If you follow any barristers on Twitter, you have probably at least glimpsed a discussion about mental health at the Bar. This thread is my first contribution. It’s discrete because I couldn’t find a sensible place to jump in. I'll be adding to it across the day /1

This discussion comes around regularly. Someone will write bravely about their own experiences and embedded are some implicit questions: why doesn’t the Bar recognise that there's a problem with mental health and why doesn’t it do more to support those experiencing it? /2

First, some ground-clearing. I think the “Bar” or, more accurately, its members do recognise that there is a problem. They could hardly fail to. I doubt there are many barristers who haven’t, at some stage, suffered from poor mental health. /3

Equally, I would be amazed if each of us did not personally know at least one person (but probably more) who have been “broken” by practice and fall on a scale from burn-out to psychotic break. /4

The past few years have seen more and more open discussion of the problem and the introduction at chambers, Inn and profession levels of initiatives to promote wellbeing. Could more be done? Certainly. But there *is* help available. /5

So why do established practitioners so often seem to be saying to those wishing to join some version of “you’d better be tough.” It is not, in my experience, because they lack sympathy or insight. We need to be frank not just about the problem but about its causes. /6

I am going to suggest that the job is one that carries real dangers to mental health and that that danger is not eliminable /6A

STRUCTURAL FACTORS: SF1 – Where the buck stops.
Whatever kind of law you do, one common factor is that clients are usually at a time of intense personal crisis and are giving you the responsibility for resolving it. /7

It is rewarding to help others, of course, but it must be understood that making many other people’s problems your problems carries with it a burden that you may not have anticipated. /8

Do you know people who don’t like to make decisions? Even about trivial matters? That’s incredibly common. At the Bar you necessarily have to make innumerable decisions, under pressure and with incomplete information in high-stakes situations. /9

Put one way, it sounds thrilling, but the matters for decision come at you relentlessly. There's no opportunity to walk a country lane and cogitate. At best, you will bounce stuff off colleagues and the try to “hold the door” against second, third and fourth guessing yourself /10

Even if, objectively, you make the right decision or give the right advice, matters may still turn out badly. Clients can be furious (with the world, with the other side, with you), devastated, bewildered or just plain broken by it all. /11

SF2 – Adversarial
Many people who come to the Bar are attracted by its adversarial nature. What you see on TV is a battle of wits, with powerful advocacy or an evidential revelation carrying the day. That’s the Bar’s glamour. It’s real. /12

That has consequences though. I’ve never heard anyone say conflict is good for mental health, still less constant conflict. It is not the all out war that the TV portrays. Good opponents are ones who act fairly and deal with you respectfully. There are plenty of those. /13

Unfortunately, there are some who are not. Starting with the bad ones. Everyone at the Bar will have one or two practitioners they can name who they feel they have to keep an eye on. /14

They will also know someone who will resort to what is known as “robing room tactics”. The latter is known elsewhere as bullying and/or harassment. /15

But even good opponents, are still opponents. Even with a small “f” there is still a fight to be had. Barristers spend a surprisingly large amount of time flooded with adrenalin. You can test it by asking them if the fall ill when they take vacations. /16

Most will tell you that when they relax they physically disintegrate. So, if you are joining the Bar, you are choosing a career in which conflict, even if conducted with exaggerated politesse, is going to be a daily reality. /17

[PAUSE] I'd better do some work. Coming later SF3 - Income insecurity and SF4 - Workload.

Ok, back again! Before I resume, you will recall I said that there have been real efforts made to address wellbeing. @EMawrey has asked me to signpost the Bar Wellbeing hub: https://www.wellbeingatthebar.org.uk/  and the anti-harassment app: https://www.barcouncil.org.uk/support-for-barristers/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/talk-to-spot.html

SF3 - Income insecurity
Very early in my career I found myself with a tax bill I could not pay. Fortunately, I did get some receipts in and I was able to meet the liability, albeit some weeks late. The stress of having an empty bank account and bills to pay was overwhelming /18

My experience was of a constant, intrusive, low grade panic. I could not relax. I could not take pleasure in anything. All I could do all day and often all night is worry. /19

There is nothing remarkable about people facing financial difficulties. But people who choose the Bar often have a choice. They could take up a salaried position elsewhere which produces income with the same satisfying rhythm as that with which the bills come in. /20

To choose to be a self-employed barrister is to take a path in which financial crises are virtually inevitable and the stresses of which cumulate with the others that I have identified. What is the problem? /21

There are four issues. First, costs. It costs money to do the work. There are expenses associated with travel, books etc and your chambers will demand rent from you monthly. For many that rent is set at the start of the year and does not vary with rises and falls in income /22

Second, delay. You do not get paid in advance. You do not get paid when you deliver the work. The money comes later, usually at least months and sometimes years later. Oh but you are taxed on billings and not receipts. /23

Third, lumpiness. Like the proverbial buses you may get nothing in for months and then a lot in at once. Cashflow, therefore can be a disaster. Barristers will experience cashflow crises on a scale that runs from occasional to effectively permanent. /24

Fourth, low rates. This is particularly a problem for those who do legal aid work. For a long time there has been little or no rational relationship between the amount of work required of you to do the job properly and what you are paid for. /25

Cashflow problems can lead to borrowing and borrowing means paying down loans and servicing interest. As with any small business, you can find yourself swimming upwards as hard as you can but never getting your head above the rising water. Working harder doesn't solve it. /26

F4 - Workload
When I'm asked by mini-pupils what life at the Bar is like, I tend to say it's like doing university finals forever. Remember how stress-free they were? /27

You will likely spend your time in one of two extreme states: (1) worrying how you can possible manage to get all the documents read; the pleadings drafted; law researched, etc; or (2) having a case come out of the diary and being convinced you'll never work again. /28

Sounds like I'm joking. I'm not. Let me focus on the feast rather than the famine. Modern practice has certain defining characteristics. First, you need a volume of work to succeed. By that I mean that you need to have a number of cases happening at once. /29

Second, paper-heaviness. Long ago if you wanted to copy a document you had to pay someone to copy it out by hand. Then came photo-copiers. Then came the PDF. When it takes seconds to send you everything but hours to weed out irrelevance, you get sent everything. /30

Third, urgency. When I started at the Bar, solicitors used to apologise for only sending papers through a few *weeks* in advance of a con. I now get emails sent at midnight for advice at 8 am. /31

Fourth, client and judicial expectation. The demands made on your time by clients lay and professional and by judges (themselves under pressure to get through intolerable workloads) has increased steadily. /32

What does this add up to? Well the starting point is that there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. As a barrister you essentially sell your time /33

Yes, of course, you are selling your experience, judgement, expertise and advocacy, but in practice you are selling a certain amount of effort and attention, measured, in hours to a case. /34

Let me be blunt: Practice at the Bar demands more hours of time than anyone can healthily devote to it. That practice will include the work you get paid for and the work you must do but which you will not get paid for. /35

Added to that will be travel time; admin time; time doing work for Chambers on committees etc; pro-bono work and work on professional bodies etc. All of this comes out of the 168 hours available in a week. /36

That means you will sleep less than you should. You will chain together long days in which you bounce from urgent deadline to urgent deadline. You will let down your family repeatedly and you will carry the guilt and stress associated with it. /37

You will find yourself refusing to entertain as real anything that is happening after you finish the monstrous case that you are working on even though other commitments will loom in your sub-conscious. /38

There is a limit to what efficient working practices and a tidy desk will achieve for you. A colleague used to say that the Bar, like the priesthood, is a celibate profession. Work fills every nook and cranny. It taints every holiday. It turns home into the home office. /39

Is any of this inevitable. Can't you just say no? To an extent you can. If you can put aside the insecurity associated with turning away work, but for many areas of the bar, volume is the only way to make it pay. Also, every case has a tendency to throw mini-crises … /40

There may be late (and inevitably voluminous) disclosure, or a change in instructions or any one of million different things that suddenly need dealing with absolutely right now and where saying no closes a door in your instructing solicitors face. /41

So I dont think you can come to the Bar thinking your self-discipline will be certain to survive contact with practice. /42

I'm going to move onto my last point: Confidence shortly, but as I'm typing I've had an email come in unexpectedly with the header "urgent deadline" ...

Non-structural factors: NSF1 Who we are - Confidence
I have a colleague in another set who presents as the epitome of confidence. Confidence in an opponent is an unsettling trait. It really is an important attribute because at the core of our job is a sales task. /43

We have to sell ourselves to lay clients. Confidence does it. Who wants to place their case in the hands of someone who is visibly uncertain about what they are doing and how they are going about it. /44

That is distinct from giving advice. You can be confidently full of doubt as to prospects of success. /45

We also have to sell ourselves to professional clients. We are inviting them to lean on us. Our performance reflects on them as much as on us. Again, confidence is important. /46

Finally, we have to sell our case to the judge and confidence is important there too. If you seem hesitant or doubtful about your case, that can undermine your argument even as you lay it out. /47

So I was flat out jealous of my colleagues apparently boundless confidence. Later we found ourselves in a bar at a book launch. What we talked about was our common affliction: imposter syndrome. /48

We discussed that persistent dread that we were one poor performance away from having our true inadequacy exposed and the pressure created by the fact that you are surrounded by people doing great work with a confidence which, even if feigned, is wholly convincing. /49

Unpacking those two points a little. Every colleague, even the closest, is a competitor. Even in a successful chambers there can be some who struggle to keep the diary ticking over. You can have a steady stream of work from a client, mess up and that stream diverts /50

The concern that having a bad day may cost you dear is not irrational. No client ever says "we're all human, you're bound to mistakes, sometimes big ones, feel free to make one on my case". /51

And if you mess up and the case goes south, it is not as if you can simply have another go. The consequences can be profound and permanent for your client. So what might be called "performance anxiety" in another context is both real and universal. /52

That anxiety is aggravated by the second point. Those you work with are doing their level best to appear to be relaxing in their comfort zone. The little voice invites you to compare your own confidence and performance to theirs. /53

It can make owning up to struggling difficult because not struggling is supposedly a core part of who we are. It would be like an F1 driver saying they don't like driving quickly or an Olympic swimmer hating to feel wet. /54

I could go on but I won't. Let me circle back to the point; which is not to say that the Bar is uniquely stressful and to invite you to a pity party but to say that those who warn you that the Bar is tough on mental health aren't trying to boast about their own macho chops /55

The point is that even with the support available from the profession and from colleagues; even with coaching and mindfulness and a Pomodoro timer, this is a profession of recurrent crises that can be coped with but not eliminated. /56

It is, ultimately, a job I am proud to do and profession I am proud to be part of. I could not ask for better colleagues and when the tiredness clears I enjoy the work. I'm delighted if you want to join us and if you do, we'll do our best to be the support you need. /end