Wellbeing Guidelines for Legal Workplaces

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About the Wellbeing Guidelines
How to use the Wellbeing Guidelines in your organisation
Watch: ‘Wellbeing Guidelines for Legal Workplaces’, introduced by the LIV and VLSB+C and explained by guidelines author Dr Carly Schrever
More information

About the Wellbeing Guidelines

The Wellbeing Guidelines for Legal Workplaces are a practical, evidence-based tool to support principals, leaders and managers to safeguard the wellbeing of lawyers and legal support staff.

Improving lawyer wellbeing is everyone’s responsibility – from individuals to organisations.

But taking steps to safeguard the wellbeing of lawyers and legal support staff is an essential aspect of meeting psychological health and safety obligations for all legal workplaces.

The Wellbeing Guidelines for Legal Workplaces, authored by industry-leading expert in lawyer wellbeing, Dr Carly Schrever, are targeted to create lasting change at the organisational level.

The guidelines clearly set out actions that leaders of legal practices can take, whether it’s the first action to improve lawyer wellbeing, or the latest measure in an established wellbeing program. Importantly, they have been created to align with WorkSafe’s new Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations, and the Victorian Government’s Mentally Healthy Workplaces Framework.

How to use the Wellbeing Guidelines in your organisation

Step 1: Read the Wellbeing Guidelines for Legal Workplaces

The Wellbeing Guidelines are structured around 3 foundational elements of wellbeing:

Promote lawyer and staff wellbeing and the positive aspects of legal work
Protect lawyers and staff from psychosocial hazards by identifying and managing risks to a fair and safe legal workplace
Respond to early warning signs of lawyer and staff stress, with effective systems, interventions and skills.

For each of these elements, the guidelines provide standards to aim for: Good, Better or Best practice, with 9 tangible actions that can be taken at each level.

Step 2: Review your workplace’s current progress against the good, better and best actions

Using the Good, Better and Best Practice Actions Table, undertake a rapid review of your organisation’s current wellbeing actions. You might find your workplace has started or completed actions across the three levels.

Step 3: Download your action plan template and document your starting point

Download the action plan template that matches your workplace’s level of wellbeing maturity (PDF). If you haven’t completed all the good practice actions, start there.

Good practice
Better practice
Best practice

Step 4: Take action and plan for change

Plan for and implement the actions that will take your organisation to the next level of wellbeing.

Some actions can be implemented immediately to improve wellbeing in your workplace. Others will require planning and development, so take the first step as soon as practicable.

Step 5: Continue your focus on lawyer wellbeing

When your organisation has successfully met the practice level you’ve aimed for, graduate to the next level of wellbeing. Share the message of the importance of wellbeing among your legal networks.

Watch: ‘Wellbeing Guidelines for Legal Workplaces’, introduced by the LIV and VLSB+C and explained by guidelines author Dr Carly Schrever

This is a one-hour CPD session to introduce the content and purpose of the Wellbeing Guidelines.

Run in partnership with the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) and the VLSB+C, presenters discuss the importance of leadership and collective improvement in lawyer wellbeing across the profession and offer practical tips for how to effectively implement the guidelines in your workplace.

The panel includes the guidelines author Dr Carly Schrever, Adam Awty, CEO of LIV, Emily Knowles, Wellbeing Manager at LIV, and VLSB+C’s very own Kerri-anne Millard, (Acting VLSB Commissioner), and our Wellbeing Program Manager, Lucy Fraser.

More information

Why target change at the organisational level

While lawyer wellbeing is a shared responsibility between the individual lawyer and their workplace, and one that sits within the broader legal sector context, principals and those with leadership roles in legal workplaces of all sizes have particular responsibilities.

These include to establish safe systems of work, including structures and practices that mitigate the risk of psychological harm to their employees. The impacts of harm can be far reaching, effecting individuals, legal businesses, clients, as into the justice system more broadly.

Research has consistently shown that lawyer stress, for example, is linked to cultural, organisational and systemic features of legal workplaces.

By developing the guidelines and resources, we have provided a practical template to leaders of legal workplaces, taking the guesswork out of where to start.

Why the Wellbeing Guidelines were developed

The Lawyer Wellbeing Systems Theory of Change gave us a clear picture of the problem of poor lawyer wellbeing, and a vision for the future.

This evidence-based framework delivered a clear message: for lawyer wellbeing to improve, change must happen at every level of the legal profession – sector, organisation, interpersonal and individual.

These guidelines tackle the issue of poor lawyer wellbeing at an organisational level. They are delivered as a short guide and a series of easy-to-use templates to suit a range of legal workplaces, acknowledging the pressures leaders of legal workplaces face and helping you to get started right away.

How the Wellbeing Guidelines were developed

The Wellbeing Guidelines were developed using research and through consultation with WorkSafe Victoria and the Lawyer Wellbeing Community of Practice – a group of psychologists and wellbeing experts working in the Australian legal profession.

The guidelines are informed by WorkSafe’s Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations, the Victorian Government’s Mentally Healthy Workplaces Framework, and use local and international research on lawyer wellbeing.