Today’s Law.com site features an article from the Texas Lawyer Assistance Program Director Ann Foster, addressing a recent suicide by a lawyer there. In “How to Help Colleagues in Crisis” Director Foster notes, “[a]ccording to a 2009 National Institute of Mental Health fact sheet, death by suicide is reported at the approximate rate of 11 deaths per 100,000 people per year in the United States. . . Other studies discussed in “Preventing Suicide: A Challenge to the Legal Profession” in the October/November 2008 issue of the American Bar Association’s GPSolo magazine suggest that the number of lawyers who die by suicide each year may actually be six times greater than the national average.”
New York State, conservatively, has 150,000 lawyers practicing (with about 200,000 licensed to practice here, including non-resident lawyers). Whether one may extrapolate the 11 deaths per 100,000 people to predict approximately 15 lawyers in New York may commit suicide in a given year, I am unsure. But lawyer suicide happens.
At a New York State Lawyer Assistance Program volunteer training event last year, the Broome County Bar Association’s Director delivered heartfelt remarks about the aftermath of a lawyers suicide there, particularly the distress felt by colleagues who had not recognized the signs of the tragedy-t0-come, or were ill-equipped to address the problem.
On March 10, the NYSBA LAP will be sponsoring another continuing legal educational program, including information on suicide prevention [among other topics], at the Queens County Bar Association. NYSBA LAP Director Patricia Spataro is a “QPR” [question, persuade, refer] Suicide Presention Trainer, who will address this important topic.
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