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12 December 2018 / Elizabeth Rimmer
Categories: Features
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Legal Life - Time for an MOT?

If we are serious about addressing the mental health and wellbeing of legal professionals then we need to look at the culture and practice of law, says Elizabeth Rimmer writing in our special supplement on how to travel well in the law

We all have mental health, just as we have physical health. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing, and affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.

Mental health issues range from the worries we all experience as part of everyday life, to serious long-term conditions. It can be easy to dismiss mental health problems as something that happen to other people, but research shows that one in four of us will experience them each year. And the legal community is no exception.

It is known from research in the US that lawyers have higher rates of anxiety, depression and stress compared to other professions. Why is this? It’s not that lawyers are genetically predisposed

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Litigators digesting Mazur are being urged to tighten oversight and compliance. In his latest 'Insider' column for NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School provides a cut out and keep guide to the ruling’s core test: whether an unauthorised individual is ‘in truth acting on behalf of the authorised individual’
Conflicting county court rulings have left landlords uncertain over whether they can force entry after tenants refuse access. In this week's NLJ, Edward Blakeney and Ashpen Rajah of Falcon Chambers outline a split: some judges permit it under CPR 70.2A, others insist only Parliament can authorise such powers
A wave of scandals has reignited debate over misconduct in public office, criticised as unclear and inconsistently applied. Writing in NLJ this week, Alice Lepeuple of WilmerHale says the offence’s ‘vagueness, overbreadth & inconsistent deployment’ have undermined confidence
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