Two key charities that support solicitors and their dependants have seen their workload increase significantly as a troubled economy continues to place strain on the finances and private lives of many lawyers. The number of enquiries for support received each month by SBA The Solicitors’ Charity (formerly the Solicitors Benevolent Association) has increased five-fold since 2003. And year on year the grants and loan advances paid out by the 153-year-old charity have also increased.

Similarly, LawCare, founded in 1997 to provide health support and advice to all parts of the legal profession through its helpline, emails, letters and website, has had to respond to a sustained rise in demand. The charity opened 517 new case files in 2010, and fielded 1,000 extra calls. Stress was the leading reason callers gave for getting in touch with LawCare (74%); 12% were identified as suffering from clinical depression. With 469 hits a day, documents on its website were viewed more than 60,000 times in a year. Website visitors average more than seven minutes on the site, highlighting a genuine search for information relating to a mental or physical illness.

Research shows that lawyers are four times more likely to suffer from a ‘depressive illness’ than the general population, and that, based on US figures, their rate of suicide is six times higher than for non-lawyers.

These figures, and many others besides, tell the story of a profession whose members operate in a pressurised environment, taking on some of the stresses of their clients, and who feel they have a long way to fall if they lose their job and experience financial hardship. They can be subject to bullying too, from other professionals.

LawCare’s chief executive Hilary Tilby points out: ‘Many callers are overcoming a taboo by contacting us. There is a strong feeling that a professional shouldn’t need help - whether that is with standing up to a bully, or drink or drug problems.’ Often, Tilby says, the lawyer’s family members ask for help, as the lawyer still refuses to do so. Similarly, SBA’s support for the families of solicitors is central to the work they do.

Of course financial problems, stress, and mental or physical health issues will frequently be closely linked. Recognising the overlap in their work, LawCare and SBA have begun to work more closely. SBA’s business development director, Phyllida Wilson, explains: ‘The work of the two charities dovetails so well. We are thrilled to be working more closely with LawCare. It’s about being able to provide a holistic approach for the people who come to us with problems.’

That collaboration takes a practical form in individual cases. As the anonymised case studies of ‘Jennifer’, ‘Matthew’, and ‘Maria’ show (see box below), following contact with LawCare, financial support from SBA can be crucial in creating the conditions for a return to professional life, or retraining, and/or keeping a family together by helping to meet its needs. The two charities also arrange joint meetings with many firms when seeking their support and explaining their work. They will also share some advertising and marketing costs.

Working together

Jennifer

Jennifer called the LawCare helpline sounding very flat. She was out of work, and despite two years’ searching and registering with different agencies, was unable to find any work in her field - conveyancing. She could not afford to renew her practising certificate, or to retrain.

Jennifer was offered the support of a LawCare volunteer, a fellow lawyer who had also spent a long time unemployed, and was referred to SBA. Six months later, she called back to say that SBA had not only provided her with help for living expenses but had also funded some training to improve her chances of finding a job. Although she still had not found employment, she was feeling much more hopeful and supported.’

Matthew

Matthew had been a LawCare volunteer for several years when he phoned to explain that he could no longer support other lawyers since he had recently been diagnosed with a serious illness. It also transpired during the phone call that he had been forced to sell his practice as he was unable to work.

Matthew was reminded that LawCare was able to support him too, and a LawCare staff member went with him to a crucial doctor’s appointment. He was also reminded that he could apply to the SBA for financial help. He did so, an SBA representative came to see him, and he was awarded a grant to help towards living expenses. He is slowly recovering and hopes to be able to return to work shortly.

Maria

Maria was a single parent with two small children, and a partner in a two-partner firm that was struggling due to the recession. The other partner had recently had a breakdown due to the stress of keeping the practice afloat. Despite all her creative efforts to bring in money and win new business, Maria still faced losing her home. She was despairing, and feeling worthless, exhausted and dejected.

The LawCare staff member urged Maria to visit her doctor since she seemed to be showing some signs of depression. She was reluctant to take anti-depressants but said that she felt counselling would be of tremendous help. It was suggested that she contact SBA for help with family finances, and for funding for the counselling she required.

She was sent details of counsellors in her area who were also former lawyers, and SBA helped her to make her application. LawCare also assigned a volunteer to support Maria. The volunteer reported back three weeks after the initial phone call that Maria had been to her GP, who had been able to refer her to a counsellor on the NHS with a wait of only three weeks for her first appointment. Maria withdrew her SBA application for funding for the counselling.

There is, then, growing and unmet need here in the legal community. But in raising funds from that community, LawCare and SBA encounter barriers. Tilby explains: ‘It can be the case that I go to a law firm, explain what we do, and the response is that they have counselling and insurance in place to support lawyers and other staff. But there can be a lack of faith in the anonymity of help sought when a counsellor, for example, is employed by the firm. The anonymity we provide is very important when people accept they need to contact us.’

Wilson also points out that the ‘safety net’ offered by firms does not always operate as expected. She points to the case of Sarah Martin (see box right) who came to the SBA after she was diagnosed with MS within months of joining a law firm, and was later made redundant. Support from the SBA allowed her to manage her life around ground-breaking treatment, and subsequently to follow a masters course to help her keep up to date with the law. ‘It really could happen to anyone,’ Wilson argues, ‘and the safety net is not always there in practice’.

Managing partners and HR directors, Wilson says, are mostly receptive to the charities. ‘Many though have one or two chosen charities, chosen by the staff or clients - and it can be hard for us to compete,’ she notes. But in meetings with many top-100 firms over the past year, she and Tilby have highlighted ‘conditional donations’. These are made using unclaimed money in client accounts. The donation is ‘conditional’ as it must be repaid by a charity if the client reappears to make a claim on it. This, says Wilson, is extremely rare, noting that using conditional donations means ‘it doesn’t cost the firm a penny’.

‘It could happen to any of us’ - Sarah Martin

Sarah Martin approached SBA The Solicitors’ Charity for help in 2010. She had heard of SBA from a solicitor colleague. Her story, SBA’s Phyllida Wilson notes, ‘is something that could happen to any one of us’. Sarah embraced life from an early age. She excelled at school academically and at sport, particularly running and tennis. She and her brother were the first in her family ever to go to university and she worked in the holidays to pay for her own education. She graduated with an excellent law degree at Nottingham University.

She trained and qualified in 2008 with a large law firm in the Midlands. Within two months of starting to practise as a solicitor, she began to experience alarming pins and needles in her feet and a progressive numbness which moved up her legs to her stomach. Within three weeks, Sarah was finding it painful to walk, and suffered permanent vertigo so that the room was constantly spinning and out of focus. Within a few weeks she could no longer stand and was admitted to hospital for tests. She didn’t know what to think. She thought she might have a brain tumour.

In January 2009, she was diagnosed with MS and given steroids which helped, at least initially. Sarah was able to start working for a few hours, several days a week. However, her firm was making a wave of cuts and she was selected for redundancy. She left work in April 2009. Her health has been up and down and she has to go into hospital regularly for a number of days to receive by drip the steroids that she so badly needs to control her condition. She now needs to use a stick to walk and has a lightweight wheelchair - which she refuses to rely on. ‘Bright and irrepressibly bubbly, Sarah’s courage is an inspiration,’ Wilson says. ‘She keeps herself constantly busy and refuses to give into her cruel illness. She says that MS is "not who she is - but what she has".’

As a result of her aggressive MS causing regular relapses, she is one of only 200 individuals in the country lucky enough to receive ground-breaking treatment which is already producing ‘fantastic’ results. She is just 29 years old. SBA has bought Sarah a laptop and is paying for her to undertake a masters degree in law (which she is taking part-time over two years), so that she can keep up-to-date with changes in the commercial legal world - and one day return to work. SBA also paid for her to have an essential short holiday and to buy Christmas presents for her friends and family.

The charities have many more meetings planned with firms, and there is a new SBA chief executive in place - Tim Martin OBE, who recently had a role in securing improvements in welfare for navy and marine personnel and families affected by operations in Afghanistan. So with enhanced co-operation between LawCare and SBA, both charities are more focused than ever on improving their profile within the legal world.

Not least, they know that they need to reach lawyers, support staff and families who may be in need of help, but do not know about the existence of LawCare and SBA.

Eduardo Reyes is Gazette features editor

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