News / Events

  Congratulations to all of the chambers, circuits and Inns of Court who have received a certificate through the relaunched Bar Council Wellbeing Certificate programme. Sam Mercer, Head of Equality at the Bar Council, said: “We are delighted to award the new Wellbeing Certificates in recognition for outstanding work to improve wellbeing at the Bar. […]

World Mental Health Day 2023  The Mindful Business Charter  Amongst litigators, one of the complaints I hear most often is that for all the fine words spoken about the importance of wellbeing, these are all too easily jettisoned when it comes to the crunch in contested proceedings: everyone has the best intentions, but they get […]

Take a closer look at our recent video, featuring insights from Bar leaders about challenges, and avenues of support for Bar members and their professional peers. The Bar Council, and leaders across the Bar emphasise the significance of prioritising wellbeing. The film features Nick Vineall KC (Chair of the Bar Council), Michelle Heeley KC (Leader […]

A Mental Health Training course specifically designed for barristers and chambers by our partners at Wellness for Law, delivered online in small groups of 8-10 by an experienced psychological health trainer. Two remote workshops will be delivered on the 13th and 27th September 2023 (5pm-7pm). Aims of the session The aim of the workshop is to […]

It’s time to talk about periods.   After years of experiencing painful and irregular periods, being caught short in the workplace is an experience I and many others are all too familiar with. This frustration very quickly turned into ambitions to eradicate this statistic,  to improve the availability of period products in the workplace and […]

This blog is partly a tribute to one of my clerks, Nancy, who has been a real champion of wellbeing in chambers. It also contains some musings from the two of us about how to have conversations in chambers about wellbeing. At the beginning of last year, I felt completely overwhelmed by events in in […]

This is my experience of grief. It may not be the same as yours. Grief of a partner, sibling or child I would suspect would look very different. I don’t propose to have the answers in the below, but hope that this blog will assist you and supporting others at the Bar who are dealing […]

 …we now have data to empirically measure the mental health of the Bar. It will come as no surprise to hear that the results were low in the happiness thermometer. Rewind to 3 years (that feels more like 10 years ago at the moment) in 2019 when the founder and Chair of this committee, Rachel […]