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08 October 2020 / Claire Williamson
Issue: 7905 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Mind over (business) matters

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The right mental health initiatives can support your people & your firm’s bottom line, says Claire Williamson

Working in the legal industry is demanding. With a culture where the extremes of the job are often applauded—late nights, tight deadlines, being constantly accessible by technology—it is little wonder that a quarter of junior lawyers have described their stress levels as severe, with one in 15 reporting that they had experienced suicidal thoughts. These shocking revelations in the Law Society Resilience Report 2019 (LSRR) sent ripples around the legal community (https://bit.ly/2GuWjS0).

Add in the challenges of the current climate and it is no surprise that 81% of firms in a Leading Minds’ survey reported increased requests from employees with their mental health since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.

Struggles with stress

Many solicitors are not simply experiencing stress, but struggling with it, which is going to have a huge impact on individuals’ health as well as a firm’s performance. Employees who are stressed are not working

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys senior leadership appointments

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths strengthens London Construction and Engineering practice with two strategic senior hires

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins announces strategic hire to deepen skills base in the social business sector

NEWS
More than 100 teams from the legal and financial services sectors competed in five sports at the 51st Law Society RFC Festival of Sport earlier this month
Part-time status need only be an effective cause of less favourable treatment, rather than the sole cause, the Supreme Court has held in Augustine v Data Cars
Britain’s new acknowledgement that Israel’s occupation is unlawful, and accompanying settlement-goods ban and sanctions, is significant but overdue, argue Danny Friedman KC and Victor Kattan in NLJ this week
New planning fee rises, wider trade union access rights and a service-by-email trap feature in Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way
Existing defamation law can respond to AI ‘hallucinations’, but allocating responsibility will prove harder where outputs reach users without human intervention
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