During the series, Ms Riches will provide practical insights on depression, anxiety and stress, ways to manage common mental health challenges, and suggestions on how to monitor and enhance wellbeing. Further, she will also provide an overview of support resources available and what lawyers can do to start the shift towards acceptance and help others with their journey, according to a statement from Unisearch.

“The initiative recognises the findings, and supports the report, ‘Courting the Blues: Attitudes towards depression in Australian law students and legal practitioners’, whereby lawyers often fail to identify or admit mental health issues, making the profession more susceptible to psychological problems; which can be exacerbated by the adversarial nature of the legal profession, excessive workloads and overall nature of the work involved,” Unisearch said.

“To this point, the study notes that a culture of competitiveness, combative environments, fear of failure, pessimism, disillusionment and perfectionism are common traits and triggers for mental health issues.”

“This is often compounded by the perception that high levels or stress, or depression, may be a sign of weakness and to one’s disadvantage.”

John Arneil, co-director knowledge exchange at Unisearch, said the new initiative encourages lawyers to start the conversation on mental health.

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“It’s widely accepted that depression and other psychological conditions are comparatively high among the legal profession, yet lawyers are often reluctant to seek help for mental health issues. We hope that this pilot campaign will help start conversations, provide support for our legal community and contribute toward the greater movement of mental health acceptance,” Mr Arneil said.

“Our goal is that the webinar provides a forum that helps foster support, encourages openness, builds awareness and ultimately helps practitioners manage mental health more effectively; individually, and as an industry.”