IBA Mental Wellbeing in the Legal Profession Survey

The International Bar Association (IBA) has embarked on a global project aimed at addressing the mental wellbeing of legal professionals as COVID-19 exacerbates tensions in professional and personal lives. The key initial phase of the project consists of two global surveys — one for individual lawyers, the other for law firms and other legal institutions, including bar associations, law societies and in-house legal departments. Available in both English and Spanish, the surveys are anonymous and take approximately ten minutes to complete. For more information, please visit the project website here.

The IBA Individual Lawyer Wellbeing Survey can be accessed here.

The IBA Institutional Wellbeing Survey is available here.

The data gathered from the completed surveys will provide insight into:

• the pressing mental health concerns of legal professionals; 
• the support they can expect to receive from their workplaces;
• how the wellbeing of lawyers and other stakeholders in the legal profession are affected by their work and working environments;
• identifying problems that each might have faced in getting the help they needed; and 
• what law firms, bars and law societies should be doing to support those in distress. 

The wellbeing surveys have been developed in collaboration with consultancy firm Acritas (part of Thomson Reuters). The majority of questions in the anonymous surveys, for individuals and institutions alike, are multiple choice and several questions pertain to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on mental wellbeing in the workplace. A sample of non-multiple choice questions appear below.

Questions from the IBA Individual Lawyer Wellbeing Survey include:

• What, if any, support does your employer / place of work provide in relation to mental wellbeing at work?
• On balance, do you feel more or less able to talk about your mental wellbeing with your employer than before the COVID-19 pandemic?
• What lessons from the pandemic do you think the legal profession, and legal institutions in particular, need to learn for the future, in relation to mental wellbeing?

Some sample questions from the IBA Institutional Wellbeing Survey include:

• What mental wellbeing initiatives, services, or support programmes do you provide?
• Has the pandemic increased awareness of employee/member mental wellbeing as an important issue for you as an organisation?
• During the pandemic, has there been an increase or decrease in employees/members seeking assistance related to mental wellbeing?

The IBA Individual Lawyer Wellbeing Survey can be accessed here.

The IBA Institutional Wellbeing Survey is available here.

Data gathered from the surveys will be discussed in detail by the IBA’s Wellbeing Taskforce in a showcase session at the IBA 2020 — Virtually Together Conference in November 2020. The session will feature representatives from across the IBA, alongside mental health experts.