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.