Congratulations!
You have found us, and his means that you have already taken the first step in looking after your own well-being and perhaps the well-being of your whole firm. And you’re not alone.
Dr Eloise Crush, a psychologist writing in the Lawyer Weekly in 2023 described some of the unique demands faced by lawyers which can lead to burn out, depression and feelings of not being able to cope.
‘Law,’ she said, ‘poses a challenge as it is built on a billable hour’s model, with a system that reinforces and rewards working longer hours among high-performing individuals with perfectionist tendencies,’
‘The industry is client-driven, meaning deadlines are externally determined; in turn, this creates constant uncertainty accompanied by a lack of control.
“These factors, alongside longer working hours, are a recipe for employees feeling they ‘can’t cope’ and cause conflict between their personal and working lives.’
If any of this sounds familiar to you, well you are in the right place.
Support For Lawyers (SFL) has been established for individuals and firms to address the ever-increasing pressures placed on lawyers, not just by the inherent nature of their work, but now from additional newer challenges such as working from home and AI (Artificial Intelligence). The former blurs the already challenging boundaries between home and work and the latter just ads to the uncertainty about future changes to the profession. And then like all professions not only do the stresses from work start to impact on life at home, but stresses at home can also impinge on life at work.
A key principle for SFL is prevention rather than reaction. It can take a long time to recover from burn out, depression, generalized anxiety, or feelings of not being able to cope. All of these can result in a challenge to self-esteem and loss of productivity and working hours. Such mental health challenges are damaging both to the individuals and the firms that they work with.
To address this at SFL we have created a specialized team of counselors with extensive experience in the law system. They are counselors that know lawyers and currently work with them. As such, they have a greater appreciation of your circumstances at work. Their professional training and experience also provide them with the skills to address challenges which may have their origins in home life, but impact on your work.
So, with all this in mind, you have the opportunity to take the next step as an individual or the manager of a firm. Contact us and we can set up a service for your firm with regular checkups for all your employees to prevent mental health challenges arising or catch them at an early stage. This can also be a way of promoting your firm as an employer of choice. Or as an individual we can also place you in contact with your own counselor to assist you with whatever challenges you are currently facing and help build your capacity to cope with similar challenges in the future.
So welcome! Do yourself or your firm a favor and take the next step now. We look forward to hearing from you.
