Psychological Wellbeing: Best Practice Guidelines for the Legal Profession Project Launched
Wednesday 15 May 2013 @ 11.41 a.m. | Legal Research
Launched on 13 May 2013 to coincide with the start of National Law Week Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation's Psychological Wellbeing: Best Practice Guidelines for the Legal Profession project is reported by Lawyers Weekly as being, in the words of foundation co-founder Marie Jepson: “...something my husband [George Jepson] and I thought of as a way to move forward with the Foundation, because we had spent a number of years raising awareness and education, and the feedback was nothing was really changing in the firms in terms of the everyday lawyer’s experience ...”
The Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation was set up in memory of George and Marie’s Jepson's son, Tristan, a UNSW law student, young lawyer and comedian who suffered from severe clinical depression and took his own life shortly after his 26th birthday on the 28 October 2004.
The Foundation states as its key objective decreasing distress, disability and the causes of depression and anxiety in the legal profession. To do this the foundation disseminates information on "activities, research and initiatives which will decrease the incidence of depression and anxiety" in the legal profession.
The Lawyers Weekly reports that the guidelines will: "seek to establish a 'best practice' framework for legal bodies with regard to ensuring the psychological health and wellbeing of staff". Guidelines that would be signed up to voluntarily by particcipating firms.
According to Lawyers Weekly: "The legal profession in Australia has one of the highest rates of depression among the Australian workforce," with a 2011 study by Beaton Consulting of 25 professional associations and 100 professional services firms, finding that "lawyers were the most likely to experience symptoms of depression" - almost 49%.
Sources
Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation Website
Lawyers Weekly
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