Nearly half of American lawyers report high or very high burnout. It is the first time anyone has measured it nationally, and it runs at roughly twice the rate of depression.
Krill and Anker, When demands equal distress: An updated understanding of lawyer mental health and well-being, Journal of Affective Disorders, 6 September 2026. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2026.122479
47.5 percent reported high or very high work-related burnout.
21.6 percent reported moderate or higher symptoms of depression, 20.4 percent anxiety, and 18.9 percent stress.
41.8 percent met the standard AUDIT-C threshold for hazardous drinking, and 26.4 percent the higher one.
53.3 percent named confidentiality as a barrier to seeking help. 49.2 percent named career concerns. Those were the top two.
The survey ran across twenty-eight jurisdictions in partnership with the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, drawing 39,036 responses weighted to national lawyer population benchmarks. It is the largest study of its kind by a wide margin.
Nobody had measured burnout nationally in this profession before. There is no earlier figure to soften it against.
It also runs at roughly double the depression rate. For a decade the profession has tracked depression, anxiety and drinking, because those were the instruments the 2016 study used. Burnout was not counted. It turns out to be the most common of the four.
The authors go further than prevalence. They find burnout is the more proximal correlate of distress, sitting closer to it than the other factors measured, and they recommend interventions targeting occupational exhaustion and work-life interference.
Burnout is defined by its relationship to the job. That is what separates it from depression, and it is why the recommendation points at conditions rather than at people.
The instruments and thresholds changed between 2016 and 2026, so most coverage has treated the two studies as incomparable. The authors did it anyway. They returned to the 2016 data, recomputed it at matched thresholds, and published the result.
Measured at moderate or higher symptoms, which is the threshold this study uses throughout, depression rose from 18.8 percent to 21.6, stress from 13.9 to 18.9, and anxiety from 10.7 to 20.4. The authors describe the anxiety estimate as approximately doubling.
At the milder threshold the direction is identical. Depression 28.3 to 32.7, anxiety 19.3 to 26.9, stress 22.7 to 30.2.
Hazardous drinking moved the other way. The 2016 survey reported 36.4 percent screening positive on the AUDIT-C. The current sample yielded 26.4 percent at the same threshold.
The caveat belongs on the page and not in a footnote. The 2016 estimates are unweighted and drawn from a convenience sample recruited through email and website postings, with no computable participation rate. These estimates are survey-weighted and randomly sampled within participating jurisdictions. The authors present the difference as a comparison of two benchmarks rather than an estimate of change over time.
The top two barriers were not awareness and not availability. Lawyers know the help exists. They will not use it, because they do not believe it is confidential and they expect it to follow them.
That finding arrived five weeks after the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession reached the same conclusion by a different route. Women in that study knew their firms offered wellbeing resources and did not use them, citing confidentiality and the risk of being seen as less committed. We covered it here.
Two national studies, five weeks apart, saying the same thing. A firm that responds to 47.5 percent by publicising its assistance program has answered neither concern.
Burnout is occupational by definition and it predicts attrition. Attrition is the most expensive thing that happens quietly in a law firm, and it does not appear in a wellness budget. We have written separately about what that actually costs.
It does not show burnout rising. There was no prior national estimate. The 47.5 percent is a baseline.
It does not diagnose anyone. These are screening instruments reporting symptom thresholds across a population.
The fieldwork ran in July and August 2025. Nothing here reflects the year since.
Across 39,036 lawyers in twenty-eight jurisdictions, 47.5 percent reported high or very high work-related burnout. Moderate or higher symptoms were reported by 21.6 percent for depression, 20.4 percent for anxiety and 18.9 percent for stress. Hazardous drinking was 41.8 percent at the standard AUDIT-C threshold and 26.4 percent at the higher one. Confidentiality and career concerns were the most cited barriers to seeking help, at 53.3 and 49.2 percent.
Unknown, and the honest answer matters here. This is the first large multi-jurisdictional estimate of work-related burnout among lawyers, so there is no earlier national figure to measure against. The 47.5 percent is a baseline, not a trend.
Directly, because the authors did the work. They recomputed the 2016 data at matched thresholds. At moderate or higher symptoms, depression rose from 18.8 percent to 21.6, stress from 13.9 to 18.9, and anxiety from 10.7 to 20.4, which the authors describe as approximately doubling. Hazardous drinking fell, from 36.4 percent on the AUDIT-C in 2016 to 26.4 percent at the same threshold now. The 2016 sample was unweighted and self-selected, so the authors present this as a comparison of two benchmarks rather than a measure of change over time.
The authors conclude that burnout is the more proximal correlate of distress, and that interventions addressing occupational exhaustion and work-life interference merit exploration and evaluation. That points at the conditions of the work rather than at screening or individual resilience.
Attorney Wellness Project works with firms, courts and bar associations on the occupational cost of legal practice. CLE accredited per engagement and jurisdiction, certification, coaching and firm level engagements, delivered by people who have practiced.
Schedule a Consultation For Law Firms