Keeping-Tabs-Summer-2023
Stay up-to-date on news and events from our Young Advocates' Standing Committee (YASC) with Keeping Tabs.
Stay up-to-date on news and events from our Young Advocates' Standing Committee (YASC) with Keeping Tabs.
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Mental Health Supports<br />
A Toronto litigation boutique has taken a cutting-edge approach to mental health by offering its<br />
lawyers a comprehensive wellness policy, which includes paid mental health days, an annual wellness<br />
stipend, and active engagement in Well-Being Week in Law. This firm also covers the costs of<br />
individualized counseling for each of its associates in partnership with a leading clinic specializing<br />
in lawyer-related stress and mental health services, to support their associates in navigating the<br />
early years of practice.<br />
The managing partner’s view is that mental health supports are essential for a modern practice:<br />
“We train our lawyers to be best-in-class litigators, negotiators, and investigators. There is no way<br />
to achieve long-term success in this profession without paying careful attention to your health.<br />
Mental health is health.”<br />
Paid counseling allows juniors to develop healthy habits and manage their stress levels, all with<br />
the support of an experienced professional. It also provides an avenue to manage the unique<br />
stress of litigation, as explained by the same managing partner: “We are only now coming to understand<br />
the impact that secondary or vicarious trauma can have on litigators. We want our lawyers<br />
to have long and fulfilling careers. That can’t happen if they don’t develop the tools to avoid<br />
burnout and to productively process all the turmoil and emotion that comes up when you spend<br />
your days fighting for people’s companies, livelihoods, and liberty.”<br />
Takeaways<br />
Each of these policies aims to promote longevity in the legal practice, and firms such as these<br />
three are seeing the benefits. Ensuring that associates are mentally healthy, and able to perform<br />
to their full capacity just makes sense from both a personal and business perspective.<br />
NEW TAS<br />
MENTORING<br />
PORTAL<br />
Did you know The Advocates’ Society has a new<br />
online mentoring program exclusively for TAS members?<br />
A key goal of this new mentoring program is to create a simple way for our Junior Members to<br />
feel more connected to their professional community and obtain some career advice from more<br />
experienced members of the bar. This program model is convenient, efficient and effective:<br />
√<br />
√<br />
√<br />
No long-term commitments.<br />
No extensive questionnaires or matching.<br />
No heavy agendas, minute taking or long-term planning.<br />
Just simple connection and conversation for junior lawyers to get some tips and connect with<br />
someone new.<br />
More information is available on the<br />
TAS mentoring website page.<br />
TAS Junior Members are automatically signed<br />
up. Click here to set up your profile today!<br />
10 11<br />
****At this time, the program is only available in English but we are working with Mentorship Rocket to build a bilingual (English and French) site for later in <strong>2023</strong>.