Wellbeing at the Bar

In April 2015, the Bar Council published ‘Wellbeing at the Bar’, the first ever survey into the wellbeing of the profession. The report records much that participants found positive about working at the Bar, even if the Bar is inevitably sometimes a stressful place. However, it also contained some more worrying statistics about issues such as dwelling on problems and mistakes, perfectionism, and the reluctance of barristers to show signs of stress at work as this is perceived as a sign of weakness. All of this is against a backdrop where, owing to technology, many members of the Bar are expected to be available wherever and whenever to provide advice on the cases they are dealing with, making it difficult to switch off.

On 12 November the Junior Chancery Bar is holding a seminar looking at how to tackle these and other similar issues in practice, including:

-          How to deal with problems, anxiety and stress, both on a personal level and within chambers;

-          Work overload and how to deal with it;

-          Work-life balance;

-          How to access suitable support mechanisms, including the Chancery Bar Association mentoring scheme;

-          Ways of ‘switching off’ out of work hours.

The event will take the form of a panel discussion and the panel will include Dr Almuth McDowall, an occupational psychologist, Hormoz Ahmadzadeh, a personal development coach, Fenner Moeran QC of Wilberforce Chambers and David Goddard, Senior Clerk at 4 Stone Buildings.