Law.com's Minds Over Matters project is covering mental health problems in the legal profession—and what law firms and law schools are doing to help address the challenges. In working on our yearlong project that started in May, I've come to believe this: The basic foundation for healthier, happier lawyers comes from supporting each other as law students.

As a law student, I was extraordinarily average.

Like most of my classmates when I started law school, I'd been a good student growing up, done well as an undergraduate and had built an identity around being a smart kid. I worked hard, was rewarded for it and got a lot of confidence from it.

And then I went to law school.

Why? I liked reading and writing. Plus, a law degree would take only three years, and it seemed like the best way to get the farthest ahead in the least amount of time. I was living off a school teacher's salary, when the smallest surprise expense, like a new car muffler, threatened financial ruin. The public service aspect of practicing law also was attractive.

I taught English before I went to law school, so I was about six years older than my 1L classmates at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and I remember thinking at orientation how I was going to blow these kids out of the water academically. It really wasn't even a consideration that I wouldn't be, if not at the top of my class, at least in the top 10%.

I recall on the first day of school I saw a young woman who, to me, looked like a cowgirl just off a Greyhound bus from Antlers, Oklahoma. (There really is such a place.) That woman eventually graduated first in our class and landed a job at what's now Norton Rose Fulbright.

I had a lot to learn.

As a student first semester, I had an attitude. I had no patience for the gunners or for people who asked too many questions in class. I felt smug when other students didn't know answers when called on, especially if I did. I had disdain for the ill-prepared and disregard for others who seemed to be struggling.

Why? Fear. The gravitas of law school, the reading, the preparation, the Socratic Method, the concepts, the expectations, the finals, memos, study groups, outlines. It was all new—no one except a great-uncle, whom I didn't know, had been a lawyer in my family—and law school was a Big. Damn. Deal.

Somehow, in my mind, I was doing better if I perceived a classmate doing worse. Also mixed in there was the idea that practicing law is competitive, so I figured I'd better start competing while I was in school. And even after I'd gotten my grades first semester—which were a big disappointment—I continued to harbor an every-man-for-himself attitude. And I'm certain I wasn't alone.

Looking back (and given what I know now about the mental health struggles in the profession), I wish I'd been far more supportive of my classmates and tried to promote a feeling that we were all in it together. I wish I had given a kind word after class to the guy who flubbed a cold call in Property or congratulated a classmate for a really smart answer in Contracts.

In hindsight, I would have cut my friend some slack when she was late to a study session. I would have shown compassion for the classmate who had to retake Torts over the summer, instead of thinking "better her than me!" I would have told myself that it was OK for my voice to shake when I got called on in Con Law.

The truth is, being competitive and cutthroat with my classmates did not raise me one single spot on the damn class ranking, and I would hazard to say that it never has for anyone.

As one of the editors on Law.com's Minds Over Matters project, I've learned that the efforts some firms and schools are undertaking to tackle the mental health problems in the legal profession are commendable. But until we stop perceiving each other as a threat, the profession will continue to suffer from anxiety, depression and substance abuse at rates higher than other similar occupations.

One more thing about those grades. As I mentioned, they were a letdown. Turns out, I didn't have the kind of brain that does really well in law school. I like to write and paint and play music—none of the skills that typically leads to high LSAT scores and top law school grades. I've come to realize that it's OK. I like my brain just fine.

At the time, however, I was devastated that I wasn't performing like I wanted to. I was defining myself by those grades, and it was really uncomfortable.

But something clicked my second year. I decided, really out of necessity since I'd tried just about everything else to boost my average, that you know what? I was just going to do the best I could and leave it at that. The worst thing that could happen was that I'd flunk out, and if that happened, I'd have to accept that law school was not where I needed to be.

I wasn't giving up—I still studied a ton and did everything I was supposed to do, but I let go of results. I also started including in my life more things that I was good at. I started painting more, which gave me a feeling of success that I wasn't getting from law school. It also gave me some perspective—life beyond law school and all of that. It helped.

I made many As and some Bs the rest of my time in law school. I'm not saying that I found a magic formula, but I do think that taking some of the pressure off myself and taking my career path a little less seriously made all the difference. I had to trust that I'd be OK no matter what happened. And I was.

Read more – Minds Over Matters: An Examination of Mental Health in the Legal Profession