Marion Hack and Wendy Venoit were quoted in a Third Thursday article discussing whether the level of awareness of mental health has increased in the construction industry. “It seems that awareness of mental health issues is better understood by the public as a whole, but unfortunately, it’s still not adequately addressed in the legal industry,” said Marion. “However, to be good practitioners, we have to be good to ourselves, or we cannot hold and handle our clients’ problems effectively.” She added, “Thus, as leaders of our groups, we need to be on the lookout for signs that colleagues are having issues and then address those with empathy and an eye towards solving the whole problem as opposed to just the symptoms.”

Wendy agreed that while mental health is a recurring topic that all people seem to agree is important, it is not widely discussed at industry events or amongst peers. She also commented on the impact of COVID on the construction industry and construction lawyers' mental health. “Many construction lawyers would say that they were never busier than during the COVID shutdown period. That, coupled with the forced isolation of COVID, was mentally detrimental to many, and it is not clear that they have fully recovered from its effects,” said Wendy. “On the positive side, the stigma of mental health issues seems to have decreased with greater acceptance overall, particularly if the impacted individual seemed fairly well-adjusted prior to being impacted by mental health issues.”

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