“You can use our wellbeing room … but don’t tell anyone you did. And make sure it doesn’t affect your billable hours.” Cue the eye rolls and disappointment. Sadly, it’s all-too-common in the legal profession. Whilst wellbeing awareness and conversations have evolved, wellbeing initiatives in many legal organisations still feel like lip service. Employees know when a wellbeing policy lives only on paper. They know when wellbeing benefits, like in-house pilates classes, simply tick a box. Because this approach is fundamentally flawed. Sure, individual awareness, skills, and actions are an important part of employees’ wellbeing. But the hands-off approach from organisations and the profession generally ignores the systemic and structural elements that undermine wellbeing and those needed to support and improve it.
The final countdown
The second article in this Ethics and wellbeing series connected the dots between toxic workplace culture, the systemic enablers, the effects on employee wellbeing and ethical behaviour, and the destructive feedback loop. Our final instalment unpacks the systemic and structural elements we need to break the cycle and redefine wellbeing in law.
Organisational support
Years of research suggests that organisational support ameliorates the effects of toxic workplace culture and is associated with increased employee engagement and productivity. Meidav (2021) suggests that organisational support includes leaders demonstrating and requiring ethical conduct, which may be evidenced by leaders listening to employees, enabling employees to provide feedback safely, and refusing to tolerate rule breaking.
Bradey (2020) suggests lawyers experience isolation as a result of excessive workloads, many practitioners working alone (like barristers), and a cultural view of mental health issues and seeking help as signs of weakness. Dealing with traumatised clients is another substantial risk to legal workers’ wellbeing. However, the profession broadly ignores the need to connect and debrief. Organisations must be proactive to facilitate increased connection and open, non-judgemental channels for discussion and support. And the literature shows that these interventions can significantly reduce the impacts of work-related stress, isolation, and vicarious trauma (Brady, 2019).
Organisational support may further address the stigma associated with mental illbeing through regulators, peak bodies, and employers. Interventions like an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) aren’t new. But the research consistently shows low utilisation for fear it will negatively impact their working relationships and career (Foley et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2020). A multi-level approach and clear, consistent, communication adds substantial weight to promises of safety and protection when anyone discloses experiencing mental health difficulties. Meaningful supports include increasing the wellbeing literacy and understanding, encouraging supported return to work similar to the approach for those who experienced physical illness or injury, and implementing plans to enhance employee recovery and wellbeing. These may also be bolstered by codified ethical requirements for wellbeing as an indicator of professional competence, and promoting wellbeing as a crucial part of continuing professional development (CPD).
Leadership: Modelling authentic wellbeing
Research shows that leadership is the best predictor or workplace culture (Sull & Sull, 2022). Leaders overtly demonstrating desired behaviour sets expectations and builds trust – because talk (alone) is cheap. Thus, leaders’ self-awareness and accountability are important factors in their ability to talk the talk and walk the walk.
Leaders must also be adept at change management. Change, especially to deeply entrenched cultural norms, is slow and often causes friction. Actively engaging staff in the process goes a long way. Empowering employees to provide honest feedback without fear or repercussions and responding with transparency supports teams to develop and own their new cultural norms.
Job redesign and training
The literature shows a correlation between contextually redesigning ways of working and significant wellbeing improvements. Sull and Sull (2022) suggest that reducing workplace stress includes removing nuisance work, ensuring employees work reasonable hours, and enabling employees to exercise greater autonomy over how they work. Bradey (2020) notes that lawyers need to work differently to stay well, which includes removing the profit-centric system of billable hours. This system is associated with the imposition of unrealistic timeframes on lawyers’ work, micro-managing, and de-valuing non-billable but necessary parts of legal work, such as training, self-care, and research.
Training is another core part of addressing lawyers’ wellbeing. Bradey (2020) suggests that openness to new learning over a range of topics encourages mental flexibility and strengthens brain plasticity, supporting practitioner wellbeing and mental acuity. Wellbeing training that includes facilitated and independent reflective practice is proven to help workers identify and mitigate risks as well as manage their responses to wellbeing challenges (Wang et al., 2020). As a key reason employees are dissatisfied or stressed at work is a conflict of core values. Reflection would enable legal practitioners to explore and understand how their values align (or don’t) with those of the organisation. And through enhanced awareness and empowered action, it can support wellbeing and ethical legal practice.
There is no single way to address the structural and systemic issues that significantly undermine wellbeing in the Australian legal profession. We need a coordinated, multi-level approach to demonstrate genuine care and effect meaningful change. The time for simply reporting on the profession’s wellbeing risks and challenges is over – awareness is great, action is critical. Positive, authentic leadership backed by regulatory provisions can demonstrate achievable ways of working that protect, promote, and enhance wellbeing. And all members of the profession and industry can shift the narrative through consistent, non-judgmental, and open dialogue about their lived mental health and wellbeing experiences. Wellbeing is our ethical duty. And it starts with us – all of us.
References
- Baron, P. (2015). The elephant in the room? Lawyer wellbeing and the impact of unethical behaviour. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 41(1), 87–119. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13200968.2015.1035209
- Bradey, R. (2020). Improving psychological wellbeing in the Law, can it be done? Pandora’s Box, 43-55. https://search.informit.org/toc/10.3316/PANBOX.2020_2020
- Brady, M. (2019). VLSB+C lawyer wellbeing project: Report on legal professionals’ reflections on wellbeing in the legal profession and suggestions for future reform. Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner. https://lsbc.vic.gov.au/resources/lawyer-wellbeing-report
- Foley, T., Hickie, I., Holmes, V., James, C., Rowe, M., & Tang, S. (2016). Being well in the law: A guide for lawyers. Law Society of New South Wales. https://www.lawsociety.com.au/sites/default/files/2018-08/Being%20Well%20in%20the%20Law%20Guide.pdf
- Rasool, S. F., Maqbool, R., Samma, M., Zhao, Y., & Anjum, A. (2019). Positioning depression as a critical factor in creating a toxic workplace environment for diminishing worker productivity. Sustainability, 11(9), Article 2589. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2589?utm_source=researchgate.net&utm_medium=article
- Sull, D., & Sull, C. (2022, January 19). How to fix a toxic culture. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-to-fix-a-toxic-culture/ Wang, Z., Zaman, S., Rasool, S. F., uz Zaman, Q., & Amin, A. (2020). Exploring the relationships between a toxic workplace environment, workplace stress and project success with the moderating effect of organisational support: Empirical evidence from Pakistan. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 13, 1055–1067. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S256155
