Gavin Alexander often tells other lawyers that success and seeking help aren’t mutually exclusive.

Alexander, the Boston-based well-being director at Jackson Lewis, speaks from experience. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2012 and began working as a corporate associate at an Am Law 100 firm. He also struggled with depression, and after almost taking his life a few years into his career, he realized he needed immediate medical treatment.

“One of the reasons legal professionals don’t feel comfortable talking about mental health issues is because so few other legal professionals, especially those in high-success or leadership positions, are talking openly about having struggled,” Alexander says. “I am someone who does struggle with chronic depression, and I talk openly about that because I want to normalize it.”

As a mental health and well-being advocate, Alexander also encourages and empowers lawyers to share their stories.

He was an inaugural member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being and served as its first fellow. He has supported well-being initiatives in other roles, including as a member of the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs’ DEI Committee.

Alexander also regularly leads conversations on well-being with law schools, bar associations and courts.

“Gavin has a lot of love in him,” says Denise Murphy, a past co-chair of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being. “He is an inherently kind person and firmly, passionately believes he can make a difference in improving the lives of folks in this profession. And he has.”

Alexander grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he says he began noticing signs of depression around age 12. He often held a knife to his wrist and imagined ending his life. He also struggled with his sexual orientation, and a few years later, he came out as bisexual.

He didn’t ask for help because he thought only families that were wealthier than his could afford therapists, he says. He also believed that “being perfect” was the only way to succeed.

“Those were lessons I internalized at a young age, and they contributed to my not actually thinking mental health care was something I could have available to me when I was an adult,” Alexander says.

He graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and theater, and he moved to New York City to pursue the performing arts. After also working as a paralegal for about a year, he decided to go to law school.

Alexander continued to experience depression and suicidal ideation during his first year at Boston University School of Law, where he earned the highest GPA in his section. After transferring to and graduating from Harvard Law School, he began his one-year clerkship for Justice Ralph Gants at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Gants became Alexander’s mentor and friend. Alexander supported Gants’ elevation to chief justice in 2014. The following year, Gants officiated Alexander’s wedding to his partner, Angelo. And several years after Alexander began his career at Ropes & Gray, Gants helped change his life in the most significant way, he says.

As Alexander transitioned to a midlevel associate role, his workload and the related pressure intensified. He suffered from severe sleep deprivation and began taking breaks to cry outside of the office. He thought an in-house job at a hedge fund would be a better fit, but after the interview went poorly, he decided to step in front of an approaching train.

“I couldn’t go back to this job that I felt was killing me, so I thought I had no other options,” says Alexander, who was stopped by a stranger on the platform.

Along with seeking treatment, Alexander discovered he could request a reduced work schedule through the Family and Medical Leave Act. He also confided in Gants, who he says offered his unequivocal support and encouraged him to tell others about his experience.

Alexander did so for the first time in 2018 to a group of nearly 80 lawyers who participated in the work of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s initial Steering Committee on Lawyer Well-Being. It was convened by Gants, who Alexander says made lawyer well-being one of his priorities.

“It was terrifying, but it was also unbelievably cathartic,” Alexander says. “And afterward, people kept coming up to me, asking, ‘What could we be doing differently so all the other amazing lawyers and legal professionals like you don’t wind up in the same spot you did?’”

In 2020, Alexander joined the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s permanent Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, where he focused on the challenges faced by different groups within the legal profession, including the LGBTQ+ community.

“Gavin had and still has an incredible passion for this topic, and he offered a perspective that many of us didn’t have any longer, if we had it all—that of an associate in BigLaw and what it was like trying to get help,” Murphy says.

Alexander’s work led to a full-time fellowship with the group, which began later that year. Among the initiatives he supported was hosting a series of town hall meetings with affinity bar associations and reporting on factors that affect the well-being of legal professionals from underrepresented populations.

“I really loved working in this space, telling my story, hearing stories from others, empowering them to tell their stories, bringing together stakeholders to talk about these issues, participating in data-driven research [and] brainstorming proposals to mitigate some of the common causes of poor well-being in the legal profession,” Alexander says.

In 2022, he became the first well-being director at Jackson Lewis, where he focuses on creating policies, training and resources that promote mental health and overall well-being. In his first month, he recorded a video sharing his mental health struggles and encouraging others to seek help. It was circulated firmwide.

“I always am clear when I communicate with individuals that I am not a clinician, I am a lawyer,” says Alexander, who has supported nearly 200 colleagues in various ways. “So I’m not going to provide therapy or counseling. But as a peer, I know what the pressures are like, and I know what the stigma against getting help and taking care of yourself in the legal profession is like.”

Alexander advocates for change in the legal profession in other ways.

In honor of Gants, who died in 2020, Alexander helped establish the Chief Justice Ralph Gants Fund for Racial Equity and Access to Justice. He is a member of its advisory committee.

He helps lead diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for the Institute for Well-Being in Law and the Boston Bar Association. He also served on the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission.

Outside of work, Alexander, who lives near Boston, enjoys playing video games.

“Video games have always been a part of how I de-stress,” he says. “As they have grown as a storytelling and art form, the real stories they tell about mental health and the impact they have are really powerful.” 

Members Who Inspire is an ABA Journal series profiling exceptional ABA members. If you know members who do unique and important work, you can nominate them for this series by emailing inspire@abajournal.com.