LawCare records one of its ‘busiest years ever’
The legal wellbeing charity LawCare has seen a significant rise in lawyers seeking support for workplace bullying.
Stats in the charity’s latest impact report show that the number of legal professionals contacting its free, independent, and confidential helpline for issues with bullying, harassment, or discrimination in the workplace has risen by 95% over the last year, and now make up 14% of all calls.
The total number of lawyers seeking help is also on the rise, up 14% from the 2022 figures to a total of 633.
Alongside bullying, lawyers sought support in managing stress (22%), anxiety (13%), and career concerns (13%).
Seventy-two percent of those who contacted the helpline were female, whilst a quarter of callers were under 30 and 12% identified as having a disability.
Last year the charity raised £379,625 to support their work. This includes both the helpline, as well as delivering training sessions and funding counselling.
Elizabeth Rimmer, chief executive of LawCare, commented:
“2023 was one of our busiest years ever at LawCare, second only to 2020 when the pandemic started. I would urge individuals and organisations to start taking active steps to create working environments which better protect mental health and where bullying and harassment are not tolerated. We need to drive a collective responsibility in our sector to tackle bullying and harassment by identifying the workplace factors that can lead to it, such as low psychological safety and managers with little or no training and support, and taking positive action to address these.”
