For Mental Health Awareness Week, Legal Week has invited law firm partners to talk about how mental health issues have impacted their careers and the coping strategies they have adopted. Here, Linklaters partner Jonathan de Lance-Holmes discusses his stress-related breakdown

In about 1995, I had a classic stress-related breakdown. I collapsed in the Moscow office and was medivacked out of Russia. I thought I was having a heart attack – it was a classic example of not recognising what the symptoms might be of a developing crisis, not helped by genuinely well-meaning people not realising what to look for and therefore accidentally making things worse.

Attitudes at the time were the dark ages, which didn't help. The experience set me back in my career fairly significantly and put me in a bad place for some years, but with some sympathetic co-workers, I was given the space to get my act together and get my career sorted again.

I've been a partner for 17 years now, doing a pretty stressful job on a daily basis and I've been able to cope.

Back then, even when it was obvious you had mental health issues it wasn't something you talked about

Back then, even when it was obvious you had mental health issues it wasn't something you talked about. But a few years ago, I heard of the City Mental Health Alliance and I decided it was time to start telling my story – I now talk openly to everyone at Linklaters, to other firms and to companies and clients.

While it was nerve-wracking to start with, having a lawyer describe what happened to them can resonate much more with other lawyers.

When my crisis happened I was eight years' qualified, and I'd been sent to Moscow on a Heathrow election – to be made up to partner and head the office. Moscow then was a pretty difficult, crazy place. It was certainly not stress-free, living out of a hotel for months, encountering all sorts of criminal activities and chaos. There was often an element of corruption on deals and this was part of what tipped me over the edge – discovering corruption on a big deal and realising it had to be urgently restructured.

I had already developed some over-the-top stress reactions, my judgement wasn't great – overcautious on some calls, under on others – I wasn't sleeping properly, I was very, very tired, and I was on edge. I had a whole bunch of physiological symptoms that I just didn't realise were classing signs of heading over the stress hill.

I thought I was having a heart attack and so did everyone around me

Then one day I was talking to the team when I had what I now know was a panic attack. I suddenly had massive chest pains, my vision went and I was on the floor unable to move. I thought I was having a heart attack and so did everyone around me. They were all telling me to breathe deeply, but actually that's the worst thing you can do for a panic attack. I was rushed to a medical centre and they told me I had to leave Russia.

For me, one of the worst things about it was that fear that I'd blown it, and it's important to show that this isn't the case, in order to create a culture where people feel comfortable talking about it. To have someone – another lawyer – who did 'blow it', stand up and say they've been an equity partner for 16 years, doing significant deals, shows there's a way back – that it isn't the end of the road.

It also helps that management culture and attitudes have changed. It wasn't that management wasn't compassionate before, it was more than they didn't want to give you anything stressful. They offered to manage me out into a lower-stress environment and I didn't want that. I wanted to be able to do the challenging work and perform highly but in a way that didn't send me over the edge.

It took me several years to get back to where I wanted to be. I had been a national partner in Moscow but after coming back to London, I made salaried partner in 2001 and equity in 2002.

I was lucky to have some very helpful bosses who worked with me to bring me back into the practice and gave me the space to evolve. Once it was clear that I didn't want to be managed out, my group and department stuck by me, the senior partner and the firm stuck by me.

I remain more susceptible to stress, anxiety and depression than I was before but now I can also spot the symptoms earlier and know what works for me in combatting them, which is trying to ensure that I have control as well as the right attitude.

Overall, I think there's now a much greater appreciation of the human side. The expertise of your people is what law firms sell, after all.

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