Rural practitioners can suffer ‘real heartbreak’
A US expert has told the Law Society’s Wellbeing Summit that the presence of ‘legal deserts’ – areas that suffer from a shortage or lack of legal practitioners – raises concerns about public health, as well as access to justice.
Dr Michele Statz (Anthropologist of Law, University of Minnesota Law School) was speaking to Ruth O’Sullivan (Law Society Psychological Services) at the online event, which attracted almost 1,500 participants.
This year’s event was part of an initiative organised by the Law Society, which has designated October as Small Practice Month.
'Professional desert'
Dr Statz, who specialises in researching justice in rural areas, said that lawyers in such areas were often “critically involved” in addressing community-health issues.
She said that the most prevalent legal issues facing rural clients involved issues linked to areas such as access to healthcare, domestic violence, and eviction.
Dr Statz pointed out that rural areas also faced a shortage, not only of lawyers, but also of mental-health services and healthcare. As a result, solicitors were also working in a ‘professional desert’.
Emotional obligations
The academic said that rural practitioners carried “physical and emotional, as well as professional” obligations.
Most rural solicitors, she added, had a “deeply contextualised understanding of each client” – including their family background.
While this intimacy led to better advocacy, it could also cause “real heartbreak” and an “existentialist reckoning with the limits of what is humanly and professionally possible”.
Dr Statz also pointed out that it was easier to erect barriers between personal and professional life in a city, whereas the lack of anonymity in a smaller town made it harder for solicitors to disengage.
She also told the summit that many supports designed to address access-to-justice issues were designed by people in urban communities with urban populations in mind, and that they were often premised on access to good broadband, smartphones, and transport.
Asked about what supports were needed for smaller practitioners, Dr Statz argued that there was no ‘one-size-fits-all solution’ but stressed the importance of ‘relationality’ – access to “a close, honest, trusted community with others who understand exactly what you’re talking about”.
'Narrow solutions'
The academic also warned about what she described as “narrow solutions” focused on terms such as ‘stress’ and ‘burnout’.
She explained that the “moral injury” experienced by lawyers who witnessed or failed to prevent actions that violated their deeply held moral beliefs could be existential.
Dr Statz added that there were also physiological costs associated with exposure to chronic stress.
Initiatives
The US expert also praised some of the initiatives from Law Society Psychological Services outlined earlier in the summit – including those on counselling and trauma-informed lawyering.
The summit was told that a micro-credentials course on Foundations of Trauma-Informed Practice would start on 20 October.
The event also heard that Psychological Services was aiming to pilot a series of ‘reflective practice groups’ that would allow solicitors to explore the emotional dimensions of their work before the end of this year.
Well Within the Law is also organising two special events to coincide with Small Practice Month.
AI tools
The summit ended with a panel discussion involving three sole or small practitioners.
Donna O’Leary, who is also an AI literacy specialist, told the summit that the technology was giving smaller firms the chance to compete with larger firms at scale for the first time.
She urged practitioners in smaller firms to “start with what you have”, citing what she called “the low-hanging admin fruit” that could be tackled with even an application like Copilot.
O’Leary stressed, however, that AI tools should be used only to reduce manual labour, not to make decisions or give advice.
Sole practitioner Jacquelyn Dunne urged solicitors not to be left behind, adding that AI was coming, whether they liked it or not.
She also told the event that those setting up practice should not look at colleagues as competition, adding that they would be the ones who would support you along the way.
Solicitor Hilary O’Connor agreed that colleagues were “vital”, as nobody understood the stresses of the work better.
Asked whether trainees should worry about AI, O’Leary said that it was “an exciting time” to be a trainee, as AI would allow them to perform critical-thinking tasks earlier.
She added that she expected much ‘reverse-mentoring’, as trainees educated older colleagues on newer technology.