When the mask slips

Difficulties with mental health in the law are nothing new. In 1853 Herman Melville published Bartleby, the Scrivener, a compassionate account of the descent of legal clerk Bartleby into depression and despair. Nowadays it is profitability targets and a client-driven culture, combined with the ‘command and control’ hierarchy of the traditional law firm, that makes addressing mental health issues challenging.

Despite this, attitudes towards mental health in the legal profession are changing for the better, propelled in part by the necessary pandemic rethink that increased awareness and acceptance of mental health issues. Pressure is now being exerted from multiple points to force real change – from a regulatory and financial perspective as well as a societal one.

The Stevenson-Farmer review Thriving at Work, published under Theresa May’s government, pushed the topic of mental health and workplace culture further into the public domain. Report contributor Deloitte then followed up with the report Mental health and employees: refreshing the case for investment in January 2020. This made a positive financial case for investment in mental health by employers, finding an average return of £5 for every £1 spent.

As a society, we may now talk more openly about mental health, but LawCare’s Life in the Law 2020/21 contained concerning statistics: 69% of survey respondents said they had experienced mental ill-health, including burnout. In February 2022, the Solicitors Regulation Authority published guidance on the risks of failing to protect and support colleagues.

For the legal sector’s mental health ‘ambassadors’, of whom there is a growing number, there is a compelling argument that, like ESG and diversity, law firms should embed ‘human sustainability’ values into their culture, procedures and policies.

Correct supervision and management techniques are crucial. The need for good management to support mental health was LawCare’s theme for World Mental Health Day (10 October). Yet Life in the Law revealed that only 48% of those in a management or supervisory position had received leadership, management or supervisory training.

To ignore the mental health of the workforce and fail to implement good mental hygiene is to risk not only the firm’s reputation but its bottom line. The legal sector as a whole might accept that point, but do its leaders know how to act on it?

City and international

Chris Parsons, chair of the India practice and Mental Wellbeing Champion at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF). Parsons has spoken about his mental health issues with stress, anxiety, depression and alcoholism. In his social media posts he has envisageda different kind of law firm free from timesheet tyranny

When I first started struggling with mental health issues shortly after becoming a partner in the 1990s, no one was talking about it and the last thing I wanted to do was to talk about it. When I first came back to the office after having a major breakdown people said: “Chris has had a break, he needed to recharge his batteries.” I was happy to go along with that narrative as I didn’t want to talk about it either. Things have moved on significantly since then and firms are encouraging discussions around it so there is more awareness of mental health challenges.

‘My worry is that an effort to chase ever greater profits inevitably plays into questions of utilisation, so there is an inevitable tension between that, and the desire and willingness to address and help people with mental health issues. One thing that you can do is ensure that your processes take into account people’s ability to build teams – in the partnership pathway for instance. Make sure that your promotion processes genuinely put weight on a partner’s ability to look after their team and be a good role model. Many firms are now looking to ensure this, including HSF.

‘The legal profession has done well on raising awareness and on dealing with mental health crises when they happen. More work needs to be done however on producing concrete measures like human sustainability so that your competitive advantage becomes that people want to work for you rather than anyone else, and clients want to appoint you because you have a better understanding of people and are a more caring employer.’

Junior lawyers

Suzanne Eames, chair of the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) and an associate at Farrer & Co

The surveys [Stevenson-Farmer, Deloitte and LawCare] led the way, but what happened in the pandemic in terms of opening up the conversation on mental health and the accompanying issues has been incredible. It led to a discussion on flexible working, something that juniors have been asking for for a long time, and which can have a beneficial effect on mental health for some, although not for everyone.

‘In 2021/22 a new status quo has emerged. One of the things I have been working on is ensuring that the benefits gained during Covid, in terms of mental health being higher on the agenda, do not drop off. We have been conducting roundtable discussions, and writing articles and engagement pieces. The emphasis of these is on encouraging senior leadership to constantly communicate with junior staff about what their individual needs are and how to meet them. That is one of the best ways of improving people’s mental health.

‘Everyone has a unique situation. Some might be in a small flat and need to go into the office, while someone else may have a long commute and be better at home. Each junior lawyer is different and we should not just settle into a majority view post-Covid. Supervision is also very important for juniors. Part of our role in the JLD is to feed back the views of juniors to senior management.’

Legacy in the law

Graham McCartney, Jonathan’s Voice, a charity set up in 2017 in memory of Jonathan McCartney. The charity aims to promote mental wellbeing in the workplace and support healthier minds

Five years ago my son Jonathan took his own life. He worked for one of the largest IP firms in the UK as a patent attorney. We knew that he had a lot of international clients – working to a schedule where he was dealing with people on the west coast of America and the east coast of China – so we appreciated that he was under a great deal of pressure, but no one saw this coming. It was an out-of-the-blue event.

‘We thought: how can we make something out of this catastrophe? So we set up a mental health awareness charity. Five years ago there was a lot less awareness of mental health issues. We thought a good starting point was to work in a familiar space, so we focused on the intellectual property sector.

‘In 2017, the government had just undertaken and endorsed a review of mental health in the workplace which was a landmark piece of work – the Stevenson-Farmer review. It set the ball rolling by setting out core standards that workplaces ought to achieve to have a mentally healthy working environment. Our ambition was to knock on doors, get people to listen, talk to us and start to increase awareness among staff.

‘There is now a greater awareness among staff, senior leaders and professional IP bodies. We now have mental health consultants who give talks at conferences, do training events at firms and help us promote mental health and wellbeing through social media and workshops. We also produce digital materials for professionals in the sector aimed at senior leaders. We often help smaller firms without HR functions by providing workshops or training mental health first-aiders.

‘Firms seem to be gradually recognising that, as they spent time and money recruiting and rigorously training people to become a valuable asset of the business, they do not want to lose those people to a competitor, to another industry or, god forbid, in the way that we lost our son.’

Good management

Paul Bennett, partner at Bennett Briegal, advises law firms, solicitors, doctors, professionals and entrepreneurs on regulatory issues

There is still a cultural challenge for law firms about being client-led that inhibits change – people are scared of losing their clients or exposing their weaknesses. But the pandemic did bring a catch-up for law in focusing on mental health and wellbeing. Firms suddenly understood the need to check in on people’s welfare. I have seen a growing focus on good supervision and management ever since.

‘We offer lots of training to law firms on supervision and management which is thriving, because of the challenges of managing hybrid working. There is now an appetite and awareness of the importance of supervision and management to mental health that was not there before.

‘People become partners because they are good lawyers, but being a good lawyer does not necessarily mean you are a good manager. You have to be part-coach, part-risk manager, part-disciplinarian. It is also about being a trusted colleague and doing all this while dealing with demanding clients and demanding targets. It requires skill and resilience because of the wellbeing issue and the change in societal norms.

‘If you are in a supervisory or management role you need to be thinking about mental health issues daily – it should be part of the regular training pattern along with AML and black letter law. If you ask whether there is an open-door approach to asking questions at your firm and the answer is no, then you have a supervision problem.

‘Being mental-health aware is also critical for the retention of staff. There is a real mind-shift under way but I think we are only halfway through this evolution. Change must be modelled from the very top. In terms of practical steps, monitoring days off sick and retention rates, as well as the careful use of client satisfaction surveys, can help evaluate the success of your mental health provision. You can also use personal development plans to find out how staff are feeling, including whether they feel they need more training on supervision and management.

‘Instead of a top-down approach on supervision, training and management, try to see the process from both ends – from the supervised perspective as well as the supervisor. The traditional hierarchical structure does not get the best out of people or build the confidence to empower the supervised to have a say in the process.’

 

Katharine Freeland is a freelance journalist