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04 July 2025 / Elizabeth Rimmer
Issue: 8123 / Categories: Features , Mental health , Legal services , Profession , Career focus
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Driving change at the top

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Elizabeth Rimmer sets out practical steps for legal leaders to make a difference on mental health & workplace culture

In recent years, especially since the pandemic, there has been more open discussion about working culture and mental health in the legal sector. Firms and chambers are winning awards for their wellbeing initiatives. Regulators and professional bodies are sharing best practice. But we now need to turn this amplified conversation into meaningful and lasting change.

If we want to build a thriving, sustainable legal profession, we must look deeper. We need to move beyond surface-level fixes and begin reshaping the accepted norms and practices that undermine mental health in the workplace. Legal leaders play a critical role in this transformation. Here are seven practical steps to help guide the way.

Define a shared purpose

We need to be clear that mental health is not a ‘nice-to-have’ or a one-off campaign during Mental Health Awareness Week. It is fundamental to delivering effective, ethical, and sustainable legal services.

When people

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NEWS
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NLJ this week: Divorce ‘nuclear weapon’ freezes assets but entangles outsiders
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
NLJ this week: What counts as ‘rent’? Court says labour alone won’t do
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Your magistrates’ court needs you!
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
NLJ this week: Freed but failed—justice system leaves the innocent empty-handed
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
NLJ this week: Clarity on whistleblowing, settlements and tribunal limits
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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