WELLBEING & RESILIENCE
Perfectionism, excessive workloads and lack of senior support: Survey reveals mental health & wellbeing challenges for SA lawyers EDWIN FAH, JOHNSON WINTER & SLATTERY
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arlier this year, the Law Society conducted a survey of the State’s legal practitioners on their general levels of mental health and wellbeing. The questions contained in the survey were designed to mirror those of a similar survey conducted by the International Bar Association. A more comprehensive comparison between the South Australian and International Bar Association results is intended to be the subject of a future Bulletin article. This article focuses on only a small part of the survey, exploring what impact employers of legal practitioners in South Australia have on their employees’ overall mental health and wellbeing, and issues arising from those results.
DEMOGRAPHICS There appears to be a view among some parts of the legal profession that wellbeing is a millennial indulgence and that the profession does not “engender any more stress than any other professional role”. The results of the survey show that it is anything but that, as: • 58% of the survey respondents were aged 40 years or more; and • 62% of the survey respondents were senior practitioners, being partners/ directors or senior associates of law firms, Judges, barristers or in-house counsel.
LAWYERS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA ARE DISPROPORTIONATELY UNHAPPY According to the most recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey conducted by the Commonwealth Government’s Department of Social Services, 85% of those respondents stated that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with their
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current job, against only 2% who stated that they were dissatisfied. By contrast, the results of the Survey make for confronting reading: • Less than 30% of respondents reported feeling positive about their role in the legal profession; • 47% of respondents stated that the legal profession has a negative impact on their overall wellbeing; • Over the past 2 years, almost 60% of respondents have considered leaving the legal profession entirely; and • In the last 12 months, almost 10% of respondents have either had suicidal thoughts or actually self-harmed as a result of their involvement in the profession. The bottom line is this: a member of the general public is almost 3 times more likely to feel positively about their job than a South Australian legal practitioner, and that practitioner is almost 23 times more likely to actively dislike their job than a member of the general public. But what is it about the legal profession that is causing this? A number of common themes emerged from the written answers in the Survey, with the 4 most common reasons cited for the generally negative view of the profession by its participants, being: • Excessive workloads; • Billing pressures; • Toxic or unsupportive workplace culture; and • Perfectionism and competition.
WHAT ARE EMPLOYEES SAYING TO EMPLOYERS ABOUT IMPROVING WELLBEING? It is clear that wellbeing issues are still perceived as something to be hidden at work:
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Almost half of the Survey’s respondents stated that if they did have a concern about their wellbeing at work, they would be disinclined to speak to their employer about it for fear that it may have a negative effect on their career and future work opportunities; • A quarter of respondents would not discuss wellbeing issues with their employer because of a lack of confidence (both in terms of confidentiality as well as effectiveness) of the reporting mechanisms; and • 10% of respondents would not raise wellbeing issues with their employer because they think they would simply not be believed. An underlying theme that emerges from the survey responses is that employer-driven wellbeing programmes are viewed quite cynically. A number of those responses pointed out that whilst some workplaces had wellbeing programmes, these were simply superficial and exist purely so that the employers could win “pointless marketing awards” instead of taking substantive steps that would actually improve wellbeing. In order to combat that, some respondents recommended that wellbeing issues could be de-stigmatised by more senior practitioners being open about their own issues and the mistakes they have made in the past. This would also seem to alleviate a number of concerns that senior management do not appear to take Wellbeing seriously. A practical difficulty with making this a reality though is an interesting observation highlighted by a number of responses, that the legal profession seems to be made up of perfectionists (some responses also referred to narcissists and sociopaths) for whom the appearance of infallibility is all consuming. One respondent suggested that the legal
