving the profession altogether rose from 9 percent to over 16 percent in a single year. BigHand, 2025 People leaving earlier and leaving entirely is what elevated distress looks like in operational data.
The 2016 sample was surveyed before the pandemic reorganized legal work, before the expectation of continuous availability became standard, and before generative AI began reshaping what junior lawyers are asked to do. The new study explicitly examines technology's effect on attorney mental health, which suggests the researchers expected it to register. ABA announcement
A survey of roughly 4,450 Massachusetts lawyers found 77 percent reporting burnout, 26 percent high anxiety, 21 percent depression, and 7 percent suicidal thoughts, all above United States averages. Reported figures Single-jurisdiction samples are not nationally representative, but they are a signal.
None of this is a prediction of the study's results, and we will report the published figures as they are, whichever direction they move.
The findings will produce a news cycle, a round of internal questions, and a request from someone on your management committee for a response. Four things make that conversation productive rather than reactive.
Know your own attrition number, broken out by practice group and by year of call. National prevalence is only actionable against your own baseline.
See: what attrition actually costs ↗Know your exposure profile. Secondary trauma concentrates in family, criminal, juvenile, immigration, and victim-facing practice, and in the staff who support them.
Iversen & Robertson (2021), systematic review ↗Know what your jurisdiction already requires. Several states mandate wellness or mental health CLE hours, and satisfying them is the least expensive entry point.
Free CLE requirement lookup, all 51 jurisdictions ↗Decide in advance where the response sits. Published ROI evidence favours upstream work on leadership and conditions over reactive treatment after distress.
Deloitte, workplace mental health ROI ↗It is a nationwide survey of lawyer mental health, substance use, and burnout conducted by the American Bar Association's Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs together with Krill Strategies. It surveyed a nationally representative sample of roughly 36,000 lawyers across 28 participating jurisdictions and is designed as a ten-year update to the 2016 ABA and Hazelden Betty Ford research.
The work is led by Patrick Krill of Krill Strategies with Dr. Justin Anker of the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, in cooperation with the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs. Attorney Wellness Project is not affiliated with the researchers or with the ABA, and has no involvement in the study.
Among roughly 12,800 licensed, employed attorneys, 28 percent screened positive for depression, 19 percent for anxiety, and 23 percent for stress. About 21 percent screened positive for problematic drinking. Younger attorneys and those in the first ten years of practice showed the highest rates, reversing what had previously been assumed.
It will produce the first national estimate of work-related burnout in the legal profession, and it examines how distress, burnout, and drinking relate to practice environments and work demands. That moves the conversation from individual prevalence toward organizational conditions, which is where an employer can actually intervene.
Establish a baseline you control. Firms that already know their own attrition rate, their own engagement data, and their own exposure profile by practice group can act on the national findings immediately. Firms that do not will spend the first quarter after publication trying to work out whether the numbers apply to them.
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