US-based Latham & Watkins has hired full-time counsellors to work with its staff in the UK as part of an extension of the firm’s mental health support for employees.
The firm has taken on two mental health professionals to provide counselling to staff amid growing fears of burnout in the legal sector, which has been exacerbated by coronavirus-related lockdowns.
Latham & Watkins previously offered counselling sessions to staff in its other offices and has now rolled out the initiative in more locations, including in the UK, from January this year.
It is understood the initiative is also available to summer associates and trainees, as well as law students who will be able to access the firm’s mental health support when they return to university.
Latham & Watkins offers one of the highest salaries for newly-qualified lawyers in London, currently at £150,000 a year. The ongoing salary war this week saw US firm Gibson Dunn reportedly increase NQ pay to £161,700 – topping the £161,500 offered by fellow US firm Goodwin Procter, previously the highest in the Square Mile.
A ‘legal boom’ has also seen a record number of partner hires at commercial law firms in London, according to a recent report by legal recruitment consultancy Edwards Gibson. However, concerns have been raised over many lawyers’ complaints of ‘dissatisfaction and burnout’ as well as the ongoing salary war.
Edwards Gibson said in January: ‘History tells us that law firm salary wars don’t tend to end well for associates, and more importantly for law firm management they have always been a portent of a market correction.’
Legal mental health charity LawCare said later that month that the most common problem cited by lawyers was stress, affecting 33% of the 667 legal professionals contacting the charity in 2021.
The Bar Council said that one in six young barristers want to leave the bar over unmanageable or unpredictable working hours, while the Legal Sector Workers United trade union warned that the professions face a ‘mental health crisis’.
Meanwhile, last month listed firm DWF’s chief executive Sir Nigel Knowles said that ever-increasing pay is ‘only a sticking plaster’ in a letter to the Financial Times.
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