Anxiety and depression among law students: current knowledge and future directions

Abstract

Increased psychology-law collaboration has yielded great strides over the past 20 years. However, one area of research that remains overlooked involves the psychological well-being of law students. The purpose of this article is to review and evaluate the existing literature on anxiety and depression among law students. This literature suggests that self-reports of anxiety and depression are significantly higher among law students than among either the general population or medical students. Recommendations for advancing knowledge in this area include developing hypothesis-driven research, using measures that adequately discriminate between anxiety and depression, and testing alternative hypotheses regarding the origins of law student distress.