Webinar report: Tacking mental health in the legal profession

Stress. Burnout. Anxiety. Suicidal ideation. None of these are what you entered the legal profession for. 

Yet the modern lawyer suffers poor mental health to a much greater degree than the general population.

For example:

• 60% of lawyers report high anxiety, compared to 33% of the general population (Law Society 2023);
• Against a universal average burnout risk score of 34.8%, legal professionals are averaging 42.2% (LawCare 2021); and
• Lawyers are twice as likely to contemplate suicide as the general population (Krill 2023).

And almost a quarter of lawyers struggle to manage their stress, according a 2019 Law Society study.

So our webinar, Tacking mental health in the legal profession, in conjunction with the Mindful Business Charter, looked at causes and solutions to the problem. Presenting were two legal professionals with lived experience in the minefield that is mental health.

Richard Martin is a former law firm partner who in 2011 experienced a mental breakdown. After a month in hospital followed by two years of recovery, Richard started working in roles supporting mental health in the workplace. He leads  the Mindful Business Charter, a charitable movement of employers which was founded in 2018.

Rachel Pears is Associate Director of Responsible Business and Employment Counsel at RPC. As such, Rachel wears two hats and represents RPC as a member of the Mindful Business Charter. Rachel’s personal story underlines the importance of the employer’s role in supporting mental health.

A business as well as a personal problem

The findings above tell of harrowing personal experiences. And with many lawyers looking to leave their roles in the coming five years – and a third planning to leave the legal profession altogether – there’s an urgent business case for organisations to address, too. Mental health-related mistakes, absences, resignations and presenteeism will combine to decimate revenues eventually. In 2020, US university law professors Nancy Levit and Douglas O. Linder estimated that a US law firm with 100 associates can expect annual attrition costs of $5.6 million due to these factors.

A 2017 study in Australia (James 2017) meanwhile suggested that only 50 – 70% of lawyer hours were billable. By 2022 Clio found that this had worsened, with only a third of a typical lawyer’s eight-hour day spent on billable work.

The good news is that other studies show attention to mental health improves things markedly for employers, with increases and improvements in:

• Production (12%) (Oswald et al, 2015);
• Collaboration and interpersonal relationships (Whelen and Zelenski, 2011);
• Client loyalty and profitability (Krekel, Ward and De Neve), 2019); and
• Negotiation outcomes (Carnevale et al, 1986).

Change the role, not the employee

Numerous studies globally have found that individualised, reactive or trend-following wellbeing initiatives don’t work. Similarly 68% of workers don’t access their employers’ wellbeing resources (Deloitte 2023).

Instead, organisation-wide interventions to improve work-life balance and workload management increase employee happiness and staff retention rates (Teoh et al, 2023).

Job design plays a role, too. Where this minimises unnecessary stress and improves wellbeing, staff sickness comes down (Cooper et al, 2024).

In tackling poor mental health at work, the Mindful Business Charter has identified four main sources of stress:

• The nature of the work we do: some stress is inevitable; the trick is to tackle unnecessary stresses;
• The way our brains work: sometimes we’re held back by negative thinking patterns;
• How we work: the processes we work within and how we approach them; and
• How we interact with others: internally and externally.

To overcome these and achieve healthy, sustainable high performance, the Mindful Business Charter advocates a foundation of openness and respect. Commit to caring about your colleagues and fellow professionals. Talk about how you’ll cooperate and find agreement on the impact you want your work to have.

From here, encourage open dialogue. Create a culture in which people have permission to say what they think and be transparent in all their internal and external relationships. This is the platform for mindful collaboration, where we consider how our behaviours affect others. Can we, for example, minimise overwhelm by keeping meetings brief and written messaging concise? Can we include context in requests of colleagues, so they understand why they’re being asked to do something and be flexible on deadlines?

Lastly, set boundaries and respect those of others. Boundaries are the ringfence around rest and recovery time.

From adversity to growth – Rachel Pears

“I had my daughter in 2015, and very soon knew that something wasn't quite right. It was over two years before we got a diagnosis of a super rare genetic condition that has no name. When she reached four, my daughter was diagnosed with autism.

“During this period, I was working full time in London. I'm an only child and my parents were in New York. Around this time my father was diagnosed with vascular dementia, my mother with Parkinson's. I was flying back and forth monthly as they weren’t coping at home. We had multiple trips to A&E. I managed their affairs for several years.

“In all this, I forgot to look after myself - and burnt out. I had to take time off to rebuild myself and find sustainable balance in my life.

“My manager was brilliant. He said, ‘I trust you, I know you'll service the clients. If there's anything I can do, let me know, but work however you need to.

“That flexibility and space was a game changer, because I was thinking of leaving my career. You can't deprioritise your family, yet my manager made it possible for me to have both, which I desperately wanted to do. Work was a respite from caring responsibilities and my time to be Rachel, not mum or daughter.

“So, I, decided to pay it forward and get more involved in mental health. I moved into DEI and health and wellbeing. There’s a lot of overlap with employment law with many mental health cases going through tribunal.

“Today, I love my dual responsibilities to RPC overseeing our Responsible Business activity as well as an employment lawyer. As someone who has seen wellbeing programmes from both sides of the mental health equation, I know the difference between performative and genuine initiatives.”

To learn more about optimising your organisation’s workplace culture, visit www.mindfulbusinesscharter.com.