A practical discussion to help in-house legal teams reduce avoidable stress and improve the way they work with The Mindful Business Charter.
Mental health challenges across the legal profession are well documented - and in-house teams are not immune. While awareness has grown, many organisations are still grappling with what meaningful, sustainable action looks like in practice.
This session explores how legal teams can address the root causes of workplace stress in ways that support both performance and wellbeing. Drawing on the work of the The Mindful Business Charter - a cross-industry movement of organisations committed to reducing avoidable stress by improving everyday working practices - we will examine how practical changes can deliver measurable cultural and commercial impact.
Stress affects both our physical and mental health, costs lives and diminishes organisational performance. Much of that stress stems not simply from workload, but from the way we work and interact - the unconscious, unnecessary and often unnoticed pressures we place on one another.
Richard Martin, CEO of the Mindful Business Charter and former senior private practice lawyer, will:
- Address the scale of the mental health challenge across the legal sector;
- Set out the business case for change - from both a commercial and human perspective; and
- Explain the practical framework developed by the MBC community.
We will also be joined by Rachel Pears, Associate Director for Responsible Business and Employment Counsel at RPC, who will share insights into the value of her organisation’s involvement with the Charter.
The Mindful Business Charter Framework
The Mindful Business Charter provides a practical framework built around four core pillars:
- Openness & Respect - Create and facilitate safe, open cultures to build trust.
- Smart Meetings & Communications - Think about what you are saying, when, and to whom.
- Respecting Rest Periods - Give consideration to the need for you and others to switch off.
- Mindful Delegation - Collaborate, instruct and delegate with care.'
By establishing a shared language and practical commitments, the Charter enables organisations to tackle avoidable stress at its source.
All public available resources for the Mindful Business Charter are available here.
About the speakers
Richard Martin is the CEO of the Mindful Business Charter, a global cross business initiative to reduce the stress we experience at work and which is a key cause of workplace mental illness. He is also a principal consultant at workplace consultancy Byrne Dean and is on the IBA Wellbeing Commission.
He formerly chaired the steering committee of the Lord Mayor of London’s 'This is Me' campaign which uses storytelling to break down the stigma associated with mental illness. He is a qualified coach and mental health first aid instructor.
His first career was in law, becoming a senior employment law partner before mental breakdown in 2011 left him in hospital for a month and unable to work for two years. His experience of breakdown and recovery is the subject of his memoir, 'This Too Will Pass – Anxiety in a professional world', published in 2018.
He is a father of three grown up children and splits his time between London and rural France.
Rachel Pears (She/Her) is RPC's Associate Director – Responsible Business & Employment Counsel. She is responsible for driving RPC's portfolio of environment, DEIB, charity, pro bono and health & wellbeing programmes, drawing on her knowledge of ESG strategy and structure, equality law expertise as well as her personal experience as a sandwich carer.
Rachel is a passionate mental health champion and spearheaded RPC being one of the first law firms to offer a clinical psychology benefit free to its people. During Rachel's tenure, RPC also signed the Mindful Business Charter in 2019, was the first law firm to implement R;pple suicide prevention software on its systems and has enabled more than 40 people to become mental health first aiders.
RPC won Responsible Business of the Year at the 2024 Women & Diversity in Law Awards and the 2025 Lexis Nexis Award for Wellbeing for its array of initiatives designed to support its people and their mental health. Also in 2025, Rachel won the Inspiring Leader Award at the Carers UK Awards.