Harnessing the law curriculum to promote law student well-being, particularly in the first year of legal education

The study of law can have serious effects on the psychological health of law students. Scholarship in the US has long-established that the psychological well-being of law students is a concern. We now know (and the chapter of this work affirm) that concern is also justified in Australia. It is well recognized that the 2009 Report of the Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) of the University of Sydney was one of the first projects to provide rigorous psychological distress. the BMRI found that more than one-third (35 per cent) of law students suffer high to very high levels of psychological distress. At the time of the release of the report, these levels of psychological distress were 17 per cent higher than those recorded for medical students, and more than 20 per cent higher than those found in the general population.