Legal mental health charity, Lawcare is urging legal professionals to join over 1,350 fellow colleagues to make their voice heard and tell their story in a ground-breaking research study.
Only four weeks to go until the deadline of 31st December, LawCare is urging legal professionals to take part in their study ‘Life in the Law’ to determine the impact of work culture and working practices on the wellbeing of legal professionals.
Anyone working in the legal industry, including those in training and support staff, can complete the anonymous online questionnaire across the UK, Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man until December 31st. The results, which will be announced next year, will help LawCare improve the support available to legal professionals and drive change in the profession, as well as forming the basis for an academic paper.
The research seeks to understand the day to day realities of life in the law and uses three academic research scales for burn-out, psychological safety, and autonomy. It includes questions about sleep, workload, hours worked, self-care and working environment, as well as asking what wellbeing support is offered at work. There are also questions about bullying, discrimination and harassment, sleep, alcohol, and experiences of stress, anxiety, and depression. The research will also examine how the legal profession has been affected by COVID-19.
Elizabeth Rimmer, CEO of LawCare, said:
“This is the biggest ever piece of academic research into wellbeing in the legal industry in the UK and Ireland. We’ve been absolutely delighted with the number of responses so far and we urge all legal professionals to make their voice heard and tell us about their life in the law. This will give us a clear picture of how the culture and practice of law affects mental health and help us not only to improve the support available to legal professionals, but drive long lasting change in legal workplaces so that people working in the law can thrive.”
The charity teamed up with leading academics in the field Dr Emma Jones (University of Sheffield), Professor Richard Collier (University of Newcastle), Caroline Strevens (Reader in Legal Education, University of Portsmouth) and Lucinda Soon (Solicitor and PhD researcher) along with Nick Bloy (Executive Coach and founder of Wellbeing Republic) and Kayleigh Leonie (LawCare trustee and solicitor) to develop the research study.
Take part at lifeinthelaw.org.uk.
