Professor Brian Clarke of Charlotte School of Law is a survivor of depression and is telling his story in hope that he can help other people.

The ABA Journal reports.

‘You are not alone’: Law prof who considered suicide tells his story

Charlotte School of Law professor Brian Clarke has a message for lawyers and law students battling depression and anxiety: You are not alone.

Clarke talks about his own experience with severe clinical depression and offers some statistics in a series of Faculty Lounge blog posts here, here and here. He cites these statistics:

• In a 1997 study of term life insurance claims made in a Canadian bar insurance program, nearly 11 percent of the lawyer deaths were suicides. Suicides were the third leading cause of death for the period studied, from 1994 to 1996, and the lawyer suicide rate was nearly six times the suicide rate for the U.S. population in the United States and Canada.

• Almost 12 percent of the lawyers who responded to a quality of life survey by the North Carolina Bar Association in 1991 said they contemplated suicide at least once a month, and 26 percent had clinical depression.

• About 40 percent of law students studied by Dr. Andrew Benjamin were clinically depressed by graduation. Before law school, the students were no more depressed than the general population, where about 8 percent are depressed.

Clarke says practicing law can be difficult partly because of lawyer personalities (lawyers are perfectionist Type A’s), partly because the business side of law practice is a constant challenge, and partly because of the emotional toll of losing.