Sam Ramsey recently became Iowa Law’s newest embedded staff therapist replacing Jaret Morlan, the college’s first embedded therapist. 

Developed right before the pandemic, the mission of the University Counseling Service at the College of Law is to provide mental health services like outreach and special training and programming to promote the health and wellbeing of students. Focused on engaging directly with law students, this resource helps to foster growth and wellness within the Iowa Law community.  

Sam Ramsey graduated from the University of Iowa Master of Social Work program and was a former student therapist at UCS. They trained under Jaret as grad assistant.  

“Law school is an exciting, formative time for aspiring attorneys. The pace and rigor of law school can also be overwhelming. The embedded therapist position at the College of Law, in partnership with the University Counseling Service (UCS), was designed to address the unique challenges that law students often face by providing free counseling within the law building. The embedded therapist at the College of Law also provides outreach programming, consultations, training, and case management services. UCS at the College of Law has a strong commitment to creating an environment that is welcoming to everyone,” said Sam. 

2L Joann Mulholland, co-president of the ISBA and peer writing tutor, recently published an article in the American Bar Association highlighting law schools' impact on students' mental health, sharing advise for law students on how to navigate stressful situations and protect their mental health.  

“I think that more importantly than having an embedded therapist, law schools need to look at the structural reasons why law students have worse mental health statistics than all other graduate and professional students,” said Joann. “That being said, anything that makes therapy more accessible for anyone is great. Having an embedded therapist normalizes therapy for students and makes it easy and convenient to access. However, I worry that law schools will implement an embedded therapist and think they've solved the problem. The real problem of the mental health crisis in law schools comes from the very structure of law school. I would much rather see law schools address the systemic issues that lead to poor mental health among law students by completely restructuring the way they teach law students.”