Well-Being in the Legal Profession

As with all important change, the first step for employers is to develop a strategy that sets out the plan of action to prioritize well-being in the workplace and put people in charge of making sure the strategies work. An effective strategy will be one that is developed for your specific workplace and has buy in from all members of leadership. You may benefit from retaining an expert to help you develop a strategy that considers your specific organizational values, needs, resources and constraints. 

If you are not able to retain outside help and are looking for a place to start, consider the following strategies that may be applicable to your workplace:

• Manage workload: Develop a guideline that outlines what reasonable performance for staff looks like and regularly assess each staff member’s workload against the guideline to guard against quantitative and qualitative overload. How the guideline looks will depend on the specific performance goals in your practice setting. If you aren’t sure what a reasonable guideline could look like, talk with your staff to gauge signs of work overload and adjust as needed until you find work conditions that align with your goals and needs. Some signs that lawyers may have work overload include trouble meeting deadlines and managing other work, decreased client satisfaction, regularly working more than 55-60 hours per week, forgoing vacation, higher turnover or absenteeism and low morale or job satisfaction. If you find your lawyers have work overload, consider transferring work within a team to more evenly balance out the work, declining new work until workload lightens, hiring more staff or utilizing temporary help through a service like Locum Connect.
  
  
• Consider different billing models: If your workplace uses the billable hour model to set lawyer performance goals, assess whether it’s possible to try other methods or adjust the model being used where possible. As noted in the Study, the billable hour model, and in particular higher targets under the model, is a major source of overload, pressure and unhealthy behaviours in the legal profession. In the Toxic Productivity in Law webinar, Annmarie Carvalho, a former family solicitor turned therapist, trainer and public speaker, speaks to some of the issues related to the hourly billable model. Fixed fee and valued-based billing are two increasingly common methods firms can consider to reduce the workload and pressure on their staff while still providing consistent, high-quality service to their clients. You may also find that clients prefer this type of billing model for greater certainty regarding the costs to complete their matter. If your firm decides to use a billable hour model, consider if targets can be reduced and if non-revenue generating activities can count toward the target. One of the Study’s recommendations was to remove billable hour targets for lawyers in their first two years of practice, as the performance required to meet the target can be detrimental to acquiring skills that are essential to high-quality practice. While this may affect firm profitability in the short term, the decreased pressure may result in better quality work, happier employees and increased client satisfaction. This in turn will help build your reputation that will attract more clients and high-value staff.
  
  
• Have a supportive work environment: Provide a work environment that supports well-being. This includes ensuring everyone is treated with respect and that a Respectful Workplace Model Policy is strictly enforced to convey that discrimination, harassment and violence are not acceptable and will not be tolerated. This also includes prioritizing staff feeling psychologically safe in the workplace where they feel they can talk about mental health challenges openly and safely. Paula Davis provides suggestions to develop psychological safety within teams, and the Law Society Equity Ombudsperson can provide confidential assistance with the development of workplace policies. Depending on your budget, a supportive work environment can also include providing access to natural light, access to privacy as needed, ergonomic furniture and equipment, filtered water and healthy snacks.
  
  
• Provide autonomy and flexibility: Consider how you can increase autonomy and flexibility in the workplace. Staff will have different personal obligations or needs they are trying to manage, including those relating to managing their mental health, as well as neurodivergent or other needs that require different environments for different tasks. Autonomy and flexibility in this regard may include:
  
  
• offering remote work options for those that prefer or need to work from home;
• letting staff set their own schedules within reason; 
• implementing no-meeting hours or days to allow for focused work;
• involving staff in discussions that impact their work; 
• encouraging staff to make recommendations and decisions as appropriate to their role; and
• providing mentorship that encourages independent thinking can help staff feel valued and that their work provides them with purpose. 

• Provide appropriate work resources: Regularly assess what your staff need to effectively carry out their work. Lawyer needs can differ depending on practice area and setting and the specific things they need support with, including the right legal and support staff. Having the right support in place is key to managing workflow. Consider how best to align support staff’s skillset and time with the needs of the lawyers in your workplace. 
  
  
• Promote mentorship: Mentorship opportunities and support from senior counsel and leadership is key to ensuring lawyers can get assistance on a work-related matter, learn in a safe space and grow within the organization. The Honourable Chief Justice of Ontario Strathy in The Litigator and Mental Health highlights that when lawyers are “brought into discussions with the client, discussions about strategy, conversations about the law or the facts, they begin to take ownership of the case. This simple step makes work more meaningful and leads to greater work satisfaction.” Justice Strathy further highlights “the responsibility mentors have to protect juniors from bullying or oppressive conduct.” Depending on the size of your workplace, consider a formal mentorship program to ensure everyone gets equal opportunity to these benefits.
  
  
• Provide appropriate technological resources: Consider how you can thoughtfully leverage technological resources to reduce workload and automate simple tasks. There are many helpful technologies available that can help with billing, document and file management, and research, among other things. The number of new legal tech tools is in constant flux but you can find a snapshot of available products on the Legaltech Hub website.
  
  
• Incorporate fulfilling work: Encourage staff to participate in work that is meaningful to them or work towards a role that best aligns with their values and needs. If this type of work or role is not available, encourage pro bono or volunteer work that counts towards their performance metric to help fulfil this need.
  
  
• Prioritize vacation: Encourage staff to take their allotted vacation and respect their time off. This means planning to wrap up work involving them before they leave, not scheduling meetings or deadlines that requires their input during their time off and not contacting them unless it is a true emergency. If it’s practice at your workplace to include staff who are away to keep them appraised, include them in the cc line to convey that their response is not required.
  
  
• Respect working hours: Consider a policy where staff are generally encouraged to not work when their workday is done and/or have a mechanism for communicating when an urgent matter arises that needs immediate attention. Reflecting on if something is truly urgent before contacting staff after their workday is done may also reduce interfering with staff’s need to disconnect. For those that prefer or need to work later in the evening, consider noting in the subject line or first sentence of the email when an immediate response is not expected or schedule the delivery of the email for the following morning. 
  
  
• Consider extended breaks: Consider whether offering a sabbatical, which is a formalized extended leave during which a staff member devotes time to personal or professional renewal and development, is appropriate for your workplace. The Canadian Bar Association and The Law Society Gazette provide considerations for implementing this type of leave. 
  
  
• Support emotional demands: If your staff are at risk for developing compassion fatigue, periodically host a workshop where you talk openly about the causes and symptoms of compassion fatigue and share experiences and best practices to minimize its effects. Canadian Mental Health Association Alberta provides compassion fatigue and burnout prevention training and there is also information available online.
  
  
• Support workplace connection: Consider how you can encourage social engagement and connection that is inclusive and appropriate to your work setting. Examples include collaborating on work and projects, celebrating achievements or important events, team-building exercises and providing social opportunities for colleagues to get to know each other beyond the work they do. Given the higher number of lawyers struggling with alcohol and substance use issues, consider events that do not centre on alcohol or other substance use. 
  
  
• Centre EDI in the workplace: Review all aspects of your workplace to ensure that it is equitable, diverse and inclusive. Remember that the Study highlighted that equity seeking groups have higher prevalence rates of mental health challenges. This could include such things as evaluating your recruitment, hiring, retention and advancements processes, providing education on bias and cultural awareness training, and supporting cultural events and affinity groups.
  
  
• Prioritize well-being: Provide and promote various well-being tools, resources and supports to prioritize individual lawyer well-being. If it’s financially available, consider a comprehensive benefit plan for employees that prioritizes good mental health and well-being. Consider reasonable vacation, leave and personal days policies that are not restricted to just physical health issues, and ensure you have a policy that will support those coming back from leave. Ensure every current and new lawyer and articling student is aware of the counselling and other well-being programs and resources offered by Assist, Canadian Bar Association, Law Society and other local organizations. The Law Society also has a variety of practice supports to reduce the stressors related to being regulated.
  
  
• Provide workplace training: Provide mental health first aid ideally to all staff, but critically to all staff in supervisory, management or leadership positions, as well as training on how to effectively supervise and provide constructive feedback.
  
  
• Role model well-being: The best way to show what good mental health looks like is to emulate it. Respect the strategies you implement, be respectful to everyone you encounter, take meaningful time away from work, and provide support to those in need. If applicable, sharing your mental health experiences and challenges can also significantly reduce the stigma and fear for more junior lawyers going through challenges.
  
  
• Seek staff feedback: Involving staff in your well-being strategy will foster a culture of openness and be useful in identifying where there are gaps or areas that could be improved. Staff should be provided the opportunity to give meaningful anonymous feedback without fear of repercussion. 

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Workplace Mental Health Playbook for Business Leaders is another resource available to help implement your strategy.

Remember that all members of leadership need to be invested to see organizational change. If there are certain strategies your workplace cannot offer, it is better to be transparent about that when implementing a well-being strategy and for new staff at the recruitment process, so staff have the information to decide whether your workplace is the right fit for them.