The legal profession is notorious for the crushing toll it takes on its members. But what happens when lawyers are plucked from their home countries and sent abroad to work for extended periods of time?

The quick answer is that the expat life can exacerbate preexisting mental health issues or even give rise to new ones. But that doesn't mean lawyers should avoid opportunities to work abroad. They just need to be prepared for what lies ahead.

Take, for instance, the case of a U.S. lawyer who grappled with severe alcoholism and took a position in Hong Kong to “really kind of clear his reputation and start over in some sense,” Andy Benjamin, a clinical psychologist and lawyer in Seattle, says of one of his current clients, whom he describes as a “bright and gifted lawyer.”

The client, who has lived in Hong Kong for the past four years, had packed his bags in search of the “geographical cure,” Benjamin says. But the lawyer soon discovered that alcohol use was rampant among the expat community in Hong Kong and also among his Chinese clients—and he relapsed more than once, according to Benjamin, who has treated several other expat lawyers, including in-house counsel.

“There's a sense that it will break the pattern of tedium that exists here in this country,” Benjamin says of going overseas. “The half dozen people I've treated went abroad, in large part, for new experiences with new cultures and thought that would help find or renew a spark in life.”

Those are lofty expectations to cram into one's luggage. And when illusion dissolves in the face of reality it can be devastating.

“People often go to other countries with fantasies in mind: Everything's going to be beautiful in this certain way or cheaper or the people are going to be fully welcoming or whatever it is that they have in mind,” says David Oskandy, general counsel of Chicago-based information technology services company Avanade.

Having lived and worked in Mexico earlier in his career while serving as the GC in Latin America for Honeywell International Inc., Oskandy advises soon-to-be expat lawyers to “prepare yourself in advance for the fact that, just as at home, you're going to face disappointments. That's just life. Don't blame it on the country or yourself.”

'Life becomes much more difficult'

Of all the mental health traps awaiting lawyers who are headed to a foreign outpost, isolation is the most dangerous, especially for in-house counsel as they tend to be more insulated and have fewer colleagues in their legal departments than attorneys working at big firms, according to Benjamin.

“Being an expat serving as in-house counsel would actually put a lawyer at greater risk, because one of the big drivers for psychopathology for lawyers is increased isolation,” he adds. “At least in every instance that I've treated as an expat, that's been something that they've really had to work hard to offset—increased social isolation.”

Prue Vines, a professor at the faculty of law at Australia's University of New South Wales Sydney, says her overseas work experiences in Italy and Scotland taught her about an entirely new level of loneliness, one that stemmed not just from being cut away from her social circle but also from feeling disconnected from her self-concept.

While abroad, it occurred to her that her “sense of personal and professional identity is very language-based, and without my native language I become much less competent and, in my own eyes, much less interesting. That is, it affects my self-esteem if I am not careful in how I think about it.”

Vines adds that “the loneliness then is not just because of being away from family and friends; it is also about one's own sense of self which connects with other people and without the sense of competence life becomes much more difficult.”

For lawyers abroad, feelings of isolation and loneliness are “horrible signs,” says Benjamin.

“You need to come back to your values … through reflection and writing—as lawyers, we're really good at writing—not just thinking about it but actually writing about it, our values and which of our values are getting short shrifted.”

'People give you energy'

Navigating a world teeming with foreign languages, different foods, dissimilar cultural norms and a host of other changes can be stressful and exhausting. But it helps to embrace those differences.  

“Try to let go of your expectations. Don't compare it to home,” says Barrett Avigdor, a San Diego-based managing director at Major, Lindsey & Africa who specializes in in-house placements in Latin America and has lived and worked in Brazil and Mexico.

“Take every opportunity to learn because one of the beauties of working and living in a foreign country is that everything is a learning experience. Everything is new. Be open to that,” she says. “You're going to be tired every day. You're going to be exhausted. Understand that you're transitioning into a new culture and it's going to take a while.”

Oskandy recommends preparing for a stint abroad by reading the literature and listening to the music of your destination, which he says will “start to sensitize you, in a sort of an indirect way, to the ambiance of the country and open you up to it so when you get there you're more open to see things with full eyes.”

After arrival, it's important to maintain or develop healthy routines, which seems obvious but lawyers and mental health experts who were interviewed for this story all stressed the significance of healthy eating and regular exercise as a basis of good mental health.

Socialization also is key. Benjamin describes his lawyer clients as “communitarians” for whom it is “antithetical to remain isolated. It really drives the psychopathology because it is a violation of values that each of these people have.”

In other words, get out there and talk to someone. Make friends. Go to a meal with a colleague. Join a club or a recreational sports league. Find a teaching position. Or maybe just hop aboard a tour bus.

“Many professionals think they would rather die than be a 'tourist,' but this is an easy way to spend some time with other humans, even if they are not going to be your friends for life,” Vines says.

Avigdor echoes Vines, saying that “one of the ways you build resilience is through positive interactions with people. People give you energy. They give you optimism. People make you smile.”

She adds, “You're going to make mistakes. People are going to laugh at you sometimes because you said the opposite of what you thought you were saying. Laugh at yourself. People are going to be drawn to you and try to help you. And that's going to get you over those tough times.”

After spending some time adrift in Hong Kong, Benjamin's aforementioned client found a local Alcoholics Anonymous group. He regularly attends meetings, serves as a sponsor and has been sober for 18 months and counting.