Kathleen T. Pearson, chief human resources officer with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. (Courtesy photo.)

News Flash—The legal profession is facing a crisis in mental health.

The numbers are staggering when compared to other industries and professions. Lawyers are 3.6 times more likely to experience a major depressive episode compared to the general population, according to the 2015 joint survey conducted by the American Bar Association and Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Remarkably, 45% of all lawyers have suffered from depression and 61% reported concerns about anxiety. Even more alarming, a whopping 11% reported suicidal thoughts at some point in their careers. By contrast, only 4% of the general population have had these thoughts. Thirty-two percent of lawyers under 30 are already problem drinkers.

As human professionals and as human beings in a human industry, we now must ask ourselves, "What are we going to do about this pervasive problem?"

Admittedly, we've been talking about it for years. That's a good first step as we strive to overcome the traditional stigmas attached to mental health care. Most firms have well-established employee assistance programs, or EAPs, that provide mental health services. Most large firm health plans also offer a range of inpatient and outpatient services.

So, is this working?

Last year, Pillsbury's Health & Wellness team circulated a confidential engagement survey of our lawyers and staff to find out. We learned that far and away the number-one issue reported was stress. Clearly, our traditional offerings were not meeting the needs of our people.

Traditional EAPs work well for some situations, but we have very low utilization among our population for stress and mental wellbeing. Perhaps because it is hard to get services, especially for acute situations that need immediate assistance. Many providers were not taking new patients and those that did accept patients often had long waiting lists for appointments—sometimes several weeks out. To make matters worse, not all those providers ultimately matched the needs of their patients.

Fortunately, the health care market is responding. Today, several digital companies can provide patients with the names of available and personalized service providers with as few as three clicks of the mouse.

This January, Pillsbury became the first AmLaw 100 firm to launch a partnership with one of these digital health care providers. Our goal was to find a solution that would meet our population where they were at the exact time they needed care the most.

This unique program provides our entire population and their dependents 16 therapy sessions a year, at no cost, with appointments guaranteed within eight days or less—often much less. The program is completely confidential and outside of Pillsbury's traditional EAP or its health care providers. It provides what is called short-term, evidence-based therapy to help participants reach their goals quickly. Specialized therapists or coaches are paired with participants to fit their specific needs in any number of areas including stress, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, sleep disorders, substance abuse and other common issues. This program offers short-term solutions with "proven outcomes" and individuals can choose to meet in-person or virtually to ensure easy, seamless access.

Personally, I'm excited that Pillsbury is stepping out and doing something proactive. I'm also pleased to report that the program already seems to be resonating with our employees and partners.

Just three weeks after launching our new program, we have had a tremendous response with a significant number of sign-ups. In that short time, I have received emails from colleagues saying, "You literally just saved my life." That's amazing and heartening to hear. We are planning more robust internal communications on the program in the near future.

Of course, this new digital service is just one part of our multi-pronged approach. We're providing in-person and virtual meditation sessions once a week. We're talking about mindfulness, better interpersonal communications, stress management and creating boundaries. We're talking to our partners about how to better collaborate with our attorneys and staff. All of these efforts, just like all of our benefits, are provided to our entire population as we regard these as "human" issues that affect us all, regardless of role. And these messages are coming from the top, too. It's telling that our firm Chair David Dekker mentions mental wellness in each of his firmwide addresses. That's because the firm's leadership recognizes that we're a people profession first and foremost. If we don't take care of our people, we will cease to exist.

These approaches won't work at all firms and we're still in the initial stages here at Pillsbury but, hopefully, we can get closer to ending the stigma surrounding mental health care in the workplace and finding some creative solutions. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to each other.

Kathleen Pearson is the chief human resources officer at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.