Legal leaders have a substantial task to encourage and actualise improved mental health and wellbeing of staff. Research has consistently called for systemic change in the profession, which presents a range of tasks for leaders to consider and implement.
These may include:
- determining what a thriving lawyer is
- ensuring workplaces are psychologically safe
- establishing clear and workable wellbeing policies
- changing work practices such as the billable hour
- increasing openness about discussing mental health and wellbeing
- demonstrating how to work as a mentally healthy lawyer
This seems like a lot?
It is…
So where do leaders start?
One step at a time…
First with themselves.
Leaders are people too. They are part of the legal system and influenced by its culture as much as other members of the profession. So, leaders understanding themselves in the context of their practice is a logical place to start.
Mental Wellbeing Principle 10 in the International Bar Association’s report on legal professionals’ mental wellbeing highlights that the legal profession can be inspired and guided by how other professions navigate their members’ challenges to mental health and wellbeing. For example, mental health professionals consistently experience challenges to their own wellbeing by virtue of the front-line work they undertake. Like many in the legal profession, they work directly with distressed public and have substantial caseloads. To manage the challenges of front-line work psychologists, social workers and counsellors engage in reflective practice throughout their careers.
For about a century there has been scholarly discourse and research on reflection. Essentially, reflection is a deliberate process of interacting with one’s thoughts and actions to affect some kind of change in them. This process involves individuals exploring and critically analysing their thoughts and behaviour. Key lines of inquiry include: Why do I think and act this way? How does this impact my thoughts and actions now? The process is influenced by contextual factors, such as the timing of reflection, the circumstances that lead to the reflective instance and environmental factors. Reflection can involve iterative experimentation and is a continuous learning process.
Reflection is a valuable tool in any professional’s toolbox, including professional development and self-care strategies for legal professionals. The purpose of reflection is to build professional capacity, proficiency and potential. It helps people identify mental habits, values, worldviews and biases and how these may influence thoughts, decision-making, interactions and behaviour. Hence, reflection is a conduit for conscious leadership, life-long learning, professional development and personal growth.
Consequently, mental health professionals undertake regular reflective practice due to the value they place on professional self-care, learning and development. Despite lawyers experiencing many similar challenges of front-line work, such as complex social and emotional situations with clients and vicarious trauma, there is no culture of self-care or critical reflective practice in the profession. It seems that legal professionals could adopt and adapt some of the self-care tools, such as regular reflective practice, used by mental health professionals.
There is little literature on using reflective practice with the legal profession in the way mental health professionals use it. In one of the few articles on this topic, Rose and Maylea highlight that reflective practice may be used by legal professionals to minimise vicarious trauma, prevent burn-out, support professional competence, improve emotional skills and capacity and foster greater understanding of legal practice and the law. These outcomes are possible because reflective practice enables the individual to inquire about their own beliefs, values, perceptions, assumptions and actions and how they interact with their professional context. The insight derived from this process enables legal professionals to shift their perspective, even in small ways, and choose their actions more deliberately.
Reflective practice can be undertaken individually using a journal or with a trusted facilitator, such as a counsellor, or with a professional peer-group. Questions can stimulate the reflective process. Below are some questions* that legal leaders, via self-reflection or with a counsellor or trusted peer, may start with to explore legal professionals’ wellbeing.
- How does your worldview influence your practice of law and your view about how law is practised?
- How has the current legal profession been shaped by sociohistorical factors?
- How have these factors influenced the way we work as legal professionals?
- What does mental health and wellbeing mean to you personally and as a lawyer?
- How does your worldview influence your perceptions of mental health and wellbeing?
- What are your assumptions about legal practice and mental health and wellbeing?
Support for Lawyers understands legal professionals. Our professionals are here to engage with legal leaders around lawyers’ mental health and wellbeing. We can facilitate professional reflective practice, self-care, wellbeing coaching and debriefing.
At Support for Lawyers we believe that when whole firms or organisations engage with us wellbeing is embraced as part of normal workplace culture and business as usual. This is responsible business practice and is protective of everyone.
Talk to us about how our preventative approach to enhance wellbeing can support you, your staff and your legal organisation.
Related Content
* Questions adapted from Hyland, P. (2023). All we like sheep: The need for reflection and reflexivity in I-O psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 16, 77-95. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2022.87
Baron, P. (2015). The elephant in the room? Lawyer wellbeing and the impact of unethical behaviours. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 41(1), 87-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/13200968.2015.1035209
Brady, M. (2019). VLSB+C lawyer wellbeing project: Report on legal professionals’ reflections on wellbeing in the legal profession and suggestions for future reforms. Victorian Legal Services Board + Commission. https://lsbc.vic.gov.au/resources/lawyer-wellbeing-report
Bradey, R. (2020). Improving psychological wellbeing in the Law, can it be done? Pandora’s Box, 27, 43-55. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.391249462916001
Cadieux, N., Cadieux, J., Gingues, M., Gouin, M.-M., Fournier, P.-L., Caya, O., Pomerleau, M.-L. Morin, E., Camille, A.B., & Gahunzire, J. (2022). Research report (final version): Towards a healthy and sustainable practice of law in Canada. National study on the health and wellness determinants of legal professionals in Canada, phase I (2020-2022). Université de Sherbrooke, Business School. Research Gate Publication 365867261
Hyland, P. (2023). All we like sheep: The need for reflection and reflexivity in I-O psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 16, 77-95. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2022.87
International Bar Association. (2021). Mental wellbeing in the legal profession: A global study. International Bar Association. https://www.ibanet.org/document?id=IBA-report-Mental-Wellbeing-in-the-Legal-Profession-A-Global-Study
Kelk, M., Luscombe, G., Medlow, S., & Hickie, I. (2009). Courting the blues: Attitudes towards depression in Australian law students and lawyers. Brain and Mind Research Institute. https://law.uq.edu.au/files/32510/Courting-the-Blues.pdf
Nguyen, Q.D., Fernandez, N., Karsenti, T., & Charlin, B. (2014). What is reflection? A conceptual analysis of major definitions and a proposal of a five-component model. Medical Education, 48, 1176-1189. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.12583
Reich, J.F. (2020). Capitalizing on healthy lawyers: The business case for law firms to promote and prioritize lawyer well-being. Villanova Law Review, 65(2), 361-418.
Rose, M., & Maylea, C. (2023). The case for implementing legal clinical supervision within legal practice, and recommendations for best practice. Griffith Law Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/1038441.2023.2260731
