About 20% of Asian attorneys and 23% of Hispanic and Latino attorneys have also said the same. By comparison, almost 19.4% of white attorneys say they have contemplated suicide.

"I'm not shocked at the disparity," says Paula Edgar, CEO of PGE Consulting Group. "Just in general, culturally, this country hasn't been very supportive of mental health."

This gap between attorneys of color and white attorneys plays out across the entire spectrum of questions.

Nearly 61% of Black attorneys said they feel isolated in their law firms, compared to 53% of white attorneys and 49% of Hispanic attorneys. Black and Hispanic attorneys were also more likely to say they had depression or anxiety than their White or Asian counterparts.

The data tracks with a recent survey of 4,200 ABA members between September and October, which found that 47% of lawyers of color, and 53% of women of color, feel stress at work at least sometimes because of their race and/or ethnicity.

In the ABA survey, the sense of anxiety was even more exacerbated when broken down by race. Roughly 35% of Black attorneys said they felt anxiety based on their race, compared to 12% of Asian attorneys and 5% of Hispanic attorneys.

What's more is that attorneys of color who responded to the ALM survey also felt less supported by their law firms.

Fifty-one percent of Black attorneys, 49% of Asian attorneys and 49% of Hispanic attorneys said they felt their firms did not provide support for personal well-being, while 45% of white attorneys said the same.

Attorneys of color were also more likely to say they felt they couldn't take time off due to mental health issues because it would hurt their career trajectory.

Black attorneys and other attorneys have color have long spoken of an isolating and frustrating experience in Big Law, where many felt they are passed up for assignments and have to work harder than their white colleagues to get by.

"Culturally, you want to be somewhere where you're recognized and you're valued as a person, versus just being the one Black person," Kinika Young, a former Big Law partner told Law.com last year. "It doesn't have to be anything racist that comes up in the meeting. Just sitting in a room and not seeing anybody that looks like you feels incredibly lonely."

While law firms do have a role to play in the well-being of attorneys of color, much of the blame can be laid on external factors that have weighed heavy on the minds of these attorneys, says Edgar.

Hispanic and Black Americans have accounted for a disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths, according to data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. And on top of the pandemic is the steady drumbeat of police killings of people like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the vicious attacks on Asian Americans that have sparked a movement among the Asian community.

"If you think about the fact that COVID has had a disparate impact on attorneys of color then you [as a firm] likely have attorneys of color who have had the death of a family member," Edgar says. "Then you think about the experience of racial injustice in this country and the trauma of seeing people killed at the hands of the police. You think about the Asian and Pacific Islander community and about commuting to work and the fear of being assaulted in public."

Compounding their experience is the generally poor job the legal industry has done in taking into consideration the mental health and well-being of all of its attorneys, regardless of race. As ALM and other studies have noted, attorneys and law firm staff are disproportionately struggling with anxiety, depression and substance abuse.

Edgar says it will take a two-pronged approach of making the legal industry more inclusive while further destigmatizing mental health and substance abuse issues to bridge this racial gap in mental health outcomes and reduce the rates of depression and anxiety more generally.

"There's a lot of balls in the air," Edgar says.

The full 2021 ALM Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey results, conducted by ALM Intelligence and Law.com, can be found here.