The toxic brew of increasingly long hours and high stress should be prompting more conversations in the workplace about mental illness. A 2016 study by the American Bar Association found that, within our own profession, 28 percent of lawyers struggle with depression. Sadly, it is the recent high profile suicides of public figures, including Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, which have catapulted this topic to a more prominent position in discussions of employee wellness and corporate culture.

Tragically, as in those cases, a person suffering from depression sometimes will fail to share his/her problems with others. In other cases, however, people suffering from depression do seek help. And in a subset of those cases, they will tell their employer in order to receive a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Employers, therefore, must be educated on this topic and prepared to appropriately accommodate their employees suffering from depression in order to meet their obligations under the ADA.

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