DEVAN

YOUNG LAWYERS ARE DYING; DEPRESSION IS QUIETLY DESTROYING THEM. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT. READ IT SLOWLY. Behind the smart suits, polished shoes, court appearances and the prestigious title of Advocate is a generation of young lawyers silently struggling to survive. We celebrate their admission to the Bar but rarely ask whether they can afford the life that society assumes comes with that title. Many finish law school at a young age. Their families celebrate, and rightly so. But almost immediately, the expectations begin. You are now an Advocate. You must help your siblings, support your parents, pay school fees, contribute to family emergencies and somehow lift everyone out of poverty. Nobody asks whether you have even secured a decent-paying job. Then comes the pressure of being an Advocate in Kampala. You are expected to dress smartly, speak confidently, attend court, meet clients and carry yourself with dignity. You cannot easily explain that the suit you are wearing is your only decent one, that you borrowed transport money, or that you have not had a proper meal. The fear of returning to the village without the success everyone associates with your qualification becomes another burden. Rent in Kampala keeps rising. Transport costs money. Food costs money. Professional clothing costs money. Internet, printing, legal research and the other demands of legal practice all require money. Yet many young lawyers work in offices where there is no reliable water, no lunch, no transport facilitation and, in some cases, no dependable salary. The most painful part is not always the low pay. It is the non-payment of the little that was promised. A young lawyer may accept modest remuneration because they are promised mentorship, exposure and an opportunity to grow. They report early, leave late, draft pleadings, conduct research, attend court, meet deadlines and deliver results. Months pass, and the promised money does not come. Rent does not wait. Landlords do not accept legal experience as payment. Taxi conductors do not accept professional ambition as transport fare. Families do not stop needing support because an employer has failed to pay. And tomorrow morning, the young lawyer must put on a suit, show up at the office and pretend everything is fine. Perhaps what makes this crisis even more painful is our response when young lawyers speak out. Too often, they are told: “We all went through it.” Yes, many senior lawyers struggled. Some endured years of financial hardship before establishing themselves. Their resilience deserves respect. But having survived a difficult system does not justify preserving it for the next generation. Times have changed. The number of law graduates and advocates has increased. Competition for opportunities is intense. The cost of living has risen. Family responsibilities remain enormous. The expectations attached to the title of Advocate have not diminished, even as opportunities for decent and reliable remuneration remain limited for many young practitioners. We cannot continue to use yesterday's struggles to excuse today's exploitation. Mentorship should not mean working indefinitely without pay. Exposure should not become a substitute for remuneration. Professional discipline should not require a young lawyer to endure indignity in silence. And the promise of a brighter future should not be used to justify an unbearable present. We must also understand that depression does not always announce itself. Sometimes it is the colleague who has stopped talking. The young Advocate who no longer attends social gatherings because they cannot afford to contribute. The one who avoids calls from home because another request for financial assistance has arrived. The one who sits in chambers wondering how to get home, yet must remain available to a client. The one who appears confident in court but privately feels like a failure because, despite years of education and professional sacrifice, they cannot meet their basic needs. Not every struggling young lawyer is depressed, and not every case of depression has the same cause. But prolonged financial insecurity, excessive pressure, humiliation and the absence of support can take a serious toll on mental health. We must stop treating these struggles as a normal initiation into the legal profession. The Law Council, the Uganda Law Society, law firms, senior practitioners, legal aid organisations and the institutions responsible for training young lawyers must confront this reality. We need honest conversations about fair remuneration, payment of agreed salaries, reasonable working conditions, mentorship, manageable workloads and access to mental health support. Law firms are businesses, and many face genuine financial constraints. But those constraints should be addressed transparently. If a firm cannot afford to employ someone, it should not make promises it cannot honour and leave a young professional to bear the consequences. If a young lawyer is expected to deliver professional results, their basic working conditions and agreed remuneration must be taken seriously. Senior lawyers must also remember that the young Advocate struggling today may be the judge, lecturer, partner, public servant or leader of tomorrow. We cannot keep losing their confidence, dignity and well-being to a culture that mistakes suffering for professional training. The title of Advocate should not become a prison of expectations. A law degree should not condemn someone to years of silent humiliation. And the dream of becoming a lawyer should not cost a young person their mental health. We need to ask ourselves a difficult question: What is the value of producing more lawyers if the profession cannot create conditions in which they can live, work and grow with dignity? Let us stop asking young lawyers to be strong enough to endure everything. Let us start building a profession that does not demand everything from them while giving so little in return. We cannot keep saying, “We all went through it,” while another generation quietly breaks under the same weight. The legal profession must do better. Our young lawyers deserve better. Their lives matter more than the suits they wear, the cases they win or the titles they carry. And if you are a young lawyer reading this and silently struggling, please remember: your financial circumstances do not define your worth, and asking for help is not a professional failure. You deserve support, dignity and a future beyond survival. Bya TT.

If you are a senior lawyer who doesn't like to carry the Junior one to court, yet he or she did that research for you,then you are killing that young man or woman. They fear to tell you, but it pains.