I recently participated in a lawyer roundtable on wellbeing. It took place within a wider meeting to discuss a range of general issues, not specifically wellbeing, and I was struck by the strong rush of anxieties around work, which was shared by all who were present, often focused around the billable hour.
Previous generations of solicitors would doubtless have scoffed at the current centrality of wellbeing in our discussions. What has caused the shift?
The changed demographics of the profession may provide one reason. There are many more women in the profession, who – so folk wisdom tells us – are more open to speaking about what ails them, making it easier to speak about well-being in general. And we are also told that the younger generation (regardless of gender) are more concerned about their work-life balance.
I think another reason is that previous generations did not have to deal with the consequences of technology – with its demands of immediacy and constant availability, its addictive qualities and inescapable ubiquity. It is always in our pocket.
Lawyers who do not see wellbeing as one of the main challenges of the modern profession must now be in a small minority.
For the first time, wellbeing is embedded in the Law Society’s corporate strategy under its mission on responsible business. For the first time, too, the Society now has a committee with responsibility for wellbeing (incorporated into the Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing Committee).
Our current President has included wellbeing as one of the themes of his year plan – and has been assiduous in promoting it throughout the year, especially through his favourite way of dealing with mental health, through long distance running. He founded LegalRunners to advance running as a route to better mental health, and is indeed going off after his Presidential year to become chief executive of LawCare, the mental health charity for the legal sector.
Last year, LawCare published a report on the state of the profession’s mental health, with nearly 60% of respondents reporting poor mental wellbeing. More recent reports show that significant numbers of solicitors suffer from severe work-related stress, evidenced by disturbed sleep, negative impact on home life, and burnout. Client demands and high workload feature as the principal causes, with regulatory pressures a little way behind.
The Law Society wants to hear from the profession about how to shape its response to the wellbeing crisis. There will be an online session on 15 July 2026, facilitated by the President, called ‘Shaping wellbeing together’. All solicitors are invited, subject to event capacity. Those interested can sign up through the ‘Get Involved’ platform.
No-one questions nowadays that bars and professional associations have a role in supporting well-being. Five years ago, the International Bar Association published a global study on wellbeing in the legal profession, with ten sensible principles. The first three were: mental wellbeing matters; mental wellbeing is not weakness; and raising awareness is fundamental. It is in the latter area that bars have a role, for instance, in promoting training events, and mentoring and coaching schemes, plus advocating for flexible career paths, and providing peer support and confidential helplines.
But is there something in the regulatory sphere that bars might be able to do? What if the requirement to maintain a healthy work environment, focusing specifically on the mental health of those employed by lawyers and law firms, becomes a regulatory requirement, such as requiring reasonable steps to be taken to identify and manage risks of harm arising from the allocation and management of work?
Most solicitors would probably groan: ‘The regulatory burden is already too heavy, and its weight is one of the factors causing our mental health problems in the first place!’ If the regulator is part of the cause for stress, the regulator is then hardly an appropriate forum to intervene and sort out work environments which are causing harm.
And what good would a new rule do? The firm’s work has to be carried out for the client regardless, if the firm is to survive commercially and provide a high quality product. Some might argue that such a rule is therefore not commercially realistic, and just moves the stress higher up the hierarchy, to managers.
On the other hand, what else is going to show law firms that this is a serious matter where there will be consequences if they do not take appropriate steps to look after the mental health of their staff? Of course, law firms’ know that it is in their interest to keep their staff happy, but the statistics show that whatever they are doing now is not working. The statistics on sleepless nights and burnout bear witness.
It seems to me that the idea of a new regulatory requirement on wellbeing is worth debating. Its pros and cons can then be aired, and all sides heard.
Jonathan Goldsmith is Law Society Council member for EU & International, chair of the Law Society’s Policy & Regulatory Affairs Committee and a member of its board. All views expressed are personal and are not made in his capacity as a Law Society Council member, nor on behalf of the Law Society
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