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Barristers are on the frontline of an immensely challenging job, as Annette Henry KC knows first-hand. The criminal silk turned wellbeing consultant asks Chair of the Bar Nick Vineall KC about progress on wellbeing practices
As a young criminal barrister in the 1980s, a case with a mental health issue soon landed on my desk. At that time, 1 in 4 people before the courts had a psychological or psychiatric condition. My genuine interest in what makes people who they are, and their route into the criminal justice system, quickly developed into a specialist area. Instructions came thick and fast in this overlooked area of practice. I was hooked. I enjoyed a fascinating and rewarding career at the Bar, publishing a Mental Health Law Referencer, working for the Mental Health Act Commission and sitting as a legal President of Mental Health Review Tribunals. I embraced the challenges of taking silk in 2014 in an increasingly difficult legal aid landscape. I was struck by how commonly mental health and wellbeing issues impacted legal and other professional colleagues in my network, despite widespread denial of this.
A serious health issue (related to a previous stroke) then enforced time out. Undoubtedly, a particularly toxic work experience, combined with an unacceptable schedule and work overload, was a major contributor. Soldiering on – the norm – was not an option.
But as one door closes, another opens. Having been regularly approached for help and support at the Bar, often in unexpected ways, I wanted to know more and do more to achieve positive outcomes on an individual and workplace level. So, I retrained and now practise as a wellbeing consultant. Many of my barrister clients are looking for support on work-related issues ranging from dealing with the pressure through to navigating toxic environments. Much work has been done to develop ‘wellbeing’ at the Bar, which is encouraging, but I wanted to find out if changes are being realised in practice. I asked Nick Vineall KC, Chair of the Bar, for his take on progress. This article is an abridged version of a video interview.
NVKC: The survey reporting 1 in 3 barristers feeling low most of the time was done just after lockdown, and those figures partly reflect that. It shows just why we need a wellbeing agenda. I don’t think that these feelings are going to go away, but to some extent we can help people to avoid or overcome them, and help them realise they are not alone. We’ve definitely seen a growing willingness to talk about the challenges we all face at work and our psychological wellbeing in the workplace. And as well as analysing the problems, we are taking positive steps to improve things.
The wellbeing conversation feels different after COVID. Some people, including myself, found lockdown really, really difficult. Even coming out of it, with much higher levels of remote working, is a challenge we need to deal with. The other very topical issue, which many barristers have raised with me, is social media. We all need to be conscious of the impact that careless or unkind [words] can have on our colleagues. That’s something particularly for senior members of the Bar to reflect on. I don’t think Twitter always brings out the best in people [or the most] considered responses... senior barristers sometimes forget the power imbalance. It may seem like everybody on Twitter is the same, but if you are a junior member of the Bar reading something critical a senior member has said, you would feel very acutely that difference in status and power.
Resilience to me means the ability to bounce back. I don’t think you can practise at the Bar and have a smooth run in which you win every case and a professional life in which everything goes exactly as you hope it might. That hasn’t been my experience and I don’t think it is many people’s experience. We have to remember that the outcome most often reflects the client’s case, rather than the way in which we did it, and we mustn’t think that everything that goes wrong is our fault, because it isn’t.
Yes, it’s a really interesting index developed for us by academics based on the survey responses and you can read more about it on the Bar Council website. It is not surprising that psychological wellbeing is the single biggest determinant of barristers’ overall wellbeing. Realistically, that’s not the sort of thing over which chambers and the profession have many direct levers. But second in the metric of what affected overall wellbeing is a supportive work environment and that, absolutely, in spades, is something we can or at least should be able to control.
It’s a good question – not least because you mentioned both barristers and clerks. We as barristers can make our clerks’ lives quite difficult, so it’s a two-way street. But that’s also a part of the answer. Research shows that many of the solutions hinge on the relationship between the Bar and clerks – distribution of work, being able to say no, being able to take holiday, practice reviews and so on. I think it’s really important to work together, avoid that ‘us and them’ attitude and make sure there’s mutual respect. Heads of chambers and chambers management committees need to make sure that there is a space to think and talk about this.
I think chambers are getting better at doing it, but I also think, particularly at the junior Bar, that people expect it. If you look at the chambers reviews on Legal Cheek, provided by junior tenants, wellbeing is one of the aspects they talk about. So even for the dinosaurs who think this is flimflam, actually there are market drivers for this. If you want to attract the brightest applicants, they will ask about work-life balance in chambers and they will ask about relationships with the clerks’ room. If you’ve got a good story to tell, you will attract the best people… and hopefully retain them.
One of the consequences of the now record backlogs has been real pressure on court staff to do whatever they can to get those backlogs down. But some of the listing practices which may help get cases heard put unreasonable pressures on counsel with cases floating. You don’t know over the course of a week when your case is going to start. In some courts there is rampant overlisting. There is nothing more soul destroying than preparing a case, expecting it to run and it’s taken out of the list at the last minute. Not just because of professional pride and waste of effort, but also it isn’t well remunerated when a case disappears at short notice. So, we have been talking to the Court Service about that, to at least make them realise there are people at the other end of everything that is listed.
One of the most important things about ‘Talk to Spot’ is that it is confidential and, if you want it to be, anonymous. What I can say is that it works. It does lead to complaints. It is particularly useful where more than one person is complaining about the same individual, because it allows the Bar Council to understand what is happening and put those pieces together. Not every complaint, of course, leads to action or will be upheld. Sometimes people just want a log of their complaint in case they want to come back to it later. But it’s really important that people continue to use Talk to Spot. I haven’t always been happy with the speed at which complaints, when they get to the Bar Standards Board, are dealt with. I’ve made that clear. Sometimes that problem is exacerbated by the barrister who is complained about slowing things down. But the BSB is working to improve this. External people are looking at its systems and, although it’s not all rosy in that department, things are getting better and there’s a realisation that it needs to get better.
One of the things you learn at the Bar Council is that if you try to tell barristers what to do, they generally want to do exactly the opposite. So, first, this is about engagement and encouragement. The simple idea behind the Certificates of Recognition for Chambers, for example, is to recognise good practice, showcase it, and encourage others to follow suit. We also have to persist with getting the message out. This is an issue for Leaders of the Bar, Circuit Leaders, heads of chambers, chief executives and senior clerks. We have to persuade those who think it’s a lot of nonsense to change their mind.
As with all things, prevention is better than cure – putting in place the systems that prevent people having nervous breakdowns or worse, as well as the support systems for when it happens. Beware the problems of isolation and remote working. These are real pressures we still need to grapple with. Some colleagues we don’t see, face to face, for weeks on end. Don’t wait until they come into your room obviously in the middle of a crisis to find out what you can do to help. Why not do it now? Ask yourself, ‘If my best friend came to see me tomorrow and said they are feeling like they’ve never felt before and are actually suicidal, would I know what to do?’ The day they come to see you, isn’t the best day to find out.
The worst piece of advice was ‘man up’. The best piece of advice, and help, came from a clerk who essentially said, ‘Go home, don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it.’
Well, I love being Chair of the Bar so I am really enjoying myself this year. It is a great honour, a great privilege, and also great fun.
Talk to Spot: The online tool for the Bar to confidentially and anonymously record inappropriate behaviour and concerns
The Bar Council Pupils’ Helpline: PupilHelpline@BarCouncil.org.uk
LawCare: the mental wellbeing charity for the legal community runs a Peer support programme and Helpline: 0800 279 6888
The Samaritans can be contacted for a confidential listening ear on tel: 116 123 or by email at jo@samaritans.org
There’s also the option of discussing things with your GP for further assistance and signposting, and to help you feel more in control of your situation.
International helplines can be found at https://befrienders.org/
Annette Henry KC is an Individual and Work Life Wellbeing Consultant at www.owningyourwellbeing.com. She uses a different approach to problem-solving through bespoke wellbeing solutions to achieve positive outcomes in individual and business settings. She is currently unregistered from her legal practice.
As a young criminal barrister in the 1980s, a case with a mental health issue soon landed on my desk. At that time, 1 in 4 people before the courts had a psychological or psychiatric condition. My genuine interest in what makes people who they are, and their route into the criminal justice system, quickly developed into a specialist area. Instructions came thick and fast in this overlooked area of practice. I was hooked. I enjoyed a fascinating and rewarding career at the Bar, publishing a Mental Health Law Referencer, working for the Mental Health Act Commission and sitting as a legal President of Mental Health Review Tribunals. I embraced the challenges of taking silk in 2014 in an increasingly difficult legal aid landscape. I was struck by how commonly mental health and wellbeing issues impacted legal and other professional colleagues in my network, despite widespread denial of this.
A serious health issue (related to a previous stroke) then enforced time out. Undoubtedly, a particularly toxic work experience, combined with an unacceptable schedule and work overload, was a major contributor. Soldiering on – the norm – was not an option.
But as one door closes, another opens. Having been regularly approached for help and support at the Bar, often in unexpected ways, I wanted to know more and do more to achieve positive outcomes on an individual and workplace level. So, I retrained and now practise as a wellbeing consultant. Many of my barrister clients are looking for support on work-related issues ranging from dealing with the pressure through to navigating toxic environments. Much work has been done to develop ‘wellbeing’ at the Bar, which is encouraging, but I wanted to find out if changes are being realised in practice. I asked Nick Vineall KC, Chair of the Bar, for his take on progress. This article is an abridged version of a video interview.
NVKC: The survey reporting 1 in 3 barristers feeling low most of the time was done just after lockdown, and those figures partly reflect that. It shows just why we need a wellbeing agenda. I don’t think that these feelings are going to go away, but to some extent we can help people to avoid or overcome them, and help them realise they are not alone. We’ve definitely seen a growing willingness to talk about the challenges we all face at work and our psychological wellbeing in the workplace. And as well as analysing the problems, we are taking positive steps to improve things.
The wellbeing conversation feels different after COVID. Some people, including myself, found lockdown really, really difficult. Even coming out of it, with much higher levels of remote working, is a challenge we need to deal with. The other very topical issue, which many barristers have raised with me, is social media. We all need to be conscious of the impact that careless or unkind [words] can have on our colleagues. That’s something particularly for senior members of the Bar to reflect on. I don’t think Twitter always brings out the best in people [or the most] considered responses... senior barristers sometimes forget the power imbalance. It may seem like everybody on Twitter is the same, but if you are a junior member of the Bar reading something critical a senior member has said, you would feel very acutely that difference in status and power.
Resilience to me means the ability to bounce back. I don’t think you can practise at the Bar and have a smooth run in which you win every case and a professional life in which everything goes exactly as you hope it might. That hasn’t been my experience and I don’t think it is many people’s experience. We have to remember that the outcome most often reflects the client’s case, rather than the way in which we did it, and we mustn’t think that everything that goes wrong is our fault, because it isn’t.
Yes, it’s a really interesting index developed for us by academics based on the survey responses and you can read more about it on the Bar Council website. It is not surprising that psychological wellbeing is the single biggest determinant of barristers’ overall wellbeing. Realistically, that’s not the sort of thing over which chambers and the profession have many direct levers. But second in the metric of what affected overall wellbeing is a supportive work environment and that, absolutely, in spades, is something we can or at least should be able to control.
It’s a good question – not least because you mentioned both barristers and clerks. We as barristers can make our clerks’ lives quite difficult, so it’s a two-way street. But that’s also a part of the answer. Research shows that many of the solutions hinge on the relationship between the Bar and clerks – distribution of work, being able to say no, being able to take holiday, practice reviews and so on. I think it’s really important to work together, avoid that ‘us and them’ attitude and make sure there’s mutual respect. Heads of chambers and chambers management committees need to make sure that there is a space to think and talk about this.
I think chambers are getting better at doing it, but I also think, particularly at the junior Bar, that people expect it. If you look at the chambers reviews on Legal Cheek, provided by junior tenants, wellbeing is one of the aspects they talk about. So even for the dinosaurs who think this is flimflam, actually there are market drivers for this. If you want to attract the brightest applicants, they will ask about work-life balance in chambers and they will ask about relationships with the clerks’ room. If you’ve got a good story to tell, you will attract the best people… and hopefully retain them.
One of the consequences of the now record backlogs has been real pressure on court staff to do whatever they can to get those backlogs down. But some of the listing practices which may help get cases heard put unreasonable pressures on counsel with cases floating. You don’t know over the course of a week when your case is going to start. In some courts there is rampant overlisting. There is nothing more soul destroying than preparing a case, expecting it to run and it’s taken out of the list at the last minute. Not just because of professional pride and waste of effort, but also it isn’t well remunerated when a case disappears at short notice. So, we have been talking to the Court Service about that, to at least make them realise there are people at the other end of everything that is listed.
One of the most important things about ‘Talk to Spot’ is that it is confidential and, if you want it to be, anonymous. What I can say is that it works. It does lead to complaints. It is particularly useful where more than one person is complaining about the same individual, because it allows the Bar Council to understand what is happening and put those pieces together. Not every complaint, of course, leads to action or will be upheld. Sometimes people just want a log of their complaint in case they want to come back to it later. But it’s really important that people continue to use Talk to Spot. I haven’t always been happy with the speed at which complaints, when they get to the Bar Standards Board, are dealt with. I’ve made that clear. Sometimes that problem is exacerbated by the barrister who is complained about slowing things down. But the BSB is working to improve this. External people are looking at its systems and, although it’s not all rosy in that department, things are getting better and there’s a realisation that it needs to get better.
One of the things you learn at the Bar Council is that if you try to tell barristers what to do, they generally want to do exactly the opposite. So, first, this is about engagement and encouragement. The simple idea behind the Certificates of Recognition for Chambers, for example, is to recognise good practice, showcase it, and encourage others to follow suit. We also have to persist with getting the message out. This is an issue for Leaders of the Bar, Circuit Leaders, heads of chambers, chief executives and senior clerks. We have to persuade those who think it’s a lot of nonsense to change their mind.
As with all things, prevention is better than cure – putting in place the systems that prevent people having nervous breakdowns or worse, as well as the support systems for when it happens. Beware the problems of isolation and remote working. These are real pressures we still need to grapple with. Some colleagues we don’t see, face to face, for weeks on end. Don’t wait until they come into your room obviously in the middle of a crisis to find out what you can do to help. Why not do it now? Ask yourself, ‘If my best friend came to see me tomorrow and said they are feeling like they’ve never felt before and are actually suicidal, would I know what to do?’ The day they come to see you, isn’t the best day to find out.
The worst piece of advice was ‘man up’. The best piece of advice, and help, came from a clerk who essentially said, ‘Go home, don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it.’
Well, I love being Chair of the Bar so I am really enjoying myself this year. It is a great honour, a great privilege, and also great fun.
Talk to Spot: The online tool for the Bar to confidentially and anonymously record inappropriate behaviour and concerns
The Bar Council Pupils’ Helpline: PupilHelpline@BarCouncil.org.uk
LawCare: the mental wellbeing charity for the legal community runs a Peer support programme and Helpline: 0800 279 6888
The Samaritans can be contacted for a confidential listening ear on tel: 116 123 or by email at jo@samaritans.org
There’s also the option of discussing things with your GP for further assistance and signposting, and to help you feel more in control of your situation.
International helplines can be found at https://befrienders.org/
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