Law students, lawyers need mental health courses to deal with tough study and work conditions – Clinical psychologist

A legal practitioner and Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Charlotte Kwakye-Nuako has also reiterated the need to introduce Psychology and Mental health courses in law schools across the country.

She noted that this is necessary to ensure that law students and legal practitioners are able to perform their roles to the best of their ability.

Speaking exclusively to Dennislaw News, Dr. Kwakye-Nuako observed that law students in Ghana and across the world are usually forced to confront stressful and highly competitive environments. The intensity of the study structures and demand to constantly stay at the top is the cause of stark increases in the anxiety levels of the students.

“All students all over the world have issues but studying the law comes with an additional burden. The volume of information that has to be given, the restrictive amount of time that is given to study that volume of information as well as the challenges with the lecturers and other things compounds the problems of most students and without the required resilience, most of them are unable to complete their program, neither are they able to cope with the challenge.”

Additionally, the process of transitioning to become lawyers is understood to be an extra cause of the depression that law students face every year. The rigor and increasing fail-rates of law students sitting for the Ghana Law School entrance exams is a reality that law students are forced to confront constantly.

Dr. Kwakye-Nuako further observed that the dynamism of the law means that new laws are constantly emerging and with it, a demand for lawyers and law students to be constantly updated on those.

“Everyday, new laws are coming out that needs to be understood, studied and assimilated. All these combine to make the study of law very challenging”

She added that the realities of mental health challenges do not stop even when law students finally complete the process of being called to the bar. According to her, societal expectations that lawyers ought to be among the highest earners in the country is not usually the case. This has the potential of causing some lawyers to descend into depression and become alcoholics.

“After going through all these, after all these years, and spending money in the law school, you come out and there is a huge disillusion. A lot of lawyers are not paid the right amount of money. The expectation from the society is quite huge and so it is imperative that they also learn how to manage these expectations so they can deal with them.”

“Once you get out of law school, there are also other challenges. You are facing all the challenges of being a lawyer with family challenges and the huge expectation from society that all of a sudden, because you are a lawyer, you should be rich. All these bring about a lot of pressure and if you don’t take care, you are going to be depressed and you are going to start drinking. In fact, in other countries, it’s been found that lawyers drink a lot and a lot of them have become addicted to various substances because they are in a business that requires quick responses that they cannot cope with,” Madam Nuako bemoaned.

Without Mental Health, Lawyers cannot provide any service

Dr. Kwakye-Nuako told Dennislaw News that complete health and well-being of individuals necessarily includes mental health stability.

She noted that the absence of this completeness makes it difficult for all persons, including lawyers, to perform their roles to satisfaction.

“Health includes mental health. Additionally, as lawyers, if we do not have optimum mental health, we cannot provide any creditable service to anyone who comes to us. Any professional who is not in the right frame of mind cannot provide any services to anyone or client,” she observed.

She added that irrespective of these situations, there are no existing avenues to confront mental health issues within lawyers and law students.

“It is important that lawyers in training know how to take care of their mental health. They must know what the challenges that confront them are, and how to deal with these challenges, how to build resilience in the world of work when they start work.”

“A Step in the right direction”

In order to help law students and lawyers manage these various issues and expectations, Dr. Kwakye-Nuako has insisted that offering such mental health classes as mandatory courses will provide room for building the abilities of these law students and lawyers who have to confront such issues every day.

“So I believe it is a call in the right direction. I believe there has to be [seminars] on mental health, so we can cope with the various issues that come our way, how to deal with them, prepare ourselves mentally for the world of work”.

Covid-19 Effects

Following the global hit to businesses as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Kwakye-Nuako observed that the opportunities for lawyers to interact with their clients has significantly dwindled.

She indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a barrier between lawyers and their clients, consequently dwindling the prospects for their business to thrive.

“Most lawyers only get money once they interact with their clients. COVID has come as some sort of barrier between such lawyers and their clients. However, most businesses are going down and so clients are unable to pay.

“With the huge expectation from society, it becomes a huge challenge for lawyers,” she observed. Altogether, this could create distressing situations for lawyers and affect their mental health.

Care for Clients

In response to debates on whether lawyers should attach personal emotions to the cases they handle, Dr. Kwakye-Nuako noted that there are some instances in which the case will require a lawyer to be empathetic to the client, consequently requiring him or her to invest emotions in the case.

She however cautioned that in a lot of these instances, the financial rewards are not as much as the lawyer would have desired. As a result, when the case does not turn out in the way the lawyer hoped for, it can be mentally draining and injurious to their psychology.

“There are some cases, like the human interests cases, where without the passion, people will not go into them. Like those who work with the Domestic Violence and some criminal defendants. Most of them go with the passion because the returns are very low. But, that has also been found to lead to a lot of burnouts. Psychologically, you invest a lot into these and the case may not go the way you expected. This leads to a huge downturn.”

She has accordingly charged the Ghana Bar Association to include mental health clinics during the Annual Ghana Bar conferences held in the country, to help lawyers navigate through these varying issues.

Dr. Kwakye-Nuako has consequently urged lawyers and law students to seek professional assistance from the Ghana Psychological Association. Individuals may contact her via ckwakyenuako@gmail.com for such assistance as well.