Lawyers are just as miserable as everyone else, but are considerably more likely to have a drinking problem

Lawyers are not any more miserable than people working in other professions, such as medicine or dentistry, according to new research from Yale University.

However, lawyers are significantly more likely to have a drinking problem.   

New research from Yale Law School found that lawyers are marginally less likely to suffer from a serious mental illness than other professionals, such as vets and doctors, and that they are seven times less likely to suffer from a serious mental health issue than the general population.

However, the same research found that lawyers are significantly more likely to have a problem with excessive drinking, than either the general population or other similarly educated professionals.

Lawyers are twice as likely to have a drinking problem than vets or dentists, and slightly more likely to drink excessively than the wider US population.

Moreover, problematic drinking among lawyers has gotten considerably worse over the past decade, with rates of problematic drinking having increased by more than 50 per cent since the mid-2000s.

The research found that younger lawyers were more than three times more likely to have a drinking problem than lawyers aged 40 and older.

At the same time, lawyers working in private sector law firms are 50 per cent more likely to have a drinking problem than in-house and public sector lawyers.

Lawyers working in the private sector were also slightly more likely to suffer from a moderate or serious mental health issue than in-house lawyers or lawyers working in the government.

Lawyers at larger law firms are also more likely to have a drinking problem than lawyers at small and mid-sized firms, while male lawyers are less likely to have problem with alcohol than female lawyers.