Almost all of us will be in need of support, reassurance and guidance at some point during the next few difficult months. That’s OK. We can help one another, and we can also rely on the support of some fantastic organisations who have made it their job to help legal professionals thrive: IP Inclusive and its communities; individual membership bodies; regulators; and legal sector mental health charities such as LawCare and Jonathan’s Voice.
Please turn to them if you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure. Let them know about the problems you’re facing, so that they can help you – and others like you – to find solutions. Or join the conversations in our LinkedIn group to share your experiences.
LawCare helpline:
0800 279 6888
Meanwhile we’ve received the following update from Elizabeth Rimmer, the Chief Executive of LawCare, about the support and resources they’ll be providing for the legal community during the coronavirus outbreak.
Elizabeth writes:
We will be monitoring calls to our helpline and webchat weekly to review if we need to ramp up our support. We already all work from home at LawCare so from a logistical point of view it’s business as usual for us. As all events have been cancelled across the legal community, we have some capacity to increase support if we need to, but this will need review if we see an significant increase in demand for our services. We will also analyse the concerns being raised with us, so if we see trends we can develop information and resources to address these.
We are developing a guide on how to respond to what we expect to be the most common concerns raised on our helpline or webchat, to make sure we are consistently responding to these across our team. We will also be putting out new resources around the concerns we expect to see, ie working from home, managing uncertainty, anxiety, worries about career implications, financial concerns – and supporting this with social media. We are also planning some free-to-download webinars.
The professional bodies and regulators are developing information/support resources too and we are signposting to these. We would also like you to signpost to LawCare and remind your members of the support we provide in any relevant communications. There’s a link here to a dropbox of our updated descriptor, leaflet, video and tips for working from home.
Please, take comfort from the fact that the IP professions, as many others, will emerge from this disaster stronger, more resilient and more mindful of the value and the needs of their members. That may be scant consolation right now, but it is why we must act as a community to get through this.