The Tristan Jepson Memorial Lecture & Conference is an event aimed at improving attitudes toward, and bettering the response to, the prevalent issue of depression in the legal profession. After a long battle with depression, 26 year old Tristan Jepson took his life in October 2004. His parents created this event to galvanise the legal profession into action.
At the conclusion of this year’s event, questions were raised about how far the profession has come since the initiative took off in 2006. The ABC reported that one young lawyer in attendance at the lecture stated:
Recently, my brother is suffering from leukaemia and I had to take two weeks’ annual leave in the new financial year to go and look after him… And I got into trouble because I was under budget.
With these comments, and at a time when a climate of fear and anxiety has descended over corporate firms across the nation as a consequence of the parlous state of job security, it is fitting that we contrast comments made by law firm partners at ‘pre’ and ‘post’ boom Tristan Jepson Memorial Lectures to see if the firms are just paying lip service to Tristan’s legacy.
In October 2007, Law Society Journal reported that the following comments were made by partners from major Australian law firms at the 2007 Tristan Jepson Memorial Lecture:
Clayton Utz Managing Partner Craig Pudig:
A competitive edge between four firms such as ours, or any of the major firms in any city or, in fact, this country is just, in this area, wrong. And the four of us have, in fact, been speaking about it, and we want to do something about that, to … work together as firms… We have to get away from ‘shake yourself out of it’.
Freehills Managing Partner Peter Butler:
This is not a matter of competitive edge between professionals, whether barristers or solicitors or warring firms … this is a matter that the profession needs to work on jointly… I’ve seen the [devastating effects of depression] in my family. I’ve seen it with my friends and I’ve seen it with my own firm. I want to do something about it. All of us do. We need to bring this issue of depression to the forefront of our thinking. Not as something that is embarassing and we don’t talk about it; it should not be like that … [we need to] develop a culture where for someone to say to someone else – a friend or colleague – ‘I’m depresssed’ is seen in the same way as any other illness, worthy of no more embarrassment or awkwardness than ‘I’ve got a fever’ or some other problem.
Blake Dawson Managing Partner John Atkin:
[Law firms have] lost our sense of professional purpose. We have let ourselves just be regarded as businesses. [We should be] emphasising that we stand for the professional values of the law and that in doing that, we recognise we have a social obligation, which is first and foremost; it’s before our obligation to the client and certainly before our self-interest in terms of whatever remuneration we might derive out of our occupation. [Partners' meetings that only consider] what’s the impact on profits [are wrong]. You’ve got to acknowledge this is just an intrisic part of what you are doing.’ [BDW is participating in psychological research designed help people in high-stress jobs and] to build their capacity and cope.
The following comments are reported to have been made at the 2009 Tristan Jepson Memorial Lecture:
Freehills Managing Partner Peter Butler:
Every lawyer in these firms would go through a program very early in the time they started and deal with three things. One is give them some information about anxiety and depression. Secondly, to give practical ways to manage stress and anxiety. And thirdly, to give them techniques for building personal resilience, including cognitive and physical strategies… Is it just the case that it’s an idea whose time has come? It deserves to be… We were going to openly share what we were doing in this space to make it better
Mallesons Stephen Jaques Partner Stuart Fully says his company has set up a health and well-being program:
It’s through health checks, it’s through gym memberships, it’s through yoga and pilates. So at any time in the firm if you get to 5:00pm, there’s people walking around in pilates gear.
Allens Arthur Robinson Chief Executive partner Michael Rose said:
Older practitioners, they understand that depression is a real thing [but] they often don’t accept that it’s a communal thing, as opposed to a private thing. They don’t necessarily accept that it’s an issue that belongs in the wider community of our firm, as opposed to in the private lives of the people who are affected.
So how far have we come? Are law firms doing enough to protect 15% of the lawyers surveyed by Beyond Blue and Beaton Consulting who are reported to suffer moderate to severe depression? Do law firms have a role to play in responding to the 40% of law students who are reported to suffer ‘distress severe enough to warrant medical assessment’?
It seems that some in-roads have been made at least at Freehills and Mallesons, with practical and positive efforts made to confront the issue of mental illness within the profession. But has the Tristan Jepson event fostered the institutional change that was the original reason for its inception?
Perhaps the earlier comments of Blake Dawson partner John Atkin and the subsequent conduct of his firm offer the best evidence of how firms are delivering on what he termed a ‘social obligation‘ which is to be placed ‘before our obligation to the client and certainly before our self-interest in terms of whatever remuneration we might derive out of our occupation’.
Top equity partners at Blake Dawson are reported to have taken home $1,200,000.00 in 2008/09. These results come after the firm sacked 89 employees in March after advising all staff that sackings were imminent several weeks earlier. One imagines that the harbinger of sackings, not to mention the torment of the announcements themselves, would have presented a challenge to the mental fortitude of even the most hardened Blake Dawson employee. Those resilient workers that made it through to the other side and who are reminded of previous comments made by a Blakes partner that the firm would be placing social obligations ahead of remuneration, yet are shown the incredible seven-figure salaries of some partners, must now be questioning the moral conscience of the firm.
Are firms doing enough to combat this very real issue? Or are the grand statements we have heard just lip service produced for syndication across major news media?
If you want to support the Tristan Jepson initiative, you can donate to the Tristan Jepson Memorial Fund.
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