Lawyer’s Guide

STARTING TO TACKLE WICKED PROBLEMS

Now, let's take a breather. Statistics, data, percentages, have a way of inducing yawns and causing the eyes to glaze over. Stats can also be like a ventriloquist’s dummy or case law – you can get them to say anything you like, as long as they agree with you. However, you may care to skim over them again. One can reasonably be sceptical about one stat in isolation. When so

Read More

STARTING TO TACKLE WICKED PROBLEMS2023-11-21T09:12:18+00:00

A LITTLE MORE ON UN-WELLBEING   

and a few more stats ... ... The Judiciary The ‘2014 UK Judicial Attitude Survey’ reported on findings covering salaried judges in England and Wales courts and UK tribunals [1].  The report reveals that the judiciary is experiencing an erosion of social respect and feel undervalued by government and media, and that the working conditions have deteriorated over the last five years with caseloads growing significantly in recent years.  Almost

Read More

A LITTLE MORE ON UN-WELLBEING   2023-11-21T09:11:45+00:00

LEGAL UN-WELLBEING  

This post sets out some rather gloomy stats about where the legal profession in the UK, USA and Australia was at in around 2015. From more recent discussions with lawyers, it's clear things have become far more pressured since early 2020. LawCare's stats for 2020 make sombre reading. Maybe unsurprisingly, there was a sharp rise in the number of lawyers calling their helpline seeking help with anxiety.  Some extracts from

Read More

LEGAL UN-WELLBEING  2023-11-21T09:10:36+00:00

WICKED PROBLEMS

In 1973 two professors at the University of California published a seminal paper and introduced the idea of ‘wicked problems’ into the vocabulary [1]. Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber proposed that the search for a scientific basis for confronting problems of social policy was bound to fail because of the nature of the problems themselves. They termed these ‘wicked’ problems. Rittel’s field was the science of design and Webber’s, city

Read More

WICKED PROBLEMS2023-11-21T09:09:35+00:00

A LAWYER’S GUIDE

Back in 2015 I wrote a book (which was reviewed here and here). Sample download here. The book was written with lawyers in mind - lawyers everywhere - but the feedback I've had from non-lawyers has been that the life lessons have been helpful generally. So, with the generous agreement of my publisher, I've updated and blogged short extracts from the book. (Click on the page titles in bold below).

Read More

A LAWYER’S GUIDE2023-11-20T16:04:33+00:00

WHAT’S THE MISSING METRIC?

What's to be done? The 2015 report commissioned by the UK Bar Council concluded with a number of practical proposals for enhancing wellbeing at the Bar [1]. In my view the ideas are equally applicable to other branches of the profession and I have been mindful of them in writing this book. The suggestions include: 1 Cognitive style The report recognises that lawyers have a perfectionist streak and sometimes have

Read More

WHAT’S THE MISSING METRIC?2023-11-21T10:24:53+00:00
Go to Top