LOS ANGELES, California – September 16, 2026 – Equity partners at U.S. law firms wait a median of 19 months between the moment they clearly recognize serious mental health strain and the moment they sit down for a first clinical session, according to the 2026 Law Firm Disclosure Index, a clinical review released today by CEREVITY.
The Index reviews 305 equity partners and senior counsel who began care through CEREVITY between January 2025 and August 2026. It measures something the published literature rarely does: not how many lawyers are struggling, but how many are hiding it from the institution that employs them. Because every partner in the cohort eventually reached care, the review likely understates both concealment and delay across the wider partner population.
Sixty-seven percent reported actively hiding mental health strain from colleagues or firm leadership. Fifty-nine percent named partnership standing or origination credit as the main reason. Fifty-one percent held that concealment for longer than six months.
“These are not partners who could not find care or did not know what they were carrying,” said Martha Fernandez, LCSW, Co-Founder and Psychotherapist at CEREVITY. “They ran a calculation about standing and origination credit, usually once and quickly, and decided the firm could not know. Then they kept billing. The strain was never the barrier. The disclosure was.”
The Index argues the gap is structural rather than cultural. Under federal rules, an employee assistance program keeps its status as an excepted benefit only if it does not provide significant benefits in the nature of medical care (45 CFR 146.145). Short session caps are not a vendor economizing. They are the legal design of the product. A firm cannot solve a 19-month delay by buying a better EAP, because the category itself is capped.
The second constraint is administrative. Insurance-billed therapy creates a claim and a diagnosis code. Firm-sponsored care routed through the health plan or a third-party administrator produces a record adjacent to the employer. For a partner whose stated reason for silence is standing inside the firm, every conventional route runs back through the institution the partner is hiding from.
CEREVITY offers a firm-funded therapy benefit for law firms built to sit above the assistance program rather than replace it. The firm funds access. The treating clinician holds the clinical file. No insurance claim is filed and no diagnosis code is generated. The firm receives eligibility and invoicing, and nothing that identifies who used the benefit or why.
The commercial case sits alongside the clinical one. Partners who reach a threshold event frequently leave rather than disclose, and 27 percent of lawyers in the 2026 American Bar Association and Krill Strategies survey of roughly 36,000 lawyers had considered leaving the profession over mental health, burnout or stress. NALP Foundation work on associate attrition, published in 2017, places associate replacement cost between 200,000 and 500,000 dollars. A departing equity partner takes originations with them, which is a different order of loss.
“A partner who is still hitting their numbers is not a partner anyone is worried about,” Fernandez said. “That is precisely the problem. By the time the firm has something to read, the cheap window has closed.”
The full Index includes the methodology, the four-stage Firm Disclosure Cycle model and 17 references. Firm leaders, chief operating officers and heads of talent can request the benefit-design briefing by calling (562) 295-6650.
Full report: cerevity.com/67-percent-equity-partners-hide-strain-from-firm-2026
About CEREVITY
CEREVITY Health, Inc. operates a nationwide concierge network of independent licensed clinicians delivering private-pay individual, couples and family psychotherapy by telehealth in all 50 states. CEREVITY does not accept or bill insurance. Session formats are 50-minute, 90-minute and 3-hour, and current rates are published on the CEREVITY pricing page.
Media Contact
Company Name: CEREVITY Health, Inc.
Contact Person: Rachel Levin
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Phone: (562) 295-6650
Address:3217 East Carson Street, Suite 319
City: Lakewood
State: CA
Country: United States
Website: https://cerevity.com/
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