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Vulnerability is empowering

Parsons first shared his personal struggles, medication, and experience of mental ill-health during the ‘This is Me’ campaign a City of London initiative aiming to encourage openness on the subject and address the stigma attached to mental illness.

Since then, Chris has travelled to different countries to conduct deeper conversations and deliver trainings on the topic with colleagues and clients, actively promoting awareness of mental health and frankly discussing his own vulnerable moments.

In the following article, Parsons shares with fivehundred what his firm has been doing to reduce the stigma surrounding mental ill-health, resulting in the creation of a more inclusive and supportive workplace for its people globally, as well as offering some top tips for those readers currently struggling.

2019 marks the tenth anniversary of our mental health programme which aims to raise awareness of mental health, support people in managing their wellbeing, and to promote optimal mental health. Over the past decade, we have made conscious efforts to ensure people feel safe and comfortable to discuss their mental health, know how to support others, and proactively build optimal mental health. We are proud of the progress we have made so far, but there is still more we can do to ensure everyone thrives at the firm.

In 2015, our Mental Health Champions programme was established in the UK and EMEA, with Australia following in 2018. Our champions come from all levels of the business and undertake training to better understand common mental health conditions and signpost individuals to the most appropriate support.

In October 2018, we announced a global health and wellbeing commitment encouraging people to prioritise their health and wellbeing. Later this year we will be launching our global mental health strategy and ‘How We Work’ guidelines, designed to encourage more efficient and balanced ways of working.

And earlier this year, we signed the Mindful Business Charter as part of our commitment to not only respond to mental ill-health, but to more broadly think about the way we work removing unnecessary sources of stress and improving areas such as communication, working hours, and more mindful delegation of work.

Our vision is to be a firm where our people are working in a way that they feel is sustainable, rewarding, and consistent with their values; where we can talk openly about mental health without fear of stigma; and where we know how best to support others and ourselves.

By supporting people to thrive and prioritise their mental health, and to consider that of those around them, we strengthen engagement and a sense of belonging. This in turn positively impacts business outcomes and excellence in client service. Some of the initiatives taking place in different parts of our network are:

  • Events, including key note speakers, panels, film screenings, and book launches where the focus is on raising awareness and bringing people together to discuss mental health many of these events are video-conferenced into a number of our offices across the network.
  • Workshops with external providers where the aim is encouraging better understanding of an individual’s personal mental health, sharing practical steps to promote better wellbeing, and how to access further support.
  • Mental health lectures and first-aid courses run by external mental health/education institutions sponsored by the firm.
  • Publications and intranet features on mental health and well-being topics.
  • Senior leaders champion mental ill-health issues in the workplace and share their own stories.

Our people have access to 24/7 counselling and support via our externally provided Employee Assistance Programme. This is also available to immediate family members and extends beyond mental health to broader wellbeing issues including nutrition, sleep, financial hygiene, and social connection.

Moreover, we have an online platform for employees to access useful information about health and wellbeing, medical services, relevant training and events, guides and publications, and external resources.

The critical part in all of this is awareness. We need to talk more about mental health so that it is no longer taboo. My vision is that one day mental health and addiction will be treated in exactly the same way as physical illness and that taking time off to get well won’t impact anyone’s career negatively.

Top tips for improving your mental health

  • Talk. A good counsellor can make a huge difference to how you manage and achieve your mental wellness. They are able to identify the possible causes of mental health fatigue or illness, and devise a treatment plan. If the first counsellor you speak with doesn’t really connect with you, try another.
  • Sleep! Regular and sufficient sleep (eight hours) is crucial for both your physical and mental health if you haven’t read the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker already, I highly recommend it.
  • Exercise. We all know that good physical health contributes to mental health. Exercise and relaxation including meditation are beneficial to our wellbeing.
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A sea change for cross-examination?

For the last two years, the Inns of Court College of Advocacy has been rolling out a training programme to teach practitioners how to deal with vulnerable witnesses. The move has been in response to criticism about how vulnerable witnesses are treated within the criminal justice system.

The Crown Prosecution Service expects all counsel who prosecute cases involving vulnerable witnesses to have undertaken the training, and it will shortly become a requirement of the Bar Standards Board that those who defend in such cases have also undergone the training. It is not limited to legal aid cases, but also those involving privately paying defendants.

What is a vulnerable witness?

At first blush it is assumed a vulnerable witness is a child, usually involving a sexual allegation, however, it is not limited to these cases. A vulnerable witness under s16 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act is defined as:

  • All child witnesses (aged under 18); and
  • Any witness whose quality of evidence is likely to be diminished because he/she: is suffering from a mental disorder (as defined by section 1(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983); has a significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning; or has a physical disability or is suffering from a physical disorder.

This means you could be instructed in a fraud case to cross-examine a resident in a care home whom your client has allegedly defrauded. If you are instructed in such a case, it is likely the primary evidence will have been taken by the police through an achieving best evidence (ABE) video.

If the witness is vulnerable, then check whether the police employed an intermediary to assist in their taking of the evidence. If they haven’t then the evidence obtained may be flawed. For example, there may have been no checks about the witness’s understanding of a preposition, which could be crucial to the case.

If you have concerns about whether the ABE was properly undertaken, your first consideration should be an application to exclude such evidence under s78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984.

Practical difficulties

Assuming the evidence has been correctly obtained, how then does one prepare for cross-examination? Consider whether you are operating in a section 28 Pilot area pre-recorded cross-examination. The theory is that cross-examination takes place far closer to the alleged event, rather than at trial, and negates the need for the witness to have to wait too long for trial and attend court. The practical difficulties are that, quite often, disclosure is not complete before the cross examination is due to take place.

Measures are in place to expedite disclosure, but what if something is later disclosed that you would ordinarily have cross examined on? This is where agreed facts come to the fore; the prosecution ought to agree any relevant material that is contained within the unused evidence such as dates of complaint etc. This negates you having to put the material to the witness, but ensures your client is not disadvantaged in any way by not having the point available to them.

Cases involving vulnerable witnesses involve much more front heavy preparation, and questions must be submitted in advance for scrutiny by an intermediary. Ground Rules Hearings take place ahead of the trial. These hearings can play havoc with a busy diary but are mandatory for trial counsel in cases of this nature.

The nature of questioning is wholly different to that which counsel are used to, and questions must abide by the 20 principles see www.ICCA.ac.uk for more detailed analysis, but the main points to consider are:

  • No tag questions;
  • No leading questions; and
  • Signpost your questions.

If you haven’t already undertaken the training, contact your Inn or Circuit who should be able to advise you of the next session in your area. The training involves at least eight hours preparation and involves understanding the use of props and toys to facilitate the questioning of such witnesses.

At present, it is predominantly the Criminal Bar which has undertaken such training, but the Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) is actively working on training its members, and it will only be a matter of time before the 20 principles are rolled out in all cases involving vulnerable witnesses.

The technique involves a sea change, the methods employed are vastly different to the way most of us have been trained. However, with practise the techniques learned can have a positive impact on all cases, cross-examination becomes more efficient and focuses on the issues, which in turn helps the tribunal you are appearing before.

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A battle-scarred Bar

‘It starts the first day you are sent to the magistrates’ court as a second six pupil,’ explained Red Lion’s Edmund Vickers QC. ‘Someone has been arrested overnight on a rape charge and you are there to fill out the legal aid forms and apply for bail. You have someone’s liberty in your hands and you are up against a cynical magistrate looking for reasons not to grant bail. Neither Bar school, nor pupillage, can prepare you for that pressure which increases throughout your career.’

Burning the midnight oil with last-minute preparation of cases, often due to late service of papers; juggling multiple instructions at once; the emotional strain of dealing with vulnerable clients; the stress of ‘performing’ before the judiciary, juries, and opponents; coping with bullying judges and demanding solicitors; the harrowing nature of certain evidence; the 24/7 nature of modern legal practice; the anxiety of being self-employed; and, of course, the financial pressures of publicly funded work particularly at the junior Bar as well as the government’s court closures, all impact the wellbeing of barristers.

Research conducted into wellbeing at the Bar has found that one in six barristers feel in low spirits most of the time; one in three find it difficult to control or stop worrying; 59% of barristers demonstrate unhealthy levels of perfectionism; and two in three barristers feel that showing signs of stress equals weakness. With so few advocates comfortable with sharing the stresses and strains of their practice, The Legal 500 and Red Lion Chambers held a roundtable discussion in September with the aim of getting barristers of all stripes talking about the Bar’s wellbeing crisis.

There are the emotional stresses and strains of the subject matter and also dealing with the client. We all know what financial pressures are like, but it is another stress to add into that cauldron,’ said Vickers QC. ‘I try to compartmentalise as much as possible but when you have all those stresses, resentment can build up. Some people rely on booze, many let it affect their personal relationships. We have got to find ways of releasing those stresses.’

‘Warned lists in particular are a wellbeing scourge,’ added Doughty Street’s Pippa Woodrow, ‘it is a system set up to require an all-nighter. And there are obviously the cases where the subject matter is harrowing.’ This is another unfortunate consequence of swingeing cuts to legal aid, with barristers often now reviewing unused material their instructing solicitors are unable to. ‘I found my first historic child rape really difficult, as was my first terrorism case,’ explained Woodrow. ‘I was with my mother-in-law in a cottage in Wales clicking on this unlabelled material, which is not flagged as being sensitive. I open it and there is an executed child. I have never been able to get rid of that image.’

The impact of viewing harrowing imagery, from violent crime to sexual abuse, can damage the most private areas of a lawyer’s personal life. One unnamed criminal practitioner noted the negative effect on intimate personal relationships ‘because your head is filled with images that you really do not want to retain but you have no facility whatsoever to dispense with them’.

Prior to taking silk in 2017, Vickers QC was frequently instructed to defend and prosecute allegations of child abuse, the stress of which, he admits, wears on even the most seasoned advocate. ‘I am a pretty relaxed person, but the nature of the work used to get me down. I was doing a child abuse case at a time when I had young children and I remember getting home for bath time a rare and joyful experience –and thinking what a child abuser might like to do to my children. That corrupts an otherwise innocent and beautiful experience for a parent. I will never get over that awful feeling of bringing work home. From then on, I have tried to separate work from my home life.’

Sarah Vine, also at Doughty Street, agrees that advocates should try to compartmentalise where possible, but recognises that this is far from easy. ‘It is absolutely fine to talk about putting stuff in a box, but the practical reality is that it is incredibly difficult, not least because of the fiscal drivers in the overstretched criminal justice system. People are paid less and less to do more and more,’ she said. ‘Because you’re paid less, you don’t have time to decompress between cases. The odds get shorter on you developing secondary trauma, simply because of the frequency you are hearing yet another account of something horrific, or dealing with yet another client who represents a systemic, comprehensive failure of the system. Your resources are drained so fast now.’

Judicial pressures Vine also notes the stress and demands placed on the judiciary by an overstretched justice system. ‘Judges are having their own wellbeing crisis and because so much of that is untreated, that is being outsourced to the Bar,’ she said. ‘The Bar outsource it to their colleagues or to their families. It is incredibly difficult to find yourself a space outside of that and to then have to go back into a system where you often feel as though you are completely alone.’

Woodrow also highlighted how the pressure placed on criminal court judges can percolate into judicial bullying: ‘There are quite a lot of differences in the way judges will sometimes be prepared to vent at junior counsel, as opposed to when you are standing next to a very experienced male of twice your call. When you are constantly at the edge of your competency as you very often are in this job it is hard to maintain your self-esteem, sense of self-worth, and then feel you are able to do a really good job for your client in circumstances where the stakes are always high.’

1GC | Family Law’s Laura Briggs believes any change must come from leaders: ‘We are seeing improvements, but when you are in court, your timetable is dictated by the individual judge hearing the case which is where a lot of the boundaries and red lines need to start coming from. We are seeing it more, but you still get judges refusing to accommodate important personal arrangements when going part heard and sitting late.’

Relaying one anecdote, Coram Chambers’ Jacqueline Marks said: ‘A member of my chambers did a 15-day case in the family court. The judge made them sit to 5:30pm at the earliest and 6:55pm at the latest in all but two days. When they left court, they had to continue to take instructions on the evidence on the street. This was during the summer when it was extremely hot and the courtroom had no air conditioning. Clients were falling asleep. On one occasion, my colleague made an application to adjourn at 5:30pm. She was told they had to crack on and sat until 6:30pm. The impact on everybody was significant.’

Never off duty Although more financially rewarding, the wellbeing pressures are no less challenging at the commercial Bar, as one junior explained: ‘The one thing you need to watch out for is long-term overwork and burnout. It is not uncommon to work ten- or 15-hour days for most of the year. What causes that overwork? Well, we take on too much and that work is mushrooming. I’m frequently on two-week trials with 200 bundles and as the junior barrister you are expected to have read every page. Then there is the email thing; you get them all the time and they are often substantive.’

The Mindful Business Charter, an initiative designed by Barclays, Pinsent Masons, and Addleshaw Goddard, aims to remove unnecessary sources of workplace stress and promote better mental health and wellbeing in the legal community by reinforcing smart meetings and emails and respecting rest periods for lawyers.

However, the initiative has yet to be taken up by all organisations and, due to the chambers structure and the self-employed status of barristers, it is difficult for the Bar to follow in the footsteps of some City firms. ‘When you are a sole practitioner, you are You plc, you want to be open all hours, you want to be responsive,’ explained Nicholas Hill, senior clerk at Three New Square.

‘I recently lost a three-week case because I did not reply to something while I was on holiday,’ said Woodrow. ‘And when you take time off you are still on the clock. There are still people emailing you, there are still things that have to get done. I recently took myself off for four days to a campsite with no signal or email and still managed to do 24 hours of work. I have never had a holiday where I have not been able to work. I find it incredibly difficult to carve out proper time away and that is not because I have not tried or because I am a sucker; it is the nature of the job.’

‘We are all our own worst enemies because we do reply to emails at midnight and two o’clock in the morning when we are finishing the work on the other case,’ agreed Bridget Dolan QC of Serjeants’ Inn Chambers. ‘For the past year, I have tried to say no and it is starting to work. I have taken silk so I can be a bit braver about saying no, but solicitors are in as daft a position as we are.’

In August, the outgoing chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), Chris Henley QC, criticised the judiciary for ignoring criminal barristers’ wellbeing. ‘It’s disappointing that the very modest requests for sensible email and sitting hours protocols, made both by the Bar Council and CBA, have so far been ignored,’ his final message to association members read. ‘I have reluctantly concluded that we will have to wait for fresh blood at the top before we get the leadership on wellbeing issues we need and deserve.’

Vine suggests specialist Bar associations and representative bodies are well-placed to identify what constitutes a genuinely urgent email requiring a barrister’s attention. ‘Because everything now is treated as an urgent matter. “Can you return this certificate of trial readiness, please, urgently?”Dear instructing solicitor, (a) that is your job, it is litigation, and (b) it is not urgent”.

A Catch-22 Remote working is often trumpeted as a panacea for many of the stresses of modern professional life. As some chambers have grown exponentially, remote working and hot-desking have become a necessity. However, as several barristers noted, being constantly out of chambers, or not having a place that feels like ‘home’, can have unintended consequences, specifically when it comes to younger advocates developing support structures and sets maintaining a culture of collegiality.

‘Nearly all the junior end work remotely, which I think is concerning because you have got no idea of what they are doing, in terms of the work,’ offered Annette Cafferkey of 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square. ‘It is good to talk about your work, especially when you are in a specialist area of law. You pick up so much by osmosis. I am interested to see how that plays out in the years to come because working remotely is a fairly recent phenomenon, and I do have my concerns about it.’

Jacqueline Marks at Coram Chambers agreed: ‘In the family law field, you often absorb clients’ bitterness or their desire to control their partner, or you have to protect vulnerable clients. Where do you take those feelings? At the early stages of my career, I would go back to chambers and I was able to sit with my roommate and we would chat. Now you go home and you are short-tempered with your family. There is nowhere to take the emotions you are absorbing, and it is thinking about what is yours and what is your client’s and you cannot always distinguish between the two.’

‘Engagement fatigue is a real thing,’ offered 1GC | Family Law’s Lucy Maxwell. ‘From the second you are up at the crack of dawn, you are absorbing all these ill feelings all day long. Not just from your client, but from the judge and the barrister on the other side. By the end of the day, you just have that completely drained feeling.’

Maxwell explained that the open-door culture of her chambers has helped her enormously despite the pressures all its members face. ‘We are all equally under pressure. Everybody has their own case to worry about; they have their own families to rush home to, so there is that slight reluctance to overburden them with your bad day. But I have never had anybody say they do not have time to speak; I have never felt I was having the door closed in my face.’

‘Support from chambers colleagues is often most important because, unlike your family unless you are (un)fortunate enough to be married to another barrister they know what is going on and they get it and will give you their ear because they are going to need your ear next week,’ added Dolan QC.

‘It is something I have really struggled with,’ admitted Woodrow. ‘I had two years before CaseLines came in and I probably learnt more in those two years than I have done since because I was in chambers and I would ask, “What do you think about this? and it is all a positive affirmation. Even if you do not need that help, saying to somebody, “I think this, and them going, “Yes, I think you are right,or, “What about this? builds your confidence, which builds your resilience to deal with all the other stresses we are talking about.

‘Now, you have to proactively reach out in order to get help, which you only do when you feel things are going wrong,’ she continued. ‘You have to be willing to be vulnerable with somebody and say, “I do not feel like I am doing well at this, and then ask for help and it is sort of a negative experience. The loss of that hive mind you can draw on is part of this, and I do not know how you get it back because there is so much that is good about remote working and we are not going to go back to always being in chambers, but we need to try to recreate those opportunities for accidental contact.’

Rachel Holmes, CEO of Matrix Chambers, believes chambers need multiple touchpoints to make collegiality work. ‘It is a great idea having that Friday drinks in the diary, which so many of us do in chambers, but it also needs to be a Thursday lunch and a monthly something else. This is where having as much participation from staff and barristers as possible in various committees or subgroups across chambers really works because you mix with people in a different setting. You form different friendships and have different outlets for just chewing on the day. I will add that this costs money and I am always mindful that what we are spending is effectively cash from barristers’ pockets. However, it is money well spent if it is put to use in the right way.’

Hill, a founding member of the Wellbeing at the Bar Working Group, agrees that if social interaction is key for wellbeing, then chambers must invest in it. ‘One of the problems has been the volume of work people are undertaking so taking time out is not easy. I suspect one of the other problems is the size of chambers nowadays; they are so big you have lost that slightly more collegiate atmosphere in which everybody knows what is going on all the time and you, therefore, have that social interaction already. It has been a fear of mine that “big is beautiful can be detrimental in other ways.’

Generational and gender divide A recent study of 2,000 UK men by CV-Library revealed that six in ten would quit their job because of its adverse effect on their mental health. In 2018, there were 6,507 suicides registered in the UK, with men accounting for three-quarters of these deaths. Upon becoming wellbeing director of the CBA it was immediately apparent to Vine that the single most vulnerable demographic at the Bar was white, middle-aged, privately educated men.

‘You have to be able to talk to people in terms they can hear. I had to put real thought into how to communicate the imperative of wellbeing to them in a way that was palatable. For me, it was using the metaphors of elite athletics, the military, and anything square-jawed I could think of. The City, sport, and military are all over wellbeing, not least because the business case is so self-evident. To say that wellbeing or mental health problems are a consequence of doing difficult work, seems a good way to communicate to that demographic.

‘It is like being an elite athlete,’ she continued. ‘The harder the races you run, the more likely you are to injure yourself, so it is actually almost a medal and you have to treat it with the same kind of care and gravity an elite athlete’s coach would treat it, because then it is not about weakness, it is battle fatigue. There is a kind of nobility to that injury.’

Briggs noted that the impact on women faced with wellbeing issues could have a long-term impact on the demographics of the Bar: ‘The higher echelons of our profession remain predominantly male. If you have a more junior woman working to the demands of a male leader, which may not be compatible with caring responsibilities, that can be a real problem for retention of women at the Bar. Until you have more people in leadership roles who are supportive, you are going to find the stress and pressure trickling down hurting the people who need support.’

Generational divides also have an impact on the wellbeing discussion. Although millennial barristers may be more open-minded, more open to discussing sensitive personal issues, and more likely to take a day for themselves than older generations, the pressure from those above, who as one junior put it ‘had to be hard as nails to survive at the Bar’, is intense. ‘They think you, as a junior female barrister, should also be as hard and going through the same sorts of trials and tribulations they did. There is a real difference in expectation, in terms of the kind of environment we are in now, versus when they were at my call.’

‘We cannot ask juniors to do the heavy lifting in terms of the cultural shift,’ concluded Vine. ‘The junior Bar, in all practice areas, is ready to respond to change but change has to be implemented and led not just from the top but in concert with solicitors, clerks, and the bench. It will be a painfully slow job, but when one person is seen to make a successful change, another will be encouraged, and then five more.’

For tips on how to cope with poor wellbeing, visit the Wellbeing at the Bar website.

Practical guidance

‘You need to have the most senior person in an organisation talk about mental health. Practice development meetings should include the question of wellbeing. We say it overtly. You do not need to go there if somebody does not want to have that conversation, but it is there, and it is on every single practice development meeting. And, consider an Employee Assistance Programme where trained counsellors are at the end of the phone waiting to listen if you’ve had a really rough day.’
Rachel Holmes, CEO of Matrix Chambers

‘As a profession, we are not good at volunteering praise. If we were to praise each other and take those small opportunities to give validation more, then you would be more prepared to be vulnerable because you know that asking a “stupid question” does not define you. Consider mentoring someone outside of chambers. Mentorship from people you are in no way dependent on is really important.’
Pippa Woodrow, Doughty Street Chambers

‘When it comes to emails, read David Allen’s Getting Things Done. It has a really good 4D process, which is: do it, delegate it, defer it, and drop it. It is making those decisions when those emails come in: what do I need to do? What could go somewhere else? Try to use Lex and other software as an aid. They are there to help you.’
David Wright, director of business development at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square

‘Start tethering the management of demands on time with quality of performance. The hack I have got with judges is to say, “This is a serious case, a difficult and complex task, and I cannot do justice to my client’s case”. It is not magic but it works well with most judges because they hear the formula and know they are going to be recognised as behaving utterly unreasonably in the face of somebody saying, “I need more time to do justice to my client’s case”.’
Sarah Vine, Doughty Street Chambers

‘Consider Emmanuel v South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust 2009 EWHC 3260 (Admin) for judicial comment on how courts’ unreasonably long sitting hours can impact on the fatigue of counsel and the tribunal, such that proceedings become unfair.’
Bridget Dolan QC, Serjeants’ Inn Chambers

‘The Bar Council is launching an anti-bullying and harassment app that will be available for barristers this autumn. It will allow people to report things anonymously. The Bar Council wants your feedback, so it has something concrete to take to meetings with judges and the court service. Also, talk to your clerks and be honest with them about what is going on.’
Nicholas Hill, senior clerk at Three New Square

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Good wellbeing starts with good leadership

Karina, you’ve been a lawyer for 20 years, how has the profession changed in terms of the pressure placed on lawyers?

Lawyers today operate under a heightened sense of urgency, which creates more stress. Clients want answers immediately (yesterday was too late!) and they demand lower fees so we are constantly striving to be faster, more accurate, more efficient.

At the same time, we face constant distractions from email and social media, and are always multitasking. And, since we are expected to always be reachable on our mobile phones or email, it’s hard to turn off and unplug even during weekends or holidays. This results in a significantly higher risk of psychological problems, and it affects workplace culture. We need to really integrate mental wellbeing into our working culture as part of the fabric of who we are.

We also need to collaborate more among ourselves and with our clients. The times of simply being an arms-length expert are over. This is a challenge for us as lawyers. Collaboration is not our natural state we tend to focus on being right, on being judgemental, on winning the case.

Real collaboration requires emotional regulation, social skills, self-reflection and empathy. And this is where mindfulness can really help. Practising mindfulness not only enables us develop and cultivate these skills, but also manage the effects of stress on our minds and bodies, regain focus, increase clarity and innovation.

What are the internal barriers to lawyers seeking help from their firms?

Unfortunately, the biggest barrier to seeking help is shame. There is still a stigma about mental health. Rightly or wrongly, we are taught that a good lawyer leaves their emotions at the door and doesn’t show vulnerability. Rarely, there is room to talk openly about the challenges of being a lawyer. We constantly strive to be perfect. As a result, we are ashamed of our struggles, hiding them and suppressing our emotions. On the outside, it appears that everyone is coping just fine and that we are the only one ‘flawed’. This, in turns, makes us feel isolated and not good enough.

If we admit we are struggling, will our colleagues question our competence or our commitment? Could we risk losing our job? Many people feel more comfortable getting help outside of work, which is fine as long as they do get help. Statistically, women are more likely than men to talk about their emotions and to seek professional help. Likewise, Millennials are more likely to seek help than Gen Xers or Baby Boomers.

In your experience, have attitudes towards mental health in the legal industry changed since you entered the profession? There is a big shift happening now. Younger lawyers are more open to talking about emotions and mental health, and they are more vocal about wanting a better balance between work and personal life. We are also seeing a lot more media attention on mental health issues, and this is helping to break down the taboo.

There was a US-based study published earlier this year that found Millennials are suffering from a higher prevalence of mental health issues, substance abuse, and diabetes than Gen X did at their age. It is unclear if this increase is due to higher rates of reporting or whether these illnesses are really on the rise, but at any rate it is a serious issue for society.

What can firms do better to combat mental health issues among their workforces?

It starts with good leadership and organisational culture. Partners and team leaders need to be empathetic, compassionate and authentic, or simply put, they need to develop emotional intelligence. They need to be able to recognise the fine line between healthy stress (which helps us challenge ourselves and grow) and unhealthy stress. They need to look for signs that people are struggling and talk to them openly about how to best address that.

Many firms introduce wellbeing programmes, such as mindfulness, yoga classes, or contribution to gym memberships. Some firms offer employee assistance programmes to give their people access to confidential professional counselling. More and more firms are offering flexible working arrangements, such as flexible or part-time hours or occasional home office, to help people better balance their work and personal responsibilities.

There are some who believe a more fundamental change is needed. I recently read a great blog from a Dentons partner in the US. She shared a compelling argument that law firms’ use of billable hours as the basis for compensation is creating a culture of burnout. She proposed that mandatory holidays and a new approach to compensation could help.

Why is wellbeing particularly important to you?

Like many lawyers, I have always been very driven and focused on professional achievement, but this eventually took its toll. I faced issues of anxiety, depression, and burnout, which affected not only my career satisfaction, but also my personal life. I turned to mindfulness as part of my own therapy, and it significantly improved and enriched the quality of my life in general.

These days, we put a lot of effort into taking care of our bodies and physical health we exercise, we eat healthy food but we often neglect to take care of our minds. This is unfortunate, as a lawyer’s mind is their most-used and valued instrument. Mindfulness is a form of mental training or exercise for the mind, which to me seems just as important as going to the gym.

You’ve recently been appointed to the position of Europe chief mindfulness officer (ECMO), what exactly does this role involve?

My main responsibility will be to make mindfulness an integral part of Dentons’ culture, thus supporting our vision to be the law firm of the future. I will contribute to our global NextTalent programme by using mindfulness to develop the essential skills of the lawyer of the future.

We aim to position Dentons at the leading edge of this emerging field. Our mindfulness initiatives will further strengthen the position, brand, and innovativeness of Dentons as an employer and trusted partner in law. They will help to nurture a culture in which high performance is founded on compassionate leadership, authenticity, honesty, respect, and teamwork in order to drive productivity and innovation.

In practice, it means working closely with our global talent team to design and deliver mindfulness training programmes and workshops to our people. I will also be collaborating with a network of internal ‘mindfulness ambassadors’, Dentons people who have volunteered to be trained to deliver mindfulness sessions for their colleagues.

Prior to your appointment as ECMO, you were instrumental in launching the firm’s NextMind programme. Would you explain what it is, how widely it has been taken up in the firm, and what is coming next?

First, we usually run introductory workshops, where we discuss the benefits of mindfulness techniques, and then walk people through one or two mindfulness meditation exercises. These sessions are generally short 45 to 90 minutes and we hold them at international conferences, practice and sector group meetings, and other such events. So far, more than 500 people from around the world have attended these workshops, either in person or virtually.

We also designed, in collaboration with Kalapa Leadership Academy, a fully-fledged mindfulness course, consisting of weekly two-hour workshops over eight weeks. Participants of NextMind not only practice but also learn about the neurophysiology of the brain, pitfalls of multi-tasking, transforming thinking processes, regulating negative emotions, building trusted relationships, and mindful communication and teamwork. They also practice different meditation techniques, which they are encouraged to apply in their own regular mindfulness practice. So far, 60 people from Europe have attended this course.

So what’s next? We have several introductory mindfulness workshops planned for retreats, group meetings, and webinars in the autumn and winter. We are rolling out the eight-week course via webinar for four groups of 25 people from around the world. We are also planning our second train-the-trainer retreat to teach our mindfulness ambassadors how to facilitate workshops and sessions in their local offices.

How has practising mindfulness been incorporated into the global NextTalent programme?

NextTalent is a global programme which uses the principles of neuroscience and behavioural sciences to help our people develop more emotional intelligence and resilience. These are key skills and qualities of the lawyer of the future.

Mindfulness meditation is simply one tool in the NextTalent arsenal. It helps increase focus and develop core elements of emotional intelligence, such as self-awareness, emotional self-regulation, social skills and empathy.

In addition to the NextMind programme, what other positive action has the firm taken to promote mental health and wellness among its employees? Dentons takes health and wellness very seriously. In addition to introducing the NextTalent programme, we are also working to encourage open and honest feedback within our firm. We are also very much focused on inclusion, which means celebrating our diversity and allowing people to be their authentic selves at work.

Taken together, these will help create a culture of healthy dialogue, so that people can talk more openly about their emotional states and the challenges they are facing.

Mental health is closely related to physical health, so we recently ran a Europe-wide Healthy Challenge where our people were challenged to take specific actions every day around four goals: healthy diet, exercise, sleep and mental wellness. More than 500 people participated.

In many offices we offer flexible working arrangements, such as home office, which are appreciated by our people. Some offices also offer other benefits such as yoga classes, sports activities, and gym memberships. Our US region recently introduced an employee assistance programme that sounds very interesting.

And finally, we have passionate people, who love what they do. And we try to make work fun. We be lieve that legal practice can be enjoyable.

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The importance of supportive leadership

In the second week of the crisis, the snow came. It had toyed with us for several days, threatening a festive dusting, but then changed tack and engulfed the country in a thick white blanket, mocking the valiant efforts to get trucks loaded and onto the roads by rendering many of them impassable. I needed to get to Rugby, but living at the bottom of a hill on a country lane with a rear-wheel drive car, I had no hope.

Wrapped up at home in comfy casuals, cut off from the world, for twenty-four hours I joined meetings and discussions with the team ensconced in Rugby by phone and by Skype. Conference calls served as a passable Plan B, but with many more people external consultants and advisors and DHL and QSL employees joining the calls than I’d met, attributing comments to people and parties was near impossible. A message came through from a colleague: if I could get to an open road, a four-wheel-drive taxi would be making its way towards me to take me up to Rugby.

The distribution centre had developed a reputation akin to the Hotel California: people arriving there for a meeting would find themselves stuffed into safety shoes and heavyweight jackets hurriedly scrambled from the Screwfix hardware store across the road, re-basing themselves in Rugby for days or weeks while they supported the recovery efforts in every which way they could. I was heading back up there for a meeting, but, with the added complication of the snow falling thick and fast, I anticipated I mightn’t be back too soon. Grabbing a bag, I filled it with clothes that would win me no awards for style or fashion, but would be entirely practical for several days snowed into a distribution depot in Rugby. If setting off on foot through a blizzard felt like madness, crawling along in the cocoon of the car at 20 mph on the motorway felt even more ill-judged. But the car journey felt like a refuge from what would undoubtedly await. Closer to Rugby, the blizzard abated; the snow thinned. With the sun out, the memory of the Narnian winter in Surrey felt like a lie.

The key questions being assessed were: what was the root cause of the distribution failure? Could it be fixed, so that the service that the KFC system had been promised could be realised? And if so, how? And where should the mounting losses lie? It had been important to ensure from the outset that the KFC parent company in the US was kept well aware of the situation in the UK. A difficult conversation to initiate, perhaps, but it would have been far worse if their first awareness of the crisis had been via a comment on Twitter or in a newspaper article, of which there were many. It might not be the case with all multinational organisations, but, with Yum!, it felt very much like a pool of protective older siblings across the pond, ready to jump in and do whatever they could to support, guide and encourage. Messages arrived from the global leadership team: ‘We’re all thinking of you and cheering you on’, and ‘Let me know if there’s anything at all that we can do for you and the team.

Even a friendly voice or ear to listen anything at all we’ll do. Take care. You’ve got this!’ As we poured yet another coffee at midnight to eke out the second wind from hours ago just that little bit further, the messages truly helped. And our daily emails and calls back to the global leadership team ensured that there were no sudden leaps in knowledge, with the press or social media leading the charge and leaving them lagging behind. Despite our best efforts, though, a call or an email could only go so far to convey the slightly hysterical #ChickenCrisis fever that had enthralled much of the UK, and that had occupied every waking moment of the KFC teams.

And so they came. Organically, each person took the decision to come to support the team in Rugby and to be on hand to see the issues with their own eyes, and to discuss, eyeballing one another across the table, and battle through the issues and the solutions.

The airspace above London thrummed with the incoming flights bearing reinforcements: a tenured supply chain and distribution expert from within the Australian KFC business, the global CEO, CFO and general counsel of the brand, and further leaders from the global KFC and Yum! boards arriving from Louisville Kentucky, Australia and Europe, contributing their own commercial and legal savvy and negotiation skills. As the immediate operational and commercial challenges and the longer term picture were being scrutinised by us all, with each new arrival the freshly assembled Swat Team felt more complete (although the ‘Special Weapons And Tactics’ deployed were less munitions and military plans, and more Excel spreadsheets, diplomatic negotiations and legal, commercial and operational analysis).

Surfacing for air After existing in a central London hotel with the core negotiating team for four days and nights, I realised that (i) I had not seen daylight without the protective barrier of a window pane for some time, and (ii) I had run out of clean clothes. It was 8.15pm. As some of the team headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner and an escape from the now too familiar four walls of the board room, I decided instead to make a break for it, and go shopping. The very idea that I could simply walk out of the hotel and do something as ridiculously ordinary as going shopping took hold, and the excitement I felt as I ran (yes, ran) through the front door and into a waiting taxi is hard to put into words. A few minutes later, I was walking down Oxford Street, breathing in the clear, dark night and relishing the almost forgotten experience of being cold. Most of the shops were closing for the night, but the bright store front of M&S beckoned me in with a whispered promise of fresh underwear and some neutral basics.

I had lent my last clean top to our external lawyer, so both she and I were now in need of supplies. Plucking a basket from a stack by the entrance, I chose underwear and toiletries for both of us, and tried hard to select tops that were in the right sizes and which suited both the fifth-day-in-a-row-in a-board-room-with-the-same-colleagues and the about-to hold-a-conference-with-over-thirty-franchisees occasions. I struggled. I was sleep-deprived and found it hard to switch from a contract negotiation and drafting mind-set to an outfit selection one. As 9pm approached, the lights began to snap off, with the clear threat that the shop had every intention of closing as soon as the last few stragglers had left. A loudspeaker abruptly reinforced this warning. I raced to the tills.

Hauling my basket onto the counter and tipping the contents out in a heap, I realised that I had forgotten to find a new deodorant for our external lawyer, as requested, so I jogged back to the cosmetics section while the cluster of M&S employees at the counter began to ring up my selection. ‘Sorry!’ I gasped once I’d made it back with a floral-scented roll-on. ‘I’ve been panic-shopping!’

The lady on the till laughed, and asked how on earth a person could find themselves panic-buying underwear, tops and floral-scented deodorant on a Thursday night. Goodness, how much detail to go into? I’d been in a meeting, I told her, which lasted four days longer than planned, and now I had run out of clothes. By now, she and her colleagues were finding the situation pretty hilarious. Who did I work for to have meetings like this? I was alone on my side of the counter by now, acres of darkened shop floor behind me, and five curious faces opposite, partly wondering what I was talking about, and partly just wanting me to get a move on so that they could close up and go home. KFC, I told them.

Well! The level of detail that this group knew about KFC’s current predicament was astonishing. While I’d been hidden away in the stagnating air of a meeting room, allowing the distribution issues to occupy my every conscious (and the occasional unconscious) thought, the world outside had been busy absorbing all of the emerging details and forming their own opinions on the situation.

Discussions and negotiations that had once been sensitive and confidential were now fair game.

‘Oh, I bet you wish you’d stayed with Bidvest now!’ she told me, while two more M&S employees debated the wisdom in using a sole distribution centre in the ‘logistics golden triangle’ rather than using several spread across the country. With their wishes of luck and strength, and pleas for the KFC in Addiscombe to reopen soon, I gathered up my bag and stepped back out into Oxford Street. This was the new normal, and the only way was onwards.

As the last day of week two of the crisis merged into the first day of week three, the Swat Team had decamped to the board room of the London hotel. With all of the key decisionmakers for KFC in the room, we were intent upon getting a complete solution nailed down within a few short days. The mood was collaborative and positive, but desperately intense. Every contribution was listened to and evaluated, but there was no time for meandering debate. Where, ordinarily, a theoretical idea could be discussed and then explored in more detail offline, with a conclusion settled upon in due course, here, the need for certainty and action was immediate.

I sat at the long board table, and my mind wandered from the meeting to the crazy two weeks that had just passed. The urgent decision-making, the conferences spent standing in front of dozens of concerned and occasionally angry franchisees as they shot questions at me about what was happening to their businesses, and all that journeying back and forth to Rugby Looking around the room at faces, once so familiar to me, each suddenly seemed distorted and somehow wrong. And their voices: once clear and definite, now blurred into indeterminable sound. I felt utterly confused. I could see mouths moving, heads nodding, but could make no sense of the words floating like helium balloons around the room.

Chris, sitting beside me, nudged my elbow, looking at me quizzically. ‘You okay?’ His face was obscured with pricks of bright light, and I couldn’t draw out the words needed to reply to him, to say that I wasn’t sure that I was okay after all. I felt scared. I was entirely out of my depth. How could I possibly be of any use to the team if I didn’t understand anything that they were saying? What if they realised that I was now a dead weight, and asked me politely just to go? Aware that I hadn’t been able to utter a word for some minutes, I shifted in my chair uncomfortably, lost my balance, and reached out to the table edge for support. My fingers, gripping it, were numb. So too, I realised, was my nose, which tingled as though I had walked into a hot room after spending too long outside on a frosty night. The voices in the room continued. Confused, I realised that some were directed at me, but I had no idea at all what they were saying as one word flowed continuously into the next and the next and the next, leaving me no time to decipher what each one meant. I felt like I was drowning, my grasp on the present now entirely released as I fell deeper and deeper.

My boss stood at the other end of the table, brow deeply furrowed as he looked at me, his mouth moving and his words merging with the others in the room. In a few short paces he was standing next to my chair, pulling me into a hug, as I burst into tears. I have no recollection of what he said, but I can still feel the enormous relief of finally being thrown a lifeline: You’re not okay, and I can see that, and I can help.

‘Sarah needs to sleep! Is she checked in?’ said an American voice.

‘No: she came straight here. Where’s her bag?’

‘Here! I’ve checked in already. Take my room key. Someone needs to help her upstairs.’

Someone comforting, and help to my feet. More words. More movement. And I was out in the corridor, Paula’s arm around me as I walked blindly, crying silently. A lift. A room. A bed. Paula kindly ordering me to lie down as she fetched a juice and some water from the minibar. And then I was alone, and the room was dark and quiet. And then nothing.

You might think that, after a certain number of things feel completely surreal, you’d simply accept that reality has shifted and everything experienced is, in fact, entirely normal. Lying in the global CEO’s bed, recalling being led, crying, out of a room full of some of the company’s most senior leaders, is a sobering experience. I had no point of reference on which to anchor this. No similar situation that I could draw upon to remind myself that this was all par for the course, and many before me had done just the same.

Had anyone else ever done this? More to the point, had anyone done this and survived, their career intact? And what next?

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How climate change affects fundamental human rights

Seventy-one years have passed since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Second World War. Yet, human rights violations remain all too frequent, both in developed and developing countries.

While the 1926 Slavery Convention confirmed that slavery is unlawful as a matter of international law, estimates suggest that over 40 million people still live as modern slaves. In addition, forced eviction and displacement, torture, unfair trials, detentions, discrimination, and restrictions on expression and free speech continue today all around the world.

Modern human rights abuses can be the result of armed conflicts, a lack of appropriate local legislation (or the means to enforce legislation) or autocratic leadership. However, all too avoidably, poor business practices that respond to the wrong incentives, can be key contributors to adverse human rights impacts. At Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), we place human rights at the core of our operations and of the advice we give to clients so that we all can contribute towards an economy that respects human rights.

The conversation about the impact of climate change traditionally revolves around the scientific, economic, and environmental aspects. Only recently has more attention been given to the human and social aspects, particularly to specific segments of the population as attention has been focused on increasing levels of evidence about the impact on living conditions and human lives.

Environmental quality and human rights are inextricably linked.

Environmental quality, including a safe and healthy working environment, impacts the right to life, health and adequate living standards, property, freedom of movement, and education can contribute to modern slavery issues. The enjoyment of many human rights can also contribute to adverse impacts on the environment. A failure to integrate considerations of human rights and environmental considerations can lead to steps intended to protect one, unintentionally adversely impacting the other. On the other hand, if these issues are considered together, the protection of the environment can facilitate the enjoyment of human rights and those rights can then be enjoyed without unnecessary damage to the environment.

At a legislative level, climate change is not legally bound to the universal human rights treaties, but the link between a safe and healthy environment and human rights is now recognised. There is an international movement – both in the private sector and at state level – to integrate climate change issues within policy statements and through joining sustainable development frameworks and international pledges. In addition, the UN Guiding Principles (UNGP) place a responsibility on corporations to respect human rights. Given the link between human rights and environmental protection, it is arguable that, by not addressing the causes of climate change (e.g. reduce GHG emissions), corporations contribute to human rights violation, in contravention of the UNGP.

The effects of, and accountability for, climate change are not uniform across the world, with states and regions dealing with different types of threats. This contributes to a fragmented coverage of climate and environmental law. In addition, climate change-related litigation against governments and industry players is an emerging trend in a growing number of jurisdictions.

While it is clear climate change has impacts on human rights, it is more complex than simply stating that climate change is a violation of human rights.

Figure 1: The complexity of the impact of climate change on human

Figure 2: Human Rights are becoming an increasingly important concern for businesses, particular since the United Nations’ endorsement of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011

This is for at least three reasons:

1. Complexity: as shown in Figure 1, it is almost impossible to disentangle and isolate the impacts of existing environmental and social circumstances from the impacts of climate change (i.e. more recent emissions of green-house gases).

2. Attribution: it is difficult to attribute a particular factor to a particular human rights impact.

3. Time-lag: there can often be an extended period between a climate change impacts of climate change, which are often future projections of today’s human activity and the violation of human rights following that impact.

However, these three elements should not stop us looking at climate change through a human rights prism and developing adaptation and mitigation policies that address the implications of climate change on human rights.

Many governments have made commitments at an international level to tackle climate change and to improve environmental performance. Companies are also bound to certain standards by national and supra-national environmental regulation. However, looking at climate change through a human rights prism reinforces the position that both governments and businesses should act to mitigate their environmental impact. Under the UNGP, states have a duty to protect human rights and businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights. That responsibility is being increasingly codified and given ‘hard law’ status in increasing amounts of national legislation.

In circumstances where poor environmental performance can inhibit the free enjoyment of human rights, states have a clear duty and businesses have a clear responsibility to take steps to combat climate change in order that some of the most fundamental human rights can be capable of realisation for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.

International cooperation that brings together the private sector and states is required to address the cross-border impacts of climate change; through sharing knowledge, technology, and resources. While there should be reasonable flexibility for countries at different stages of their industrial development, consistent cross-border standards would ensure a level playing field and prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ by jurisdictions adopting materially lower standards to offer investors a competitive advantage. It is a shared environment and its protection must be a shared responsibility.

That said, policy cannot just be dictated by one group of countries. The global inequalities in the area of climate change are highlighted where those who contribute the least to climate change often being the ones who are affected the most. There is a disproportionate dependence in developing countries on climate-related resources. In these countries, there is usually a higher proportion of vulnerable individuals.

Therefore, equity in climate action is absolutely necessary to ensure adaptation and mitigation measures will benefit those groups and inequalities are not exacerbated.

Article 21 of the UDHR declares the human right to participation in government. Therefore, within a particular country, the most affected segments of the population should be part of decision-making process in relation to climate action. For example, indigenous people have a vast knowledge of their environment and their knowledge and interests should be incorporated into climate change policies. In doing so, we can develop effective adaptation and mitigation strategies and measures, which are cost-effective, inclusive, and sustainable.

The human right to information is fundamental in climate change and that right should be used to hold states and businesses to account. Transparency regarding the environmental impact and contribution to climate change of both businesses and governments is necessary.

Figure 3: Populations affected by climate change

Nurturing children’s environmental knowledge and awareness is also vital, through both informal and formal environmental education. Children and young people should be seen as actors who could drive the climate agenda now and in the future. Therefore, states and businesses should take a more active role in disseminating knowledge and information of climate change to all their audiences.

Businesses likewise should be open and transparent about their environmental impact and contribution to climate change, through their corporate reporting obligations and by joining additional voluntary disclosure and reporting initiatives. They should seek to understand better the role they can play in tackling climate change and how they might use their power and network to encourage collaboration and to lobby for improved law and policies. They should look to reallocate resources, share their knowledge and expertise, and promote environmental education within their organisations and raise awareness internally and externally. After all, it is not ‘just’ a climate change issue; it is also a human rights issue.

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Gibraltar’s lawyers: Between the rock and a hard Brexit?

While 2019 saw America’s most beloved Rock named Hollywood’s highest earner, the territory known for housing Europe’s most famous rock continues its equally successful run of financial good fortune.

Gibraltar, still primarily regarded for its shipping trade, offshore banking, and position as an international conference centre, has profited from an innovative approach to emerging markets that has seen the British Overseas Territory neatly swerve the recession vortex that claimed so many other European economies, connect with key trends, and weather Brexit uncertainty better than most of the UK.

To add a bit of context, the historically high British military presence in Gibraltar was drastically reduced in the last couple of decades and now contributes to only about 7% of the local economy. This has naturally focused attention on other areas of the economy, and a defining feature has been the favourable – and by favourable, read low – tax rates, which have also contributed to attracting new foreign investment.

Investment has principally come in the form of the financial, tourism, and the shipping sectors, which according to various sources contributed to 30%, 30%, and 25%, respectively, of GDP in 2018. The remaining 15% was accounted for by e-commerce, telecoms (due to significant investment in infrastructure), and e-gaming (thanks to the tax advantages of the territory and its support of the gaming industry).

The jurisdiction set out to build on this remote gaming environment by making itself a hospitable ground for other innovative industries, notably fintech and cryptocurrency start-ups. In 2016, the Gibraltar Stock Exchange launched a Bitcoin exchange traded instrument and in October 2017 the territory became one of the first jurisdictions to enact specific Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) regulations.

‘It was a big boost to the economy’ states Vikram Nagrani, partner and co-head of the fintech team at Hassans, ‘since 2015 the economy has grown year on year, the regulation put Gibraltar ahead of the game in terms of DLT, creating a functioning well thought-out framework.’

The benefits of gaming and fintech regulation is noted by Albert Isola, barrister and Gibraltar’s minister of financial services and gaming, who highlighted in his June 2019 budget speech how ‘DLT framework has continued to grab much attention all over the world,’ with the territory now boasting ‘eight firms fully licensed, with a further eight firms licensed in principle and soon to be completed.’

This follows the precedent set by the success of remote gaming regulation, a sector which ‘continues to make a very significant contribution to the economy in terms of corporation tax, PAYE and gambling charges and fees, providing…significant value for money with modest operating costs,’ said Isola, who went on to suggest ‘there is undoubtedly more to come… we will continue to Innovate and lead in this sector.’

The success of the financial and e-commerce sectors in Gibraltar is largely down to several key factors, namely: a legal system based on English law; recognised status within the EU, allowing companies to benefit from cross-border authorisation and passporting rights; and a tax system with no capital gains tax or VAT.

The gaming and fintech industries have also mitigated some of the concern around the dreaded B-word.

‘Gibraltar faces the same Brexit worries and uncertainty in relation to food and medicine, as well as waste disposal,’ says Nagrani, a point highlighted in the newly released no-deal Yellowhammer document, which references disruption to goods, medicines, and ‘trans-frontier shipments of waste’ – Spain current flushes the latter problem for the territory. However, the damning appraisal has been contradicted by the Government of Gibraltar, which stated that the report was ‘out of date and wrong’ and relates to matters the government has ‘already dealt with’; As Hassans’ Nagrani notes, ‘the government has reacted well and prepared well.’

Nagrani also suggests that it is the booming fintech industry that might be responsible for allaying many fears as, ‘it’s a Brexit-proof industry…a global product’, and he cites the legal changes in China as another reason for the popularity of a well-regulated fintech space.

Cryptocurrency exchanges or trading platforms were effectively banned in China in September 2017, with 173 platforms closed down within a year. In this environment, a favourable jurisdiction with a ready-made and functioning framework becomes an attractive proposition for traders and companies dealing in the DLT market.

As is often the case, the local economic market is reflected in its legal market. The success and prominence of Gibraltar’s law firms over the last five years is consistent with the degree of expertise in some of these key emerging areas, as well as the traditional bread and butter work of the territory.

Standing out from the crowd is Hassans, which dwarfs most of its peers in terms of headcount and market share, with Isolas the next largest. Over the past five years the two feature 49 times each across The Legal 500’s various practice areas, however, Hassans continues to distinguish itself as the firm with most top-tier rankings since 2015.

Isolas and Triay & Triay are consistent mainstays in the rankings, but also notable are TSN Barristers & Solicitors, a go-to firm for construction, and Ramparts, which has notable experience in the gaming sector.

Hassans maintains its leading market position thanks to the range and depth of expertise it provides, as well as strong connection with the Gibraltan government. This can be seen in the firm’s individual rankings, where it leads the way again with 20 practitioners ranked since 2015, while Triay & Triay come in second with 11.

So far, the relative comfort with which Gibraltar’s economy, and by extention its law firms, has weathered the storm of Brexit uncertainty so far augurs well for the territory. However, Gibraltar will lose its EU status if and when Brexit happens. Thus, as in the UK, the nemesis of business – uncertainty – still casts its shadow across the peninsula even more so than its steadfast landmark.

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There is a war for talent

How have the roles of senior clerk and chief executive changed/evolved during your time in chambers?

Roles have had to evolve in response to the changes in the commercial environment in which barristers’ chambers operate. I started my career in the early 1980s and at that time there were no titles such as CEO. The head of clerking/administration was ‘The Senior Clerk’. However, the modern business world is increasingly complex and in the leading commercial sets we deal with larger clients, across the world, often on larger matters, and against a background of changing technology that has created a culture of 24-hour working.

This shift has required chambers to grow and develop while investing in more advanced systems and processes, across finance, IT, marketing, and business development. There is also a need for a greater level of governance reflecting doing business in a more complex legal and regulatory landscape. This creates more management challenges to which senior staff and roles have had to respond.

What skills does the modern clerk require to progress in chambers?

Clerking has always required a broad range of skills from effective administration to great people management skills as well as an ability to be proactive about client retention and acquisition.

There is, I believe, a greater recognition that clerks do need to wear many hats and those looking to progress, and do well, need to work on a broad range of skills, particularly the ability to act as a trusted adviser to members as well as their clients. Clerks need the ability to nurture and develop those relationships effectively.

At the same time clerks have recognised specialist staff working in finance, marketing, and operations help complement the traditional administrative skills within chambers.

There is increasingly more movement of barristers and clerks between sets. What do you put this down to?

This phenomenon isn’t peculiar to barristers’ chambers. It’s a feature of the wider professional world. Fewer solicitors, for example, join one firm for life and there is more movement between firms and in-house legal teams in a way that there really wasn’t when I started in chambers 30 years ago.

There are lots of reasons for this increased movement. Much of it a reflection of the more globally competitive markets in which we are all operating and a demand for more specialist practice area expertise. Sets will evolve and change shape to better serve clients and take advantage of commercial opportunities.

For barristers one key driver for the increased movement is the divide between the specialist and non-specialist sets has widened. Specialist practitioners in non-specialist sets believe their practice will grow and develop more rapidly if they move to specialist sets. For clerks, as chambers have developed so have the requirements for successful and effective management. I have seen, therefore, a corresponding escalation in the war for talent. Good clerks are in demand.

What advice would you give to a set considering bringing in a CEO?

It entirely depends why a set feels it needs to create a specific CEO role. Sets need to think what they are trying to achieve strategically and what additional skills a CEO might bring to help get a chambers to where they want to be. I would also strongly recommend that chambers involve the senior clerk in the process as their buy-in will greatly enhance the prospects of the new CEO succeeding in the new role.

The size and demands of the modern chambers require a more defined structure with the need to clarify responsibilities between clerking and administration. Bringing in an external CEO may be right for a set, alternatively they may look creatively at the roles and people they have, look at bolstering operational management rather than executive management.

One needs to be aware of the particular nature of the chambers set up – it’s not the chambers or service company that provides the legal services, it’s the self-employed members. CEOs new into chambers can find it difficult to adapt to that operating model. They can also underestimate the importance of the trusted adviser role – to the barristers as well as to clients.

There has been an upstairs-downstairs mentality in some sets. How conducive is that to working at the modern Bar? Should clerks and practice managers be seen more as ‘business partners’ rather than ‘staff’?

This dynamic is a feature of professional services firms globally where the fee-earning professionals have invested in a range of ‘support functions’ to enable them to focus on client work while delegating IT, finance, business development, and so on. It’s an effective way of operating in a world where increased complexity means no one can be an expert in everything.

Over time such support functions have matured and senior support professionals are increasingly taking a seat at the management table in chambers where they have built that trusted adviser status and relationship with members. A good example is that the chairs of the Institute of Barristers’ Clerks and the Legal Practice Management Association are now invited to take a seat at the GMC committee of the Bar Council. This was something that I fought for when I was the IBC Chairman.

Barristers work in a high-pressure environment. How can clerks best alleviate the stress members face?

Stress management is a serious topic and I would not like to imply that clerks can alone solve the problems barristers may be facing. But good clerks can take the stress off members by actively helping them to manage their workload. In addition, a good relationship with their clerking team allows members to reach out in a timely fashion when their stress levels may be rising.

What about wellbeing in the clerks’ room? How do you ensure your team stays healthy when they too are under pressure?

It is important to create an environment in which clerks can raise issues early and where acceptable standards of behaviour are clear and enforced. It also helps if problems are raised early and if everyone works effectively as a team so individuals are supported in doing their job and can call out for practical and emotional help when they need it.

How can the clerking profession become more gender and ethnically diverse?

I think that we have seen an improvement in recent years but inevitably these things take time to get to where we want to be. Sets need to make it clear that they are welcoming environments for new joiners regardless of background, gender, ethnicity, and so on, and that they actively encourage candidates from a broader range of sources. The challenge for sets is that they are relatively small enterprises and don’t all necessarily have the resource to reach out as widely as they might like to when recruiting. This is something that sets need to think about when they embark upon a recruitment process.

How would more graduates becoming clerks benefit the profession and chambers?

I think the key point is less about graduates but more about hiring good people with a range of skills. A degree isn’t necessarily going to make someone a better clerk in of itself for example. That said, it’s a positive we attract a wider range of professional skills and qualifications into clerking and other roles like operations, marketing, and finance to ensure we have the right broad mix of expertise and experience.

What practice trends are you seeing in chambers at the moment? Where is your growth coming from?

Atkin Chambers has a pre-eminent position in both domestic and international disputes whether they are handled in London or further afield. Drivers are often a reflection of external market changes like the dynamic energy market, and investments being made globally in major transport infrastructure, which is creating a high demand for barristers’ services. In terms of the geographic spread we are seeing work from, it’s an increasingly broad spread – internationally fast developing and maturing economies in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa feature heavily.

If there was one thing you would change about the Bar/chambers model, what would it be?

Beyond continuing to invest in our staff and our client service, I am not sure I would change anything fundamental. It’s a model that is flexible and which serves to offer extremely high-quality personal service to members and their clients, while allowing chambers to manage the cost base to everyone’s benefit. The size of sets has grown over the years which is why chambers have needed to invest more in property, staffing, and technology. Some sets are further along the maturity curve with regard to their operational and infrastructure and governance structures, but generally the basic model is robust.

What are your predictions for the Bar and clerking profession over the medium to long terms?

In my opinion, clients will continue to engage the highly specialised services that the Bar offers – quality advocacy and a specialised consultative service. However, we mustn’t rest on our laurels about how we deliver the service to clients. Sets will undoubtedly need to continue to invest in people and technology to meet rising client expectations. The commercial Bar will continue to thrive so long as it adapts to the changing needs of clients. However, if chambers dilute their defining qualities in the future they will cease to add the value they do today.

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Wang Ling: Dare to tackle new areas

How would you define your firm’s culture? How important is firm culture to you?

If I had to summarise our culture in one word it would be collaboration. By that I mean not only collaboration internally and with clients, but also with other professionals, including from other law firms.

Client-centric, commitment and dedication, collaboration and sharing, teamwork, and striving for excellence.

The firm’s culture defines us as who we are and how we get here. As the firm expands and more people join us, it is important that we share the same value. This culture binds us together and motivates our people to release their potential and increase cohesion. It will also attract talents who appreciate the same culture. It ensures healthy expansion, stable and sustainable development, as well as enables us to achieve common goals and face challenges. We appreciated very much our clients’ recognition of our firm’s culture.

What’s the main change you’ve made in the firm that will benefit clients?

It is our top priority to provide high quality and efficient services to our clients. In addition to continuously improving our service quality and consistency of the quality among the firm, in recent years, we also took several structural development and initiatives based on our understanding of the client business strategic direction and the opportunities provided by the country’s economic development policies, to ensure us enter the same market with our clients.

As our clients’ businesses become more and more sophisticated, we need to grow with the clients in multiple dimensions, from the scope of services, to geographical landscape and new areas of legal service and products. To satisfy fast increasing demands of the client service, we must understand the industry and our clients’ business goals as well. The firm has been working towards industry focus and coordinating our legal resources of different practice groups and regions with very clear vision on certain traditional and emerging industries, such as energy, medical and healthcare, TMT, fintech, etc.

Our firm has been regarded as the fore runner in many practice and sectors by the clients and market, such as fintech, cyber securities, debt-for-equity Swap, securitisation/ABS, and so on. Having been involved in many industry sectors’ ‘firsts’, now KWM is deemed by peers and clients as being able to offer the most cutting-edge services in some areas of practice and complicated deals/cases.

In April, 2018, we announced the establishment of KWM International Center (KWMIC) in the Greater Bay Area, corresponding to the countries’ new development strategy of forming China’s Great Bay Area, combining the Pearl River Delta of Mainland, HK SAR, and Macau SAR into one economic entity. This strategic move will further enhance regional integration of our four offices in South China (Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong ,and San Ya) as well as globalisation of the firm in general.

KWMIC focuses on providing an integrated service offering to assist our Chinese and international clients with exploring more business opportunities in the Greater Bay Area, including Belt and Road projects, cross-border investments, high-end financial services, PE/VC investments, capital markets, IP protection, and cross-border dispute resolution, etc. KWMIC was launched to best serve our clients and capture the historic opportunities arising from the Greater Bay Area.

In March 2019, we also established the BRCICF, as a comprehensive professional service platform combining legal services, think tank studies, consultation services, and international cooperation. It has been established to connect the government and enterprises, and to provide high-level professional services to both Chinese and foreign participators who explore the opportunity brought by the Belt & Road Initiative.

KWM has been engaged in a great number of Belt & Road projects for the last a few years, gaining extensive practical experiences covering all types of cross-border projects across various Belt & Road countries and industries, such as energy, transport, infrastructure, manufacturing, finance, etc.

What does innovation mean to you and how can firms be better at it?

Innovation is a mindset, it should not be limited to technical as such. For us, innovation means less mental restriction on what we do and find solutions, means always dare to tackle into new areas. Over the years, we have done numerous ‘firsts’ in the Chinese legal industry, including adapting western law firm compensation and management systems and IT infrastructure, expanding into new areas of practices and sectors, etc.

Being innovative also means we are always willing to look into new solutions for our clients. KWM is constantly thinking differently and redefining what is possible to enable us to deliver exceptional business outcomes and service to our clients. Wang Junfeng, our Global Chairman, and our management, have been keeping open-minded and paying attention to innovation to promote the firm’s development. The innovative mindset has been rooted in our strategy and development as well as in our management and our people.

The combination between legacy King & Wood and legacy Mallesons Stephen Jaques was an historical event in the world legal history where the first time a Chinese law firm and an established Western firm with long history merged, making the first global law firm headquartered in Asia. The firm took many innovative initiatives to accelerate the integration of two cultures and systems.

What are the biggest challenges facing you in China?

The challenges we are facing mainly relate to how to ensure the firm maintain the same pace of rapid development and continue to lead the market. We also need to ensure continuity of same quality client service across the firm, as well as constantly improve the level of globalisation and management level.

What are the biggest trends facing your practice?

Globalisation of Chinese legal services has become the biggest trends, alongside which is increasingly deeper competition in the local market. Chinese law firms are rapidly maturing and entering the international legal market competition.

What do you think are the top things most clients want and why?

  • Understand clients’ businesses and their commercial goals behind the business decisions and align with it;
  • Quick response;
  • Deliver high quality and comprehensive service; and
  • Value-add service

Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients, and the services you can provide them?

Modern technology has changed the ways of interaction between lawyers and clients. Through mobile applications and other means, it has become much easier and efficient for communication. As a result, new ways of client interaction and maintenance at personal level become possible and easier.

Technology in data collection enables lawyer to access more information so that lawyers can provide the client with value-add additional services and products through data analytics. We can foresee technology will make more changes to the way of interaction between the legal counsel and their clients which will further change the way of providing services.

What have you found is the best way to retain talent – both at partner and associate levels?

KWM always regards talent retention and cultivation as one of our primary development strategies. To keep our competitive advantage in the highly competitive legal market, we take people-oriented approach in all areas of management, firm culture, humanistic care, training and career development, and build a multi-dimensional system around it. This covers from interns to associates of all levels and partners.

We consider that the best way to retain talents is to provide a good platform and support them to develop and become successful. Based on this approach,KWM was elected as one of the China’s Most Attractive Employers 2018 by Universum for the third consecutive year.

Since becoming managing partner what’s surprised you most about running a firm?

Chinese law firms have experienced phenomenal rapid growth for 30 years, it has always been a challenge to get involved in management keeping up with the growth. I am very lucky that I can work with a group of highly talented and devoted partners in the management, who are diligent and conscientious on driving business forward, and dedicated to the firm and strive for perfection.

Our global chairman, Wang Junfeng, has been the driven force behind all of our developments, with his entrepreneur spirit, long-term vision, innovative thinking and the courage.

We also have a very dedicated operational team to support the implementation of management decisions.

Going forward and with further growth of the firm, we will definitely face more challenges in law firm management, we must continue to improve ourselves and management styles and learn in order to keep up with the development.

How has your involvement in client-facing work changed since becoming managing partner?

My responsibility requires me to focus more on the management and maintenance of the clients from the overall consideration of the firm, including setting up strategy and structure for the firm’s client management system as well as oversee its implementation. I also need to look into internal resource coordination among practice groups, regions, etc. from the business strategy level of the firm.

What advice would you give to the next generation of partners ready to rise the ranks?

Stay hungry, stay foolish; become a master of your area, while broader your horizon with wider range of knowledge; gain transboundary experience and commercial sense, understand the market and the client, and with a view on the big picture.

What are your firm’s policies on diversity and inclusion?

We encourage a diversified corporate culture from the establishment of the firm and we always keep an open policy on nationality, culture background, gender and so on. In our firm, people from many countries work together closely, and female staff members have always been a key part of our community. Currently, 34% of our partners are female and 57% of associates are female.

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Exchanging places

My route into law started with a training contract in 1994. Before then, I completed a postgraduate degree and taught at a university for a few years. I decided to go into practice because academia wasn’t as interesting or rewarding as I thought it would be and even then, the system seemed to be offering students less and less and charging them more and more.

I decided to qualify as a solicitor for a few reasons. One of them was definitely money. I was a bit older than most trainees and I had more commitments. I wanted the security of a job with a monthly salary. Things are much better at the Bar now for new entrants and I wouldn’t want anyone reading this to be discouraged by the way things were 25 years ago. The other reason was that I was initially attracted by the idea of doing transactional corporate and restructuring work and didn’t see myself as a litigator.

I spent the first half of my career at what is now DLA Piper in the restructuring team. There was a mixed caseload of contentious and non-contentious work and I found litigation more enjoyable than the transactional work. I spent the last few years as a partner at a large firm doing contentious fraud insolvency work for HMRC and insolvency practitioners. I enjoyed the fee earning work and dealing with clients, but realised that I didn’t enjoy the ‘running the business’ side of partnership, and I wasn’t particularly good at it either.

I decided to make the change to the Bar to allow me to spend more time doing what I enjoy and to get away from financial management and supervising a team. I had been thinking about it for a few years before I made the move in 2014, and that’s the only regret I have – I should have done it earlier.

Transferring to the Bar was surprisingly easy. If you have higher rights, which I did, you’ll normally be excused pupillage and have to do six qualifying sessions, which you can complete after you’ve been called. You can be called to the Bar without it affecting your status as a solicitor – you don’t have to resign from your firm or give up your practising certificate.

When I made my move, I was looking for a chambers which had experience of solicitors transferring to the Bar. I already knew the clerks and many of the members of the commercial team at Exchange because I had been instructing them for years as a solicitor. I knew that other former solicitors had moved there and built very successful practices.

The other members and the chambers management were incredibly supportive to me when I joined. I wasn’t required to do pupillage but chambers arranged for me to spend some time following some of the more senior members around. It was really useful to me and reassured me that I had made the right decision.

Some of my initial practice at the Bar came from former colleagues. I was also lucky enough to have some former clients steer work to me from solicitors I didn’t know well. The clerking and management team at Exchange have superb contacts and have been able to put me forward for work which suits me.

During my time at Exchange, I’ve experienced the huge differences between partnership in a large firm and practice at the Bar. The Bar offers a combination of more flexibility and freedom at the price of far less certainty about what you’ll be doing at any given time. There’s a greater variety of work at the Bar. You don’t have the opportunity to work closely with the same people all the time, and you don’t have a team of solicitors to whom you can delegate work.

To anyone thinking about transferring, the first thing I’d recommend is getting hold of some books on advocacy and cross-examination techniques. If you spend some time understanding techniques for preparation and appearing in court, you’ll probably overcome some of your fears and at the same time understand whether it’s the sort of work you’ll enjoy.

The other thing to do is to ask yourself what you enjoy most about being a lawyer. If it’s the client contact, working in or managing a large team, and (if you’re fairly senior) having a fair degree of control over what you’re doing and when, then the Bar might not be right for you. If it’s doing the law, and if you enjoy the challenge of taking on something complicated at short notice and making it make sense, you’ll love the Bar.