Something interesting I saw posted in a law student forum on livejournal:

From a psychology study¹:

The popular notion that law school is an exceptionally stressful experience for many students has been substantiated by longitudinal studies. Indeed, the emotional distress of law students appears to significantly exceed that of medical students and at times to approach that of psychiatric populations.

…law students experience precipitous declines in their mental health during their 1st year. More important, they showed that these declines were correlated with negative changes in motivation and valuing. Specifically, students evidenced radically reduced intrinsic motivation, that is, a loss of engagement in behavior because of its interest and enjoyment potential. In addition, students showed maladaptive changes in valuing during their 1st year of law school: They shifted toward (extrinsic) image and appearance values and away from (intrinsic) community and helping values and also exhibited a general decline in the overall level of valuing (both intrinsic and extrinsic).

¹Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory. I have the .pdf if anyone is interested in reading the entire 16 pages.