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Mental Health Awareness Week: Wellbeing at work
By Christina Lambi
This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week theme is “action”: for yourself, for someone else, for all of us. The theme was chosen as real change comes when we take action.
The Law Society has a strong focus on wellbeing, and it is a key part of our Corporate Strategy. We are prioritising solicitor wellbeing by promoting healthy working environments.
Action/s for myself
Actions I take for myself to boost my mental health
Having therapy has given me a self-reflective practice both personally and professionally for me to build on and change with. Growing up was challenging with a stigma around talking about feelings and admitting to having counselling. I was always a deep thinker and often anxious to please and support others before even knowing how to navigate my own needs or self-regulate my emotions.
Thankfully, I no longer feel the need to hide that. I’ve had therapy and accepted that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but it took quite a long time for me to get to this place. I tried many different modalities and whilst learning from them, I also found it difficult to walk away and admit when things weren’t working. I am glad I kept going and found a therapist who resonated with me, that I felt I could work with.
At the time, I had no point of reference and there was little information available about how to access services or guidance and recommendations. I have gained insights and skills, including greater self-knowledge, authenticity, empathy for myself as well as clearer boundaries in relationships. I use what I learned to evaluate my experiences more honestly, balancing and holding space for the light and dark, sitting with emotions without self-judgement or labelling situations as positive or negative, but stepping back and seeing them from many perspectives.
Outside of work, I find going to museums, especially art exhibitions help me to relax and support my mental health. I enjoy being exposed to different artists’ works and going to a variety of spaces feels like an adventure and helps me not to overthink and be in the moment. I never thought of the correlation between the arts and good mental health but recently discovered research by Professor Daisy Fancourt at University College London who has written a book called Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts can Transform Our Health.
She provides evidence from extensive studies that everyone can benefit from the arts and by the participants from her research engaging with museums, theatre or cinema, the risk of developing depression in that group is almost halved.
Action/s for someone else/others
Actions I take to help build mentally healthy environments for friends, family and colleagues
Good mental health is at the forefront of my mind at work due to my role as Wellbeing Manager at the Law Society. It influences my personal life too. I believe everyone has a part to play and is responsible in making a difference to and contributing to a healthy workplace culture.
At work, being intentional and practising active listening is a concrete way for me to engage with colleagues, especially by asking how people really are and waiting for them to respond. I value working and personal relationships. Overall, in human terms, people want to be seen, heard and understood so I endeavour to make the most of these opportunities to show kindness and empathy for people’s experiences in my interactions with them.
In general, I try to hold the macro and the micro views as people and situations frequently change, it helps me to stay open-minded and allows me to accept the things I can’t control. Letting go is something that needs constant practice, but it helps me to stay realistic and grounded and influences how I approach working with colleagues.
I like to remind myself, recognise and understand the context and possible pressures that my colleagues are under and how it potentially impacts their mental health is important to me. The backdrop is well-documented of staff overworking in legal settings.
I work closely with LawCare, a mental health charity for everyone working in the legal sector, whose support services are confidential and free. As a business support professional in the legal sector, LawCare say they received around 4% of calls in 2025 from support staff including legal secretaries, HR, IT, Business Support professionals to their helpline. A number of their volunteers work in business support roles, anyone in the profession can reach out to them.
Action/s For All
What actions can be taken by those in power to help build mentally healthy communities, workplaces and schools in the UK?
At the Law Society, wellbeing support for solicitors is part of our Corporate Strategy 2025-2028 under responsible business.
We are prioritising solicitor wellbeing by promoting healthy working environments, sharing best practices, and offering resources that support mental health and resilience across the profession.
Wellbeing support for solicitors is divided into three key areas:
1. Strategy and Leadership: taking a proactive leadership role in addressing poor practices within the profession and fostering partnerships with other organisations to enhance wellbeing initiatives.
2. Organisational Support: develop partnership initiatives to work on organisational culture and practices that promote wellbeing and good mental health, emphasising the role of good leadership and supervision.
3. Individual Support: deliver and promote resources to support and promote best practice in mental health and wellbeing support for solicitors across the profession.
Our new member facing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy is about turning ambition into action intersecting with wellbeing support in building more inclusive workplace cultures. We will support organisations to build inclusive environments where solicitors thrive without discrimination, harassment or burnout.
Alongside our members we will:
- conduct impactful research to provide insights for action
- develop best practice guidance and practical resources with our member firms and in-house teams
The Law Society recently launched our volunteer Get Involved programme, which enables more of our members to get involved with us, by offering their time, expertise and insight, they will be able to drive real change and help us to be more effective in supporting the legal profession.
I encourage our members to become a volunteer.
Christina Lambi
Wellbeing Manager (Membership),
Law Society of England and Wales
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-l-9b1a40148/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-law-society-of-england-and-wales/