Wellbeing in Law and Society

Exploring issues relating to wellbeing and the law

Richard Collier is exploring a range of issues relating to wellbeing and the law. This draws funded research projects, including a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship.

Richard looks at wellbeing and mental health in the legal community. His research encompasses legal practice and universities.

Richard is writing a monograph for Cambridge University Press (Law and Context series). It brings to these debates around wellbeing a more nuanced understanding of law and legal regulation.

He has also recently completed a study of anxiety amongst junior lawyers. This was funded by the charity Anxiety UK and supported by the Junior Lawyers Division (JDL). We have uploaded the briefing report).

Richard's working on a new research project. It explores the relationship between men and gender equality and intersections between gender and wellbeing in a UK university.

Funders

2019: ‘Engaging Men in the Gender Equality Agenda: A Case Study of Senior Management and the Intersections of EDI and Wellbeing in a UK University’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Fund Award, £2,354

2018: ‘The Experiences of Anxiety Amongst UK Junior Lawyers’ funded by the national mental health charity Anxiety UK, Katherine and Harold Fisher Anxiety Research Fund.

2017-18: Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship 2017-18, ‘Wellbeing, Law and Society: Politics, Policy and Practice – A Socio-Legal Study’ £47,587

2014: Research Activities Fund Society of Legal Scholars, ‘Wellbeing in the Legal Profession’ £1,059

Outputs of research

• Book (in progress) Wellbeing, Law and Society: Politics, Policy and Practice, contracted by Cambridge University Press (Law in Context Series)
• “Wellbeing in the Legal Profession: Reflections on Recent Developments (or, what do we talk about when we talk about wellbeing?” (2016) 23(1) International Journal of the Legal Profession pp 41-60.
• “Naming Men as Men in Corporate Legal Practice: Gender and the Idea of ‘Virtually 4/7 Commitment’ in Law” (2015) 83 Fordham Law Review pp 101 – 120.
• ‘‘Love Law, Love Life’: Neo-Liberalism, Wellbeing and Gender in the Legal Profession - The Case of Law School’ (2014) 17(2) Legal Ethics pp202-230
• ‘Fatherhood, Gender and the Making of Professional Identity in Large Law Firms: Bringing Men into the Frame’ (2018) International Journal of Law in Context pp1-20 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552318000162
• “Rethinking Men, Masculinities and the Legal Academy: Or, Whatever Happened to the ‘Nutty Professor?’” (in press), invited chapter for U.Schultz (eds) Gender and Careers in the Legal Academy, Oxford, Hart.
• ‘Interrogating Transnational Masculinities, Fatherhood and the Institution of Men ~Rethinking Gender Equity in Global Finance and Large International Law Firms’ (2019) chapter (co-written with Helen Longlands), invited contribution to book The Unsustainable Institutions of Men: Interrogating Transnational Centres, Institutions and Power. Editors: Jeff Hearn, Winifred Poster, Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila
• “Work-Life Balance”, “Wellbeing”(2016) sections in Chis Ashford and Jessica Guth (eds) The Legal Academic’s Handbook London, Palgrave MacMillan.
• “Rethinking Men and Masculinities in the Contemporary Legal Profession: The Example of Fatherhood, Transnational Business Masculinities and Work-Life Balance in Large Law Firms” (2013) 13 Nevada Law Journal pp 101-130.
• ‘Surviving or Thriving?’ Researching wellbeing in the Legal Profession’, Law Society of England and Wales Blog, 13 May 2019, available at https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/news/blog/surviving-or-thriving-researching-legal-profession-wellbeing-and-mental-health/
• ‘How do we tackle the legal profession’s mental health problem?’, Legal Cheek Blog, 29 April 2019, available at https://www.legalcheek.com/2019/04/how-do-we-tackle-the-legal-professions-mental-health-problem/
• ‘The Wellbeing of Legal Academics – A Missing Piece of the Legal Profession’s ‘Wellness Turn’, Socio-Legal Studies Association Blog Post, April 2019, available at http://slsablog.co.uk/blog/uncategorized/the-wellbeing-of-legal-academics-a-missing-piece-of-the-legal-professions-wellness-turn/
• Research Report: ‘Anxiety and Wellbeing Amongst Junior Lawyers: A Research Report to Anxiety UK’, submitted February 2019.
• ‘Research Project Examines the Wellbeing of Junior Lawyers’ (2018), 108 (Winter 2018) Anxious Times, the online magazine of the charity Anxiety UK.
• ‘A Lawyers Guide to Managing Stress and Wellbeing’ (2018) Review, Law Society Gazette
• ‘Wellbeing and Mental Health in the Legal Community: Making the Connections Between Legal Practice and Law Schools’ (2017) SLSA Newsletter, 83 Autumn/Winter 2017 p 12-13
• ‘Wellbeing in the Legal Profession: The (Un)Happy Lawyer?’ (2015) The Reporter: Newsletter of the Society of Legal Scholars, 51 Autumn pp4-6
• Book chapter (commissioned): for the book Wellbeing in a Changing World: The Impact of Technology and innovation in the Legal Profession, J.Chan and P. Vines (eds) Submission 2019.

Media work

Interview, in Abby Young Powell (2018) ‘The Toxic, Cut Throat: The Work Culture awaiting Junior Lawyers’ The Guardian 13 December 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/dec/13/toxic-vile-cut-throat-the-work-culture-awaiting-junior-lawyers

Interview, in Catherine Baksi (2018) ‘Help us at hand for students struggling with Mental health’ The Times Brief: Student Law Week 19 February 2018. https://www.thetimesbrief.co.uk/users/39765-catherine-baksi/posts/30357-help-is-at-hand-for-students-struggling-with-mental-health