At the Thriving Lawyer, our fundamental mission to help lawyers thrive, not just survive.  As lawyers, and in the rest of their lives.  

Carla Ferraz and I recently launched the Thriving Lawyer as a company, and our signature 6 module program will be launching soon - keep an eye out for an update on dates.  

We are so excited - this has been an absolute labor of love, driven by the clear need I identified in the legal profession.  

With over 15 years of experience as an Australian lawyer, having trained as a coach in 2019, I increasingly observed that too much of the training lawyers got that related to improvement and growth seemed to focus on performance solely at work, ignoring the rest of their lives.  The training too often ignored the truth that to truly perform and be great lawyers, we actually need to be thriving humans.  Even where the training was wellbeing focused, particularly once the pandemic hit, it was often in the form of a one hour wellbeing seminar.  

Now don’t get me wrong, these types of seminars certainly have their place. They can provide a useful opportunity for lawyers to reflect and perhaps make small changes.  

They can act as a powerful reminder of the importance of wellbeing.  

But the trouble with these sessions though is that too often I saw that lawyers sit there for an hour, get their CPD point, and then put the notes in the bottom drawer. 

They were too busy to figure out how to put what they had learnt about into practice.  

We want to provide support to lawyers that goes much deeper. 

With the thriving lawyer, it is our mission to create an environment for lawyers to step back and engage in constructive, solutions-focused self-reflection so they can create their own unique vision of their thriving life.  

A life where they have clearly defined their own metrics of success - not just taken on the values of someone else.  

A life where they know what is important to them and can create high level goals to implement that vision.  

A life where they can experiment with how to bring that vision of life, creating habits, but remaining flexible.  

Too many lawyers live other people’s ideas of success and then are miserable when all they do is work.  

Everyone suffers - the lawyer, their friends and families.  

But also their employers - ONLY a thriving human can truly perform as their peak as a thriving lawyer.  

If your lawyers are constantly exhausted, they are simply not performing at their peak!  

It is biologically impossible. 

You would get more out of your lawyers - better quality work - and then happier clients -  if you provide an environment where your lawyers can thrive.  

They’ll also be happier and stay longer, so you’ll not have to go through the high costs of employee churn. 

Don’t believe me? 

The statistics are quite sobering.  

A 2021 global study on mental wellbeing in the legal profession was conducted by the International Bar Association.  It found that 1 in 3 legal professionals said that their work had a negative impact on their wellbeing.  The factors that were leading to the crisis in lawyer wellbeing included the stressful and intensive nature of the work, poor work life balance and high levels of pressure.  It also found that this crisis in wellbeing reverberated through society - it impacted firms as a whole, clients and society more generally.  

In a 2021 study, the Law Council of South Australia found that a career in law was among the two occupations that had the highest rates of mental illness.  47 percent of respondents said that the legal profession had a negative impact on their wellbeing.  Further, over the previous two years, almost 60 percent of respondents have considered leaving the profession entirely.  

The College of Law Australia Law Forward 2024 Legal Industry Satisfaction survey found that 70 percent of lawyers experienced burnout in the past year.  And those who experienced burnout, 60 percent were women.  

Clearly, whilst the profession has changed in recent years, and there has definitely been more of an emphasis on wellbeing in legal workplaces since the onset of the pandemic, the 2024 stats in particular show that there are still massive issues in the legal profession.  

Whilst there are certainly cultural issues at the macro level that need to be addressed, individual lawyers do have a much more power than they think to take positive action to move towards thriving.  

Of course, thriving doesn’t mean being happy all the time, or only experiencing positive emotions.  Nor does it mean living a life that is challenge free.  Indeed, living a thriving life will often require you to do hard things. 

Now, just a quick note, the Thriving Lawyer does not address mental illness.  If you are in crisis, or think you may be experiencing mental illness, such as depression or anxiety, it's really important you see your GP, psychologist or other qualified practitioner.  

We’d love to hear how this resonates with you.