Ex-Reed Smith Partner's Suicide Trial Highlights Anxiety in Big Law Mergers
Before Stewart Dolin's suicide in 2010, he told his therapist he felt inadequate as a Reed Smith practice leader. It's a feeling therapists say that lawyers, as a group, often struggle with, especially following mergers. But Big Law has a zip-lipped culture when it comes to mental health concerns.
April 01, 2017 at 07:54 AM
41 minute read
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 this week 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 GlaxoSmithKline 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.
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