Lack of support, coupled with poor work-life balance, is creating a ‘perfect storm,’ warns doctor-turned-trainee lawyer Gavriel Sapir
Folks, it’s time to talk about a real pandemic plaguing the legal profession: our mental health (illness). With your permission, I raise this issue out of care and respect for all my colleagues, including you. Before becoming a trainee lawyer, I graduated as a medical doctor. I have been trained to care. Despite its prevalence, mental health is palpably and poorly addressed in legal circles, presumably due to stigma and reputational outcomes. We hear it from everywhere. Regardless of the size, location or prestige of a company. Nobody seems to be immune.
A snapshot: In the general population (before COVID-19), among women, major depression is the leading cause of years lived with a disability, with anxiety ranking sixth on the list. Among men, depression ranks second, drug use disorders seventh, alcohol use disorders eighth, and anxiety eleventh. In England, one in four will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime. This is an amazing picture of an unhealthy society.
Now let’s pause for a second and look in the mirror: With the glamour, glitz, and promises of financial returns, legal employees are often forced to work endless hours, usually overseen by mid-level managers. poorly trained people who delegate tasks almost without thinking. Little or no recognition of personal or family life. Too often we hear: ‘These are the sacrifices we make.’ This neglect is typically coupled with little or no employee autonomy, or the promotion of employee safety where there is no openness to feedback, criticism and mutual respect, heavily regimented due to hierarchical structures. This is the image described by the American Bar Association in 2021.
Added to this are the few, poorly marked or insufficient resources available to prevent episodes of mental illness or treat it clinically. The perfect storm comes with the absence of a rigid separation between the professional and personal spheres. After all, everyone is meant to be accessible all the time, right? We have adopted the above scenario as condition sine qua non recipe on the road to legal success. Except we’re failing. And this is a collective failure.
It’s all too ridiculous. That path has led us to failure, at the expense of our most precious resources: the mental health of our people and their families, who are often the most affected. Let’s have an honest conversation: who are we trying to kid? What is the actual compensation we are dealing with here? And how can this risk or job impasse be undone?
It’s about time we got serious about mental health. This goes to the heart of being a lawyer: promoting justice and doing what is right, in the words of the SRA Code of Conduct; and act with integrity, “to maintain trust and act fairly”, always understanding the “ethical, regulatory and legal implications” of our actions in providing the service. But apart from learning the principles of commercial and procedural law, we are not supposed to think about what these words Really means to us. When was the last time your were invited to consider what these words mean?
The World Health Organization defines good mental health as a state in which: “each individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to their community.” In the UK legal profession, the scale of (poor) mental health is pandemic: A 2021 report issued by welfare charity LawCare describes that among the 1,700 UK legal professionals surveyed:
• the mean recorded burnout score was 42.2 (a cutoff score of 34.8 denotes “high risk of burnout”). The ‘exhaustion’ element of burnout considerably exceeded the recommended cut-off point, particularly when participants were asked to rate ‘there are days when I feel tired before I start work’ (score 3.36 out of 4).
• 69% responded that they had experienced mental health problems in the last 12 months. Anxiety (60.7%), depression (28.9%), physical manifestations of stress (28.9%), low mood (48.4%), strain in relationships and family life, and feelings of inability to cope with stress (22%).
Dear colleagues, where have we gone wrong?
1. A cultural change is paramount for everyone. A legal profession with persistently low levels of poor mental well-being is neither sustainable nor healthy. How long will this continue until it stops attracting the best talent in a generation already described as ‘anti-ambition‘ because of your heightened concern for mental well-being? How long will it be before clients perceive that your attorney’s ability to protect their corporate interests cannot perform adequately in unhealthy occupational environments? Or until this damages the reputation and integrity of legal workplaces and the profession in general?
two. A cultural shift will support equity, diversity, and inclusion. Structurally, problems abound thanks to poor or non-existent management training, particularly in lack of psychological support, staff growth and development needs, and lack of basic mental health support. Culturally, the image is all too common: bullying, harassment, sexism, racism, and the all too common passive-aggressive behavior that season interpersonal and hierarchical relationships. For some, the ‘sink or swim’ equation of ‘up or out’, encouraging unsustainable hours and unrealistic billing targets, is all too common.
3. A cultural change will involve multiple stakeholders. Employers, regulators and professional bodies have a moral and legal duty to protect and promote the health of their employees and members. That means acknowledging that (poor) mental health is not a weakness and is also not unfit for legal practice. This, in turn, will generate positive results, forcing professionals to discuss strategies and develop protocols to reveal difficulties without fear of reprisals, sanctions or stigma. As employees, we all have a duty of care to initiate dialogue and care for our colleagues in equal measure. It’s good for our interpersonal relationships, it’s good for the office, and it’s great for business.
Unfortunately, talent, especially young talent, is too often wasted precisely because it is disproportionately affected by chronic anxiety disorder, depression, substance abuse (whether prescription, illegal, or alcohol use), and many other forms of self-harm. We hear it all too often in law school and later from colleagues working everywhere in the legal career. It is indeed a pandemic.
Dr. Gavriel Sapir is a qualified medical doctor, with a master’s degree in global health from Oxford, who has retrained in law and works as a trainee attorney at Asserson Law Offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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