Dutch Bar provides special resilience training for criminal defence attorneys

The Dutch Bar has recognised that criminal defence attorneys who have clients behind bars can face pressure, threats and possibly even manipulative behaviour and is organising special resilience training to their members facing this challenge. Special attention is paid to manipulative behaviour and how this can lead to undesired influence on lawyers. The course covers how…

The Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales is consulting on proposed changes to its wellbeing standards

The consultation, running from the 4 March – 27 March follows increased concerns about the level of stress solicitors are experiencing as well as reports of bullying and harassment. The consultation addresses two key issues: The SRA has seen instances of serious, unfair and inappropriate treatment in the work place. There has been an increase in…

The Dutch Bar Association will run resilience training for lawyers in 2022 after the 2021 offerings proved popular

The resilience training courses for lawyers in The Netherlands run by the Dutch Bar Association were so popular they’re running them again in 2022 for a new cohort, running a new series of 500 training courses. These courses aim to teach lawyers the skills required to deal with aggression and threats that they may face…

The Bar Standards Board of England and Wales has published its regulatory decision making annual report

This is the second report of its type by the Bar Standards Board since the way regulatory decisions were made was reformed. The report finds that between April 2020 and March 2021 the number of reports and applications for exemptions substantially increased. This coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bar Standards Board has increased proactive…

Canada launches national wellbeing study of legal professionals

A partnership of the different Canadian law societies, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the Canadian Bar Association and the Université de Sherbrooke is coming together for a first-of-its-kind national study on the well-being of legal professionals. The study is based on the fact that legal practitioners are amongst the grouping of professionals most…

Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism: five ways to improve well-being in the legal profession

Stephanie Villinski, Deputy Director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, has released her take on improving lawyer well-being, based on ‘The Future Is Now: Legal Services conference’, which is the Commission on Professionalism’s annual future law event. Ms. Villinski reflects on the fact that many of the changes that can have the greatest…

Stress, drink, leave: An examination of gender-specific risk factors for mental health problems and attrition among licensed attorneys

Abstract Rates of mental illness and heavy alcohol use are exceedingly high in the legal profession, while attrition among women has also been a longstanding problem. Work overcommitment, work-family conflict, permissiveness toward alcohol in the workplace, and the likelihood of promotion are all implicated but have yet to be systematically investigated. Data were collected from…