I became a solicitor because I wanted to help people. As I was finishing a life sciences degree in the late 1980’s I developed a keen interest in the campaign for justice for the Guildford Four, who had been wrongly convicted of IRA bombings. I was shocked by their unfair treatment and that the legal system had failed them. In my youthful naivety I thought I should try and do something about this. I didn’t know you could become a lawyer without a law degree but soon found that I could, so I abandoned my plans of a career on the lab bench. The Guildford Four’s convictions were reversed in 1989, the year I started at law school.
I share this story because I think the desire to help people, to ensure everyone is treated fairly and has equal opportunity, is what attracts many people to a career in the law. The heart of legal work is resolving people’s problems. The fundamental purpose of the legal system is to meet the needs of society – to uphold the rule of law and advance the administration of justice. But there are multiple barriers to accessing legal services and the law can be a tough profession to get into and work in. We need to change this.
The public place their trust and confidence in the legal profession every day to deliver competent services from making a will to resisting a deportation notice from the Home Office. Every day legal professionals work to ensure that the most vulnerable in society have access to justice and hold authorities such as the government to account.
I now work for LawCare, www.lawcare.org.uk a charity that was set up 25 years ago to support the mental health of legal professionals, since 1997 we have helped over 10,000 people with their struggles in managing the pressures of the job and meeting the needs of clients. But providing direct support is not our only focus, we also want to drive change in legal education, training, and practice to create environments where people thrive.
Last year we undertook a research study ‘Life in the Law’ https://www.lawcare.org.uk/life-in-the-law/ to help us better understand what it is about the practice of culture and law that can undermine mental wellbeing. What we found was a disheartening narrative of a profession at high risks of burnout, working long hours, ineffective supervision, overload, and difficult workplace relationships.
Mental health in law matters. Legal work requires clarity of mind and focus; poor mental health undermines this. Clients depend on the knowledge and skill of legal professionals to provide reliable advice, they expect them to be competent, trustworthy, to understand their problems, to help them navigate a complex system, and to have those human skills of empathy and communication. Legal professionals with poor mental health are more likely to make mistakes, to make poor ethical decisions, have their judgement and decision-making ability compromised, and are less able to meet the needs of their clients and the high standards expected of them by regulators.
We have the solutions – we just need to invest in them. Developing emotional competence in legal education and practice, management training for those with responsibility for others and regular supervision to build trusting relationships so colleagues speak up when they are struggling or have made a mistake.
We can change the disheartening narrative by working collectively across the profession – regulators, educators, professional bodies, and legal practice to innovate in the way we train and practice to create a mentally healthy legal culture that welcomes and is accessible to everyone, both the people who work in it and the clients we serve.
We also have an inaugural conference coming up. ‘Building a Better Life in the Law’ takes place on Wednesday 28th September. We’ve developed a great programme focused on culture change and innovation, based on insights from 25 years of supporting the legal community and our Life in the Law research. The conference features leaders across the profession who are pioneering new ways of working in the law. They will share their experiences of improving the culture in law through an interactive programme of plenaries, panel discussions, workshops and breakout sessions. You can find out more at http://lawcare.org.uk/conference
