More City firms step up mental health efforts as burnout concerns persist

Stephenson Harwood and Wedlake Bell are the latest City firms to sign up to the Mindful Business Charter, as the profession continues to think about how everyday working patterns influence lawyer wellbeing.

They join a community of nearly 130 organisations signed up to the Charter, including major firms such as Clifford Chance, Ashurst, Hogan Lovells and Eversheds Sutherland. The newest cohort of 11 signatories this year also includes law firms Payne Hicks Beach, Foot Anstey, Birketts and Fox & Partners.

The push to fix the working practices behind stress

The Mindful Business Charter (MBC) started in 2018 as an initiative developed between Barclays, Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard and has since expanded well beyond law into wider professional services. Member firms commit to frameworks and best-practice guidelines designed to support healthier, more sustainable working patterns.

The latest sign-ups come at a time when the profession is under continuing pressure to address wellbeing more seriously. LawCare’s most recent Life in the Law survey found that six in ten legal professionals still report poor mental health. Almost a third said they were considering leaving the sector within five years, and only just over half would recommend a career in law at all.

The MBC's CEO, Richard Martin, knows the cost first-hand. A former City employment partner, he suffered a career-shifting burnout episode at what he thought was the peak of his career and ultimately decided not to return to high-intensity private practice.

He now leads the MBC with a stated goal "to create a legal profession that we would encourage our children to join," as he told The Non-Billable Podcast earlier this year.

His argument is that firms need to move from reactive to proactive approaches: supporting people only once they are already in crisis is not enough. The real leverage sits in structural and cultural factors - how matters are staffed and scoped, what is considered an acceptable response time, and whether lawyers are expected to be permanently available.

Growing momentum

As signatories, firms commit to more intentional ways of working, guided by the MBC’s frameworks and sector-specific best practices. Examples Martin previously gave us include avoiding non-urgent emails or last-minute demands that require weekend work, and setting clear ground rules between firms and clients at the start of large-scale projects.

Welcoming the latest cohort, Martin said: "We are very proud to formally welcome eleven new members to the Charter. With the cost of mental ill health in England estimated to be at £300 billion a year, it is more critical than ever that employers are seeking to make real improvements for their teams."

He added that since launch, the Charter has helped "hundreds of organisations develop more effective ways of working and improve workplace wellbeing", and that its latest survey shows 100% of members reporting progress in key focus areas such as more effective use of email and respecting annual leave.