Drugs, alcohol, gambling - in law school?

Law students across the country are turning heads for an allegedly widespread dependency on alcohol and drugs.

According to the Association of American Law Schools, high-stress, cutthroat competition and heavy workloads are leading law students to engage in heavy alcohol and drug use, participate in Internet gambling and suffer from clinical depression.

The AALS - a Washington D.C.-based organization that works on improving law-school education and culture - hosted a panel of law professors last week to examine the increasing number of stress-related risks facing law students today.

And the AALS isn't the only one addressing these concerns.

Organizations like Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers - which also sent representatives to the panel - have been created to deal specifically with mental-health and addiction problems that they say law students often face.

This "is always a problem that's been there, but it's becoming more acceptable to talk about it," said Cindy Galliher, executive deputy director of the LCL's Pennsylvania chapter.

But faculty and students at Penn Law School - a member of the AALS - say the panel is blowing a so-called issue out of proportion.

Penn Law professor Stephen Morse said most students' problems with alcohol or drugs stem from previous problems and are not directly caused by the stresses of law school.

"Are law schools full of problem drinkers? No," Morse said.

Quantitative data to support the panel's claim is currently unavailable. The last AALS substance-abuse study was conducted in 1993.

Morse noted that the absence of any recent statistics furthers his point that the AALS findings may not be so credible.

And students at Penn Law are echoing these sentiments, saying that most students are able to keep their problems in perspective.

"Most of us realize we don't have to be on Law Review or make top 10 percent of the class to get a job after graduation," third-year law student Jae Ahn said.

Others pointed out that Penn Law students are typically more relaxed than their peers at other institutions because of the reputation of Penn Law. The school is ranked by U.S. News and World Report as the seventh-best law school in the country.

First-year law student Noam Besdin said this reputation reassures Penn Law students when they are seeking professional jobs.

Besdin added that, while students at Penn Law do experience stress, it is minimal and doesn't lead to the drinking problems mentioned in the AALS' panel.

Similarly, William Alexander, deputy director of Counseling and Psychological Services, said the number of law students who come to CAPS with drinking problems is not higher than the number of students coming from other graduate schools.

And if a student at Penn Law runs into stress-related trouble, administrators say there are ways to address the problems before they get out of hand.

Gary Clinton - Penn Law's dean of student affairs - often meets with concerned students and refers them to the proper source.

Clinton said he has not noticed an unusual number of people with alcohol or drug related problems.

"I don't think law school is any different from anywhere else," he said.

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