Mental Health Awareness Week: ‘time for cultural change’
The Law Society of England and Wales has joined forces with charity LawCare to call for cultural changes to improve mental health and wellbeing in the legal profession.
It comes in the wake of LawCare’s 2021 Life in the Law report that highlighted the problematic nature of working practices in the law
The study of 1,700 legal professionals addressed specific issues such as burnout, which is recognised as a health condition by the World Health Organization, and 69% of respondents reported having experienced mental-ill health in the year before the survey.
The largest age group of participants (37%) were aged between 26 and 35 years old and they had the highest burnout scores, alongside having the highest work intensity, lowest autonomy and the lowest sense of psychological safety.
The society confirmed the joint call in a statement released this week.
The development marks Mental Health Awareness Week, led by the Mental Health Foundation, which this year examines the adverse effects of loneliness.
A cultural, not individual, issue
Law Society president I. Stephanie Boyce noted that the legal profession should use Mental Health Awareness Week to take stock of its culture.
“The onus is often on the individual to ‘fix’ their mental ill-health. In truth, we have a collective responsibility to make a positive work environment for everyone. We need to start talking about how some working practices contribute to an increased risk of poor mental health and how we can work together to change things,” she said.
Added Boyce: “Tackling excessive working hours and workloads, as well as ensuring better supervision and support, especially for younger lawyers, is essential. LawCare’s research has shone a light on our working culture as we navigate changes following the COVID-19 pandemic.”
LawCare is an independent charity which was founded in 1997 and provides free, confidential, emotional, and peer support to legal professionals working in the UK, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Small changes
Elizabeth Rimmer, chief executive of LawCare, warned that the culture of law has to change to ensure the sustainability of the profession.
“It can seem overwhelming, but all of us can make small changes every day to make the law a healthier and happier place to work, such as acknowledging some of the challenges working in the law presents and treating each other with respect and civility,” she explained.
“If we could encourage firms and workplaces to do one thing this Mental Health Awareness Week, it would be to work towards providing management training to all supervisors and managers, and free up some of their time so they can regularly catch up with their team members to check in on how they are doing.”
Junior lawyers
Suzanna Eames, chair of the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division, noted that overall culture in law is especially damaging to many junior lawyers, leading to mental health problems such as burnout, depression, anxiety and (in the worst cases) self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
“We have seen over the course of the pandemic that the culture of a firm has a very large impact on employees’ mental health, and that positive leadership can have a real impact and can ensure that the legal profession is both fulfilling and sustainable,” she said.
“On the contrary, employers that have left junior lawyers without support or supervision have seen staff burn out and choose to leave the firm or legal profession in order to protect their health,”
One positive of the pandemic, she explained, has been the growing conversation around mental health, and an increasing recognition that lawyers’ wellbeing should be treated as a priority.
“It is vital that this conversation continues to develop, and does not lose traction now that firms settle into varying models of hybrid working,” she cautioned.
To discover more about the mental health crisis facing law, listen to Driving Cultural Change to Optimise Mental Health and Wellbeing on WIPR Patents Live, where Rimmer and IP Inclusive CEO, Andrea Brewster, uncover the mental health issues specific to the IP professions, and why mental health should be a collective responsibility in the legal community.
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