Ex-Reed Smith Partner's Suicide Trial Highlights Anxiety in Big Law Mergers

Big Law Mergers

In a rare view into the human toll that some therapists believe Big Law mergers can have, Dolin's therapist, Sydney Reed, testified that her former client was worried that his Loyola University Chicago School of Law degree was inadequate at a firm now full of graduates from Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale.

Dolin told Reed that he feared his Midwest practice wouldn't translate to the international stage, she said on the stand. He also told her he felt “incompetent.” Dolin would not discuss any of these anxieties with his colleagues, she said.

“He was unwilling to use the concept of anxiety in terms of talking with people about the merger,” Reed said in a video deposition. “That just wasn't professional behavior in a law firm.”

GSK's lawyers at King & Spalding and Dentons argue that these workplace stresses led to Dolin's suicide. Dolin's lawyers at Los Angeles' Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman and Chicago's Rapoport Law Offices claim he had overcome such workplace stresses in the past. They say the difference, in June 2010, was Dolin's generic Paxil prescription.

Three therapists who specialize in treating lawyers recently told The American Lawyer that the nervous feelings expressed by Dolin are common among their Am Law 100 clients, especially after mergers, when a lawyer's hard-earned role in a firm can feel freshly up for grabs. For high-achieving personality types driven to Big Law, the therapists said a renewed sense of competition can shake their clients' confidence and leave them with fears of being discovered as a “fraud,” something similar to the concerns that Dolin's therapist described in courtroom testimony.

Talking about such feelings can be one of the best treatments for anxiety and depression, therapists said. But they noted that conversations around mental health are still seen as a career risk in the competitive and emotionally closed-off culture of Big Law. Other companies, such as global accounting firm KPMG LLP and food industry giant Unilever plc, have programs that encourage employees to discuss their mental health with managers.

Therapists said those programs mostly do not exist in Big Law, despite lawyers experiencing persistently higher rates of depression and suicide than the general population.

“There is a sort of overall prohibition at large U.S. firms of bringing people's personal lives into the workplace,” said clinical psychologist N. Robert Riordan, a former lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills who now treats some members of his former profession. “That was my experience working in large U.S. firms, and there really isn't a system in place to be seeking some kind of emotional reassurance.”

Dolin's therapist testified that she often attempted to reassure him of his place at Reed Smith. When Dolin said his regional practice would be tossed aside by an international firm, Reed told him there must be a reason why a global firm like Reed Smith wanted to merge with his Midwestern firm.

When he expressed fears of losing his ability to provide for his family and becoming a “bag lady,” Reed said she reminded Dolin that he billed $4 million in work the previous year. And she doubted his concern that he was the lone partner to feel anxious about the merger.

“The facts in terms of his professional performance had to be pulled out of him when he felt he wouldn't make it at this international law firm,” said Reed, who described Dolin's negative thinking as out of touch with the reality he faced at Reed Smith. “The other part would be I'd ask him, 'Do you think there's anxiety in other partners?' He'd be surprised by that question.”

Depression

As a group, 28% of lawyers struggle with some level of depression, said a study last year co-founded by the American Bar Association. That's compared with less than 8% for the general population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Meanwhile, the CDC said in a 2012 analysis that the legal industry had the 11th-highest incidence of suicide among occupations, with 18.8 people out of 100,000 taking their lives, compared with 16.1 nationally.

Even so, as law firm mergers have been occurring at a historic pace over the past four years, there are no indications that an increased number of Big Law partners are committing suicide.

Kent Zimmermann, a consultant who advises on law firm combinations for The Zeughauser Group, said a part of typical merger discussions involves partners leaving a firm. That can be the result of an increased pressure to meet a larger firm's billable hour requirements or profitability standards.

“Some of that pressure can increase in the context of uncertainty like a merger, particularly for marginal and underperforming lawyers,” Zimmermann said.

Still, he said a lawyer like Dolin who billed $4 million would have had plenty of options to continue successfully practicing law and making a healthy living. (Dolin typically earned more than $1 million, according to courtroom testimony in the suit against GSK.)

“What I have a hard time with, though, is a guy bringing in $4 million a year with a higher-rate practice being driven over the edge by a merger,” Zimmermann said. “That doesn't add up. He could have done well in any number of firms if he didn't want to be in that one. Even today, if there was a $4 million partner in a leadership role who didn't like the direction his firm was going, he'd have many options to make a lot of money.”

'Toxic Shame'

Alan Levin practiced law in Chicago for 30 years and is now a psychotherapist who treats lawyers. He said many of his current clients have feelings of inadequacy like Dolin's, which Levin called “toxic shame.” It's a feeling that lawyers can be especially susceptible to when their identity is wrapped up in their work as a lawyer, Levin said.

“Shame is the feeling that 'I am bad,'” Levin added. “It's about the self. So if my self is, “I'm a lawyer,” and the truth that I feel I know — but I'm afraid others might find out — is that I'm not good enough at being a lawyer, it becomes toxic shame.”

Riordan said those feelings of inadequacy and fraudulence can arise in lawyers whose self-worth is derived from their lawyering.

“Because their self-esteem is anchored to something outside of themselves, they feel terrific when they get a gold star,” Riordan said. “But the next day when they don't get a gold star, they feel like shit.”

While mental health is a difficult subject to broach in most work environments, therapists who specialize in treating lawyers note that the competitive culture at Big Law firms makes partners and associates especially loath to express anxiety about their abilities among colleagues.

KPMG promoted a day of discussion on mental health issues among its employees in January as part of a broader initiative to get them to open up about depression or other ailments. Unilever has won awards for its ” Lamplighter” program that gives employees access to mental health counselors and encourages more open communication among its staff.

“ From a mental health perspective, that is a phenomenal initiative,” Riordan said of those programs. “It is just not something that we see as a trend in law firms.”

In the absence of open dialogue within law firms, Levin is building in Chicago a group therapy session for high-powered lawyers. The group, which consists of clients he also sees individually, first met in January and has three members. He wants to grow the group to eight and then start more.

“Just think for a minute what it would be like to sit with a group of lawyers [and] be able to share the fear that, boy, you know, I'm feeling like I'm only as good enough as the last time I screwed up,” Levin said. “Or I'm only as good as getting it right yesterday. I'm in constant terror of malpractice.”

Levin, a former senior partner at Chicago's Laner Muchin whose current practice has offices in the Windy City and nearby Evanston, IL, hears expressions of those feelings often.

“I work with that kind of stuff all the time. And it's common,” he said. “And it's so remarkable to see what it's like when lawyers can actually talk to each other and find out, 'Oh, you feel that way, too? What a relief.'”

Transition periods spurred on by a merger or promotion from associate to partner often result in piqued levels of lawyer stress, said therapists.

Dolin's widow testified that her husband felt increased pressures during two mergers: first when he was at a smaller firm that joined Sachnoff & Weaver, and then when the latter was absorbed into Reed Smith. When Dolin first began therapy in 2007, Reed noted that the “presenting problem” he offered was stress related from his firm's combination with Reed Smith.

“It does leave a lot of people with a lot of anxiety,” said Wil Meyerhofer, a former associate at Sullivan & Cromwell who is now a psychotherapist in New York treating other lawyers. “Formerly secure leadership positions in what seemed to be stable entities are now unstable. It's a little dislocating to lawyers.”

Meyerhofer said he hears about situations like Dolin's all the time.

“In the old days, when things seemed much more predictable, you worked your way up and made partner,” Meyerhofer said. “It seems every year the business gets more unpredictable and more about money.”

Conclusion

Therapists like Meyerhofer stressed that the most important message for lawyers who feel isolated in their anxiety is that they are not alone. That's something Dolin's therapist, Reed, emphasized with him. During his treatment in 2007, at the height of Sachnoff & Weaver's merger discussions, Reed testified that Dolin ran into another lawyer from Reed Smith on Chicago's “L” train.

“My God, it's a zoo down there,” Reed said the other lawyer told Dolin.

“See, I told you they'd be anxious,” Reed said to Dolin. “Everybody's anxious in a transition.”

*****
Roy Strom is based in Chicago, where he writes about the business of law and the changing nature of law firm client relationships. He can be reached at [email protected]. On Twitter: @RoyWStrom. This article also appeared in The American Lawyer, an ALM sibling publication.

Just weeks before Stewart Dolin committed suicide in 2010, he told his therapist he still felt anxious about his position at Reed Smith, the global firm he had joined as a result of its 2007 merger with his former home, 140-lawyer Chicago firm Sachnoff & Weaver.

To the outside world, Dolin's position may have seemed secure. A former management committee member at Sachnoff & Weaver, the 57-year-old had been chosen to lead Reed Smith's corporate and securities practice. But his therapist testified recently in a Chicago trial over Dolin's suicide that the 2007 merger left him for years racked with anxiety and self-doubt.

Dolin's widow is suing Glaxo SmithKline plc, alleging that a generic version of the pharmaceutical giant's antidepressant Paxil is to blame for her husband's death. Wendy Dolin, herself a therapist, is seeking $12 million. GSK claims that law firm stress and a history of anxiety led to her husband's suicide.

Big Law Mergers

In a rare view into the human toll that some therapists believe Big Law mergers can have, Dolin's therapist, Sydney Reed, testified that her former client was worried that his Loyola University Chicago School of Law degree was inadequate at a firm now full of graduates from Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale.

Dolin told Reed that he feared his Midwest practice wouldn't translate to the international stage, she said on the stand. He also told her he felt “incompetent.” Dolin would not discuss any of these anxieties with his colleagues, she said.

“He was unwilling to use the concept of anxiety in terms of talking with people about the merger,” Reed said in a video deposition. “That just wasn't professional behavior in a law firm.”

GSK's lawyers at King & Spalding and Dentons argue that these workplace stresses led to Dolin's suicide. Dolin's lawyers at Los Angeles' Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman and Chicago's Rapoport Law Offices claim he had overcome such workplace stresses in the past. They say the difference, in June 2010, was Dolin's generic Paxil prescription.

Three therapists who specialize in treating lawyers recently told The American Lawyer that the nervous feelings expressed by Dolin are common among their Am Law 100 clients, especially after mergers, when a lawyer's hard-earned role in a firm can feel freshly up for grabs. For high-achieving personality types driven to Big Law, the therapists said a renewed sense of competition can shake their clients' confidence and leave them with fears of being discovered as a “fraud,” something similar to the concerns that Dolin's therapist described in courtroom testimony.

Talking about such feelings can be one of the best treatments for anxiety and depression, therapists said. But they noted that conversations around mental health are still seen as a career risk in the competitive and emotionally closed-off culture of Big Law. Other companies, such as global accounting firm KPMG LLP and food industry giant Unilever plc, have programs that encourage employees to discuss their mental health with managers.

Therapists said those programs mostly do not exist in Big Law, despite lawyers experiencing persistently higher rates of depression and suicide than the general population.

“There is a sort of overall prohibition at large U.S. firms of bringing people's personal lives into the workplace,” said clinical psychologist N. Robert Riordan, a former lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills who now treats some members of his former profession. “That was my experience working in large U.S. firms, and there really isn't a system in place to be seeking some kind of emotional reassurance.”

Dolin's therapist testified that she often attempted to reassure him of his place at Reed Smith. When Dolin said his regional practice would be tossed aside by an international firm, Reed told him there must be a reason why a global firm like Reed Smith wanted to merge with his Midwestern firm.

When he expressed fears of losing his ability to provide for his family and becoming a “bag lady,” Reed said she reminded Dolin that he billed $4 million in work the previous year. And she doubted his concern that he was the lone partner to feel anxious about the merger.

“The facts in terms of his professional performance had to be pulled out of him when he felt he wouldn't make it at this international law firm,” said Reed, who described Dolin's negative thinking as out of touch with the reality he faced at Reed Smith. “The other part would be I'd ask him, 'Do you think there's anxiety in other partners?' He'd be surprised by that question.”

Depression

As a group, 28% of lawyers struggle with some level of depression, said a study last year co-founded by the American Bar Association. That's compared with less than 8% for the general population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Meanwhile, the CDC said in a 2012 analysis that the legal industry had the 11th-highest incidence of suicide among occupations, with 18.8 people out of 100,000 taking their lives, compared with 16.1 nationally.

Even so, as law firm mergers have been occurring at a historic pace over the past four years, there are no indications that an increased number of Big Law partners are committing suicide.

Kent Zimmermann, a consultant who advises on law firm combinations for The Zeughauser Group, said a part of typical merger discussions involves partners leaving a firm. That can be the result of an increased pressure to meet a larger firm's billable hour requirements or profitability standards.

“Some of that pressure can increase in the context of uncertainty like a merger, particularly for marginal and underperforming lawyers,” Zimmermann said.

Still, he said a lawyer like Dolin who billed $4 million would have had plenty of options to continue successfully practicing law and making a healthy living. (Dolin typically earned more than $1 million, according to courtroom testimony in the suit against GSK.)

“What I have a hard time with, though, is a guy bringing in $4 million a year with a higher-rate practice being driven over the edge by a merger,” Zimmermann said. “That doesn't add up. He could have done well in any number of firms if he didn't want to be in that one. Even today, if there was a $4 million partner in a leadership role who didn't like the direction his firm was going, he'd have many options to make a lot of money.”

'Toxic Shame'

Alan Levin practiced law in Chicago for 30 years and is now a psychotherapist who treats lawyers. He said many of his current clients have feelings of inadequacy like Dolin's, which Levin called “toxic shame.” It's a feeling that lawyers can be especially susceptible to when their identity is wrapped up in their work as a lawyer, Levin said.

“Shame is the feeling that 'I am bad,'” Levin added. “It's about the self. So if my self is, “I'm a lawyer,” and the truth that I feel I know — but I'm afraid others might find out — is that I'm not good enough at being a lawyer, it becomes toxic shame.”

Riordan said those feelings of inadequacy and fraudulence can arise in lawyers whose self-worth is derived from their lawyering.

“Because their self-esteem is anchored to something outside of themselves, they feel terrific when they get a gold star,” Riordan said. “But the next day when they don't get a gold star, they feel like shit.”

While mental health is a difficult subject to broach in most work environments, therapists who specialize in treating lawyers note that the competitive culture at Big Law firms makes partners and associates especially loath to express anxiety about their abilities among colleagues.

KPMG promoted a day of discussion on mental health issues among its employees in January as part of a broader initiative to get them to open up about depression or other ailments. Unilever has won awards for its ” Lamplighter” program that gives employees access to mental health counselors and encourages more open communication among its staff.

“ From a mental health perspective, that is a phenomenal initiative,” Riordan said of those programs. “It is just not something that we see as a trend in law firms.”

In the absence of open dialogue within law firms, Levin is building in Chicago a group therapy session for high-powered lawyers. The group, which consists of clients he also sees individually, first met in January and has three members. He wants to grow the group to eight and then start more.

“Just think for a minute what it would be like to sit with a group of lawyers [and] be able to share the fear that, boy, you know, I'm feeling like I'm only as good enough as the last time I screwed up,” Levin said. “Or I'm only as good as getting it right yesterday. I'm in constant terror of malpractice.”

Levin, a former senior partner at Chicago's Laner Muchin whose current practice has offices in the Windy City and nearby Evanston, IL, hears expressions of those feelings often.

“I work with that kind of stuff all the time. And it's common,” he said. “And it's so remarkable to see what it's like when lawyers can actually talk to each other and find out, 'Oh, you feel that way, too? What a relief.'”

Transition periods spurred on by a merger or promotion from associate to partner often result in piqued levels of lawyer stress, said therapists.

Dolin's widow testified that her husband felt increased pressures during two mergers: first when he was at a smaller firm that joined Sachnoff & Weaver, and then when the latter was absorbed into Reed Smith. When Dolin first began therapy in 2007, Reed noted that the “presenting problem” he offered was stress related from his firm's combination with Reed Smith.

“It does leave a lot of people with a lot of anxiety,” said Wil Meyerhofer, a former associate at Sullivan & Cromwell who is now a psychotherapist in New York treating other lawyers. “Formerly secure leadership positions in what seemed to be stable entities are now unstable. It's a little dislocating to lawyers.”

Meyerhofer said he hears about situations like Dolin's all the time.

“In the old days, when things seemed much more predictable, you worked your way up and made partner,” Meyerhofer said. “It seems every year the business gets more unpredictable and more about money.”

Conclusion

Therapists like Meyerhofer stressed that the most important message for lawyers who feel isolated in their anxiety is that they are not alone. That's something Dolin's therapist, Reed, emphasized with him. During his treatment in 2007, at the height of Sachnoff & Weaver's merger discussions, Reed testified that Dolin ran into another lawyer from Reed Smith on Chicago's “L” train.

“My God, it's a zoo down there,” Reed said the other lawyer told Dolin.

“See, I told you they'd be anxious,” Reed said to Dolin. “Everybody's anxious in a transition.”

*****
Roy Strom is based in Chicago, where he writes about the business of law and the changing nature of law firm client relationships. He can be reached at [email protected]. On Twitter: @RoyWStrom. This article also appeared in The American Lawyer, an ALM sibling publication.