Vulnerability is empowering

The Big issue

Talking about mental health issues is difficult for us all,
especially lawyers. Chris Parsons is the chair of Herbert Smith Freehills’ India practice group, a mental health champion, and someone who can speak from personal experience about the challenges of practising law while struggling with stress, anxiety, and depression.

Parsons first shared his personal struggles, medication, and experience of mental ill-health during the ‘This is Me’ campaign a City of London initiative aiming to encourage openness on the subject and address the stigma attached to mental illness. Since then, Chris has travelled to different countries to conduct deeper conversations and deliver trainings on the …

A sea change for cross-examination?

The Bar

No5 Barristers’ Chambers’ Michelle Heeley QC looks at the treatment of vulnerable people in the criminal justice system and the soon-to-be mandatory training designed to protect them in court

For the last two years, the Inns of Court College of Advocacy has been rolling out a training programme to teach practitioners how to deal with vulnerable witnesses. The move has been in response to criticism about how vulnerable witnesses are treated within the criminal justice system. The Crown Prosecution Service expects all counsel who …

A battle-scarred Bar

The Big Issue: Wellbeing

John van der Luit-Drummond talks to barristers about stresses and strains at the independent Bar and the impact different work has on their wellbeing and mental health

‘It starts the first day you are sent to the magistrates’ court as a second six pupil,’ explained Red Lion’s Edmund Vickers QC. ‘Someone has been arrested overnight on a rape charge and you are there to fill out the legal aid forms and apply for bail. You have someone’s liberty in your hands and …

Good wellbeing starts with good leadership

Leadership

EMEA editor Ella Marshall talks to Dentons’ new Europe chief mindfulness officer, Karina Furga-Dabrowska, on the modern pressures faced by lawyers and how law firms can better combat poor mental health and wellbeing among their workforces

Karina, you’ve been a lawyer for 20 years, how has the profession changed in terms of the pressure placed on lawyers? Lawyers today operate under a heightened sense of urgency, which creates more stress. Clients want answers immediately (yesterday was too late!) and they demand lower fees so we are constantly striving to be faster, …

The importance of supportive leadership

Leadership

Sarah Nelson Smith is the Regional General Counsel for WeWork, an international company that transforms buildings into collaborative workspaces and communities. While in her previous role as Chief Legal Officer of Kentucky Fried Chicken, she helped to steer the company successfully through the #chickencrisis of 2018, when a distribution failure led to the closure of the majority of the KFC restaurants in the UK. In an exclusive extract from her new book You Didn’t Mention The Piranhas, Sarah writes candidly about how it feels to be in the middle of a PR crisis

In the second week of the crisis, the snow came. It had toyed with us for several days, threatening a festive dusting, but then changed tack and engulfed the country in a thick white blanket, mocking the valiant efforts to get trucks loaded and onto the roads by rendering many of them impassable. I needed …