Keeping-Tabs-Summer-2023

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