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About LawCare

LawCare is a free and completely confidential advisory service to help lawyers, their immediate families and their staff to deal with the health issues and related emotional difficulties that can result from a stressful career in the law.

LawCare offers the opportunity for you to discuss problems which are interfering with, or have the potential to interfere with, your work performance and/or your family life and to seek help in resolving these problems.

Through LawCare, help is available to those who are suffering from stress and/or depression, or who have alcohol, drug or other dependency concerns or eating disorders.

The LawCare service:

• is totally free (although any subsequent professional counselling or treatment will normally have to be paid for);

• is totally confidential;

• takes the form of an initial telephone discussion;

• includes referral, where necessary, to expert assistance;

• offers support, where appropriate, from a fellow lawyer who has suffered and recovered, from the same problem;

• is available to all lawyers, their staff and immediate families;

LawCare operates through four helplines which are open :-
9am - 7.30pm, Monday to Friday and 10am - 4pm Saturday and Sunday.

For Solicitors and Legal Executives in England and Wales: 0800 279 6888
For Solicitors and Advocates in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man: 0800 279 6869
For Barristers and Judges in England and Wales: 0800 018 4299

For Solicitors in Ireland: 1800 991801

For all administrative enquiries: 01268 771333

Occasionally, your call will be connected to an answering service, but if this happens, your call will be returned at the earliest possible opportunity, usually within 24 hours. You can help by leaving adequate instructions and information, including an out of working hours number, if possible.

Please note that LawCare helpline staff are not professional counsellors or doctors, but lawyers like you, with training in telephone counselling skills and knowledge of the issues with which we assist. A call to LawCare should not take the place of a visit to your GP and we encourage all callers to seek expert medical help where required. We cannot give legal advice, or step in to resolve a problem, but we can offer support, information and a listening ear.

Those answering your call will seek, through talking to you, to identify the precise nature and extent of your problem. Where appropriate they will refer you to a relevant health professional for counselling and / or treatment, or to other specialist organisations that can offer help. They may also be able to offer the support of a lawyer volunteer who has recovered from similar problems and has returned to play an active and effective role in the profession.

Call Flow Chart

Why has LawCare been established?

Most professionals believe they should be able to handle their own problems, even when such problems are completely outside their professional training and experience. Lawyers, in particular, because they spend so much of their time sorting out other people's problems, find it difficult to acknowledge that they, themselves, sometimes need help. However, they usually find it easier to take this step with another lawyer and so most of our staff and volunteers have experience of life in practice.

Ignoring problems and hoping they will go away is no solution. The first step is to recognise the existence of the problem. The second step is to seek objective expert support and advice in dealing with it.

This is where LawCare comes in. LawCare is here to help you to cope with the increasing number of stresses, and related problems, facing the profession today, any one of which can adversely affect your professional performance and family life.

LawCare is a registered charity funded by, but completely independent of:

• The Law Society of England and Wales

• The Law Society of Scotland

• The Law Society of Northern Ireland

• The Law Society of Ireland

• The Isle of Man Law Society

• The Bar Council of England and Wales

• The Faculty of Advocates (Scotland)

• The Institute of Legal Executives

• The Department of Justice

• The Institute of Barristers' Clerks
   

Lawyers Helping Lawyers

Of crucial importance to the service LawCare offers is the network of volunteers, themselves lawyers, who, because of their personal experience in dealing with their own problem, or that of someone close to them, feel that they can offer a fellow lawyer additional support on a more personal level. More volunteers are always needed and we would be pleased to hear from anyone prepared to help. The identities of volunteers are kept strictly confidential and no referrals occur without prior consultation. Click here if you would like to know more about being a volunteer.

Confidentiality

LawCare is a completely confidential service. No details relating to callers are passed to anyone beyond statistical information. Where case histories are used, all identifying details are changed.

Further Information

A wide range of helpful information leaflets is available from LawCare, free of charge, or can be downloaded from this site (Click here). Individuals are welcome to request them and we would also encourage firms / chambers to make these available to staff / members.

LawCare is also happy to provide articles for newsletters or to make informative and educational presentations to firms, chambers and other organizations. Click here for further information about these.

LawCare Staff

LawCare's Chief Executive is Hilary Tilby. A barrister and solicitor, Hilary lives in Sussex with her husband and son.

Ann Charlton is LawCare's Co-ordinator for England and Wales. A former solicitor and member of Victim Support, she is based in Wolverhampton and is married with a son and stepson.

Trish McLellan is LawCare’s Co-ordinator for Scotland and Northern Ireland. She practised as a solicitor in England for over ten years but is now based in Edinburgh where she lives with her husband and three children.

Mary Jackson is LawCare's Co-ordinator for Ireland. She has been a teacher, solicitor and Manager of the Law Society's South West Regional Office. She lives on a smallholding on Exmoor with her husband.

Anna Buttimore is responsible for the administrative work at LawCare, including the website. She is also the author of three novels and lives in Essex with her husband and three daughters.

Mark Hepburn acts as a consultant to LawCare. Mark  runs a treatment centre and is a specialist in the fields of alcoholism and eating disorders. Mark lives near Aberdeen with his wife and two daughters.

Olivia Burren (Chair) - Solicitor in Industry
Robert Venables - Solicitor, Former Charity Commissioner
Bronwen Still - Head of Policy, Law Society Ethics Department.
Dr. David Thomson - Barrister and Registered Medical Practitioner
Paul Venton - Solicitor in Private Practice
Iain Mackie - Solicitor in Private Practice
Attracta Wilson - Past President of the Northern Ireland Law Society
Carolyn Kirby - Past President of the Law Society of England and Wales
Neil Stevenson - Law Society of Scotland
Louise Campbell - Law Society of Ireland
Tom Murran - Member of the Council of the Law Society of Ireland.