Legal mental health charity LawCare yesterday released the findings of its research study Life in the Law.
The research into wellbeing in the profession took data from between October 2020 and January 2021, with over 1,700 professionals in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, and Isle of Man taking part.
LawCare undertook the research to take a snapshot of mental health and wellbeing in the legal profession to help inform future steps the profession must collectively take to improve wellbeing in the sector.
The study questioned legal professionals on a range of areas, including work intensity (workload and working hours), and used three recognised academic scales for burnout (disengagement and exhaustion), autonomy (ability to control what, where, how, and with whom, work is done), and psychological safety (ability to speak up with ideas and questions, raise concerns or admit mistakes).
The majority of participants (69%) had experienced mental ill-health (whether clinically or self-diagnosed) in the 12 months before completing the survey.
