Today, Monday 10th October, is World Mental Health Day 2022.
We hope the conversation around mental health and wellbeing, specifically how it affects lawyers, never loses its momentum. The theme for this year is: “Make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority”. Globally lawyers can be differentiated by specialism but one of the things we have in common is having a stressful career.
LawCare, a lawyer wellbeing charity, found that over two-thirds of lawyers have experienced mental health issues. Now whilst these issues shouldn’t be stigmatised, not managing them can be unhealthy and is not sustainable.
Working as a junior lawyer can be demanding as we are trying to navigate a competitive career, produce effective results for clients whilst also staying on top of our chargeable hours. A report from the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) of the Law Society of England and Wales found that over 93% of young people working in the legal profession are stressed at work. Whilst some stress is good when it acts as a motivation to get a job done, too much of it can lead to physical illness, burnout, and exhaustion to name a few.
Whilst it is normal to want to impress partners or your supervisors so early in your career, it is important to have regular personal check-ins about how you’re doing mentally. If you’re feeling stressed daily because of your job, eventually it will show in your work and your personal life. Low work performance will inevitably cause you to be more stressed or anxious and the cycle will continue.
Finding an outlet to destress, speaking to your firm’s mental health champions/an external professional, and making your wellbeing a priority will serve you now and for the rest of your career.
For more resources on how to identify poor mental health and ways in which to deal with it, we encourage you to please visit:
