Wellbeing & Resilience: Survey reveals mental health challenges for SA

Perfectionism, excessive workloads and lack of senior support: Survey reveals mental health & wellbeing challenges for SA lawyers

EDWIN FAH, JOHNSON WINTER & SLATTERY

Earlier 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 fi rms, 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 satisfi ed or very satisfi ed with their current job, against only 2% who stated that they were dissatisfi ed.

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?

• 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 confi dence (both in terms of confi dentiality 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 superfi cial 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 diffi culty 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

profession actively encourages colleagues to discredit and find fault with each other but that this could be stamped out by employers not prioritising and publicly praising a “win at all costs” approach.

However, the two most desired improvements the survey respondents want from their employers, is genuine mentoring and more realistic workloads.

In terms of mentoring, a common request was that employers should have a formal mentoring programme where junior practitioners are specifically assigned to a more senior practitioner and that regular catch ups be mandatory. Others took a less hierarchical view and were in favour of a “buddy” system where new junior practitioners are buddied with a practitioner of a similar level who has been at that workplace longer.

Some respondents pointed out that mentoring and workloads are linked, as good internal mentoring by senior practitioners appears to lead to more realistic workloads for those mentored. A number of respondents made the point that excessive workloads are often not the product of business necessity, but of senior practitioners not taking the time to actually speak to their more junior colleagues and so they do not understand that some practitioners are busier than others.

As one respondent noted, some practitioners are placed in an invidious position because whilst they might be overworked, they do not want to turn down new work for fear of being thought of as less capable. For these practitioners, the choice seems to be between their wellbeing and their professional success.

EMPLOYERS ARE GENUINELY TRYING TO DO BETTER

Despite these results, and although there is clearly much further to go, respondents to the survey recognise that their employers are taking some steps to address wellbeing issues.

Whilst 40% of respondents believe that their employers could do more in this space, 37% of respondents do not believe their employers could (or should) do more.

But it is the assessment of the effectiveness of steps taken by employers that might be surprising: of the survey participants, 33% of respondents consider that the steps taken by their employers are effective, against only 26% that consider those steps to be ineffective.

Apart from being surprising, these numbers do not sit comfortably with the results in other parts of the survey. For example, it is difficult to reconcile the results that say almost half of the respondents would not speak to their employer about Wellbeing issues because of a lack of faith in the process, yet only about a quarter of respondents consider those same processes to be ineffective. Perhaps this is simply an indication that respondents’ perceptions about the effectiveness of employer-driven wellbeing programmes are inherently individualistic, and are not amenable to being generalised.

IS THERE ANOTHER COURSE?

According to the Survey, 70% of respondents believe that non-work factors have a significant impact on their overall Wellbeing. In other words, even if they were not a part of the legal profession, negative wellbeing outcomes would still affect 70% of the profession.

To date, programmes to address wellbeing in the legal profession have been geared towards assisting practitioners to cope with the issues the profession throws up, whether this be overwork, lack of proper mentoring or a myriad of other obstacles.

But the elephant in the room is this: for some people, no amount of mentoring or support will turn their participation in the legal profession into a positive experience. For people who fall into this category, the truth may be that there is nothing an employer can do to improve their Wellbeing outcomes.

One Survey participant put it this way: “there are all these programs to improve work-life balance etc but very little to what I think is a core issue – the way lawyers are trained to think. This way of thinking (critically, all the time) has a huge impact on us for the rest of our lives. More is needed to educate people about whether a career in legal practice is right for them in terms of emotional and mental health, and given their personality”.

IF WE’RE ALL UNHAPPY, WHY DO WE STAY?

It is clear from the survey that, as a whole, South Australian legal practitioners can’t be said to love what they do, and in fact, actively dislike it many times more than the rest of society dislikes their jobs. So why do we stay?

Perhaps it is a product of our education, or the personalities of those drawn to it, but the legal profession, as a whole, does not appear to engender strong feelings in many of its participants.

One interesting result to emerge from the Survey is the general level of apathy in the legal profession. For example, almost 22% of respondents felt neutral about their role in the legal profession whereas less than 13% took a neutral view in the HILDA survey. When asked about the effectiveness of their employer’s responses to wellbeing issues, 24% of respondents felt that they were neither effective nor ineffective. When asked about whether employers should do more to assist employees deal with Wellbeing issues, 23% of respondents expressly declined to offer a view.

One respondent stated: “It is stressful managing priorities and client/employer expectations. But I don’t know what else I’d be doing if not law”.

In saying all of the above, it would be a disservice to the many respondents who expressed overwhelmingly positive feelings towards the profession, not to recognise their experiences.

A large number of respondents stated that they liked the intellectual nature of the profession, and that they had the opportunity to use their skills to help others, but that the pressure to meet billable hour targets, attend business development events, unreasonable client and employer expectations and, at least for the more senior practitioners, onerous professional compliance obligations, detracts from that experience.

Perhaps this provides a better explanation for the results of the Survey. Perhaps it is the case that practitioners are genuinely torn between parts of the profession they really like, and parts they really don’t like, so overall consider their experiences to be neutral.

One inference from these results is that practitioners like the actual practice of the law, but dislike the business side of the profession. If that is true, it remains to be seen whether this divergence can be overcome, given that the profession appears to be moving closer to a “business” model, rather than further away.