Lawyers are “stressed, tired and anxious”, says important new study
Samantha Bray says the legal profession needs to start taking mental wellbeing seriously.
This week, LawCare (the mental health charity focused on the legal profession) published a major report into wellbeing at work.
Over two thirds of the 1,700 lawyers surveyed said that they have experienced mental ill-health in the past year. More than a fifth said they felt unable to cope.
The report also that junior lawyers are at an increased risk of burnout and almost half those affected do not talk about their problems at work, due to perceived career implications.
LawCare CEO Elizabeth Rimmer said the paper is “robust evidence that the legal profession is stressed, tired, anxious, at high risk of burnout and that those working practices in the law that undermine mental health need to change”.
She continued: “We want this research to be the catalyst for us to come together as a profession to create that change, to create a culture in law that puts the law’s greatest asset – it’s people – first.”
The magic of Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs)
In advance of our upcoming webinar on EOTs, here is a post we put together last year.
If you have succession on your mind, or simply buy into to the cultural benefits of employee ownership, this post is a must.
News and Guidance
Law Society Updates
- Report: Reasonable adjustments in organisations – best practice for disability inclusion
- Q&A: When should I carry out a sanctions risk assessment?
- Updated practice note: Anti-terrorism
- Updated practice note: Making gifts of assets
SRA Updates
- New guidance: AML Questions and answers – bookmark this, otherwise you will never find it again
- Updated SQE guidance: Solicitors and Compliance Officers for Legal Practice (COLPs) confirming qualifying work experience
- Updated SQE guidance: Meeting our standards for good qualifying work experience
Other Updates
- Economic Crime Levy – small law firms (under £10.2m turnover) will not have to pay the upcoming ‘tax on practising law’
- LawCare report – 1 in 5 solicitors report bullying in the workplace (see our main story)
Webinars
Next session
This month’s session will be of interest to law firm leaders who are interested in employee ownership. We have some excellent speakers lined up to tell all about the magic of Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs).
As usual, we will invite clients first before opening up any remaining spaces. Look out for the invitation in your inbox.
Disciplinary decisions
- Stuart Ashpole – facilities manager ‘struck off’ (s43 order) for selling his law firm’s electronic devices for his own gain (also convicted for theft).
- Matthew Feargrieve – solicitor rebuked by SRA following a conviction for common assault.
- Samual Palin – rebuked by SRA for unintentionally but recklessly helping a fraudster, by failing to undertake full ID checks.
- Martin Charles Price – fined £1,200 following drink driving conviction.
- Silas Ogbonna and Topstone Solicitors (a firm) – fined £12,500 and £15,000 respectively for client due diligence failures and allowing the client account to be used as a banking facility. Note that there is no finding of actual financial crime.
- Louise Ryan – COFA ‘struck off’ (by s43 order) after allowing client money for disbursements by used for other purposes and failing to make a report to the SRA.
- Paul Duncan Leslie Carpenter – solicitor rebuked for taking over 6 years (and counting) to administer an estate.
- Victor Stockinger – struck off for making offensive racial remarks at a professional event and failing to engage with the SRA investigation.
- Simon Sui Ping Hsu – struck off for overcharging client to the tune of £18k, and then lying to the SRA about his whereabouts to avoid investigation.
- Catherine McNicholas – conveyancing assistant ‘struck off’ (s43 order) for using her employer’s letterhead paper to provide fabricated letters to the court in a dispute involving a relative.
- Kieran Morgan – fined £1200 following drink driving conviction
- Katherine Broadbent – conveyancing legal executive ‘struck off’ (s43 order) after forging a client’s signature on a title plan to effect a completion.
- Luke Holden – associate solicitor fined £2,000 for sending abusive Twitter messages to MPs. It was relevant that his account identified him as a solicitor.
- Ashgar Ali – solicitor rebuked for failing to keep a proper record of client account transactions and not promptly rectifying a client account shortfall.
- Urszula Wiszniewska – solicitor fined £1,700 for drink driving conviction and failing to alert the SRA.
- Matthew and Matthew (a firm) – rebuked for allowing proceeds of property sales for a commercial client to be sent to the top company and other related property SPVs, which were not themselves party to the property transaction. (This would have caught a lot of practitioners out – shows the importance of asking “who is my client?“).
- Laurence Ives – head of business development ‘struck off’ (s43 order) following conviction for sexual offences involving children.
- Atholl McGregor Taylor – fined £2,000 for falsely stating the firm’s pricing policy to a client, and making up a discussion with the managing partner to give the impression of a discount to those costs.
- Tina Portillo – bookkeeper ‘struck off’ (s43 order) for stealing from her employer’s office account.