Navigating Legal Ethics and Well-Being with Lucinda Soon

PART 2

Ross: [: 00:00:00

Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season six, episode 21 of People Soup. It's Ross McIntosh here,

Lucinda: I'm really quite interested in how, otherwise ethical, good people can sometimes be in the situation where they, they make unethical choices.

and, uh, and how workplaces, how organizations, can identify some of those red flags, some, some of those risk areas, and put in place, measures to, you know, mitigate those based on, you know, reducing stress in the environment. For example, reducing kind of, or changing workplace structures.

Ross: peace Soupers. In this episode, I continue my chat with Lucinda soon. Lucinda is a qualified solicitor and expert in professional ethics, wellbeing, and legal services regulation.

She's also a PhD candidate at Birkbeck, university of London, lucinda's people soup. Ingredients are curiosity, learning courage, and being of service.

in viewing ethics through a [: 00:01:00

She introduces concepts such as bad apple and bad barrel to explain unethical practices spurred by stressful environments. Lucinda also explores the emerging focus on lawyer wellbeing, discussing the pervasive issues of burnout, stress and dissatisfaction tied to traditional practices like billable hours. Lucinda shares insights from her research, which includes a review on lawyer wellbeing, identifying differences and similarities and wellbeing determinants across different legal contexts.

Lucinda emphasizes the importance of context specific approaches, and concludes by sharing personal strategies for maintaining her own wellbeing while juggling extensive research and professional commitments.

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how notes and there's also a [: 00:03:00

So Lucinda, I want to delve into the topic of ethics and wellbeing for lawyers a bit more in our second part of our conversation. Can you help us understand why

ethics and wellbeing is so important for the, for

the legal profession?

Lucinda: Sure. I, I think there are two strands here. and I focus on both. cause ethics has all, you know, been for many, many years. the area of my focus from legal practice, and maybe taking that first, I mean, ethics, professional ethics for legal profession is, you know, obviously very, very important.

d all of that. So, you know, [: 00:04:00

but over, you know, recent years, there has been more talk about, you know, professional ethics in, in the legal profession. and questions around, whether the ethical standards are stringent enough, whether they're too stringent. and this has come about from, you know, Perhaps recent scandals, affecting the profession, which have highlighted some, some aspects or some lawyers who have, acted unethically. and I suppose where I am interested in now, and, and this probably has developed since I have, started with kind of merging my psychology and law interest together, is looking at, professional ethics and ethical kind of working environments and ethical workplaces through a psychological lens.

ch I feel that isn't, really [: 00:05:00

and I think it's interesting because. you know, telling someone how you should behave and these are your ethical obligations. That doesn't necessarily mean that in practice that behavior comes out, in the day to day because of stresses in the environment, workplace structures and all of that, that comes into play.

so, whether you want to call it kind of, well, behavioral ethics, it's kind of looking at how people actually behave from an ethical perspective within their day-to-day working lives. so that's an area which I have, um, you know, started off very interested in ethics from a normative perspective.

at I'm very interested in is [: 00:06:00

It's a focus on my PhD. I was focused on my Master's thesis. Um, and, I think I touched on, um, briefly before about how wellbeing in the legal profession has become, something which is there's, you know, growing awareness around its importance. lots more being talked about. lots of people coming out with, their discontent or dissatisfaction with some of the ways of working, um, in the legal profession, which are, you know, we, we've worked in certain ways for a long, long, long time.

just an example like the billable hour system, which is how we, record and charge time. And how that that creates a tension with people's, you know, I suppose changing. 'cause I think that's the, that the temporal nature of it is important. Kind of changing perceptions of what they want from their work and their working environments.

ons and challenges coming to [: 00:07:00

Ross: Yeah, thank you, Lucinda, because it, hearing you talk about it, it makes me maybe get a glimpse of those. Obviously I'm not in your profession, but it makes me appreciate a link between the two. And thinking about,

and this is a guess, but thinking that ethics was once like a rule book and to some extent it possibly still is about this, is this is the way we behave, these are the boundaries.

Lucinda: Yes.

Ross: And I might be completely off the mark here, but it strikes me that sometimes lawyers might try and find ways around those ethics with their skills in critical thinking and,

um, perspective taking. Is that, is that unfair?

Lucinda: How dare you? Um, uh, no, I, I, I

Bad Apple

be bad apples. And so, like, [: 00:08:00

And they will do unethical actions quite consciously, uh, you know, steal client money, act quite dishonestly and they, they know what they're doing.

Bad Barrel

Lucinda: but the, the other side is I think where I, I think most of it happens, where the kind of ethical, digressions, non-intentional sometimes and unconscious, unethical behavior.

And I think our actions can happen, uh, kind of with a bad. Barrel, kind of conceptualization where you are thinking about the aspects of the working environment and the stresses and the situations kind of context that people are working in, can create those circumstances where, people disengage, from what they know that they should have.

bruns and Max Beman who talk [: 00:09:00

And I would say, well, of course I would act ethically. I would follow this rule and I know my obligations and I would do that. And when we think about how we should behave in the future sense, we, we kind of think abstractly and think, well, I know I would behave in that. But then at the time when we come to making a decision which has ethical dimensions in practice, we have lots of other pressures and lots of other situations that might be bearing down on us.

d in how, otherwise ethical, [: 00:10:00

Um, and, uh, and how workplaces, how organizations, can identify some of those red flags, some, some of those risk areas, and put in place, measures to, you know, mitigate those based on, you know, reducing stress in the environment. For example, reducing kind of, or changing workplace structures.

Ross: I love that conceptualization, thinking about the, the bad apple, but also thinking about the bad barrel.

I love that 'cause that, that really typifies

organizations sometimes and people learn by observing others too.

Lucinda: Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, it draws on social learning theory.

ncing and, you know, talking [: 00:11:00

Ross: I'm gonna go off at a tangent, Lucinda, and just talk about a former coaching client of mine a good few years ago, and they were in a city law firm doing really, really well, and they were miserable in their job, and they had that feeling, you know, that sort of itch or that instinct.

That they were in the wrong job. And it just resonated with what you said before about they felt they were doing it to please their family, basically. And they'd got to a point where they were so successful they were about to become the youngest partner ever in the firm. And that it just thought, they also felt that pressure from inside the firm and the expectation.

Yet they were working incredibly long hours seeing stress around them and seeing stress in their clients as well. And we worked together for a, for a while, this wasn't an overnight thing, but when they came to me, it was, I want to leave.

When we just developed perspectives and approaches to help them do that.

And they did [: 00:12:00

able we can move on to a squiggly path.

Lucinda: Yeah. And I mean, I've heard anecdotally as well that, uh, very similar stories. I think one of the challenges as well with that, I mean linked to that is, um, you know, more and more people are talking about, the very high salaries, that some lawyers can have. And, and I have to make that very clear because not all lawyers, I mean, there is, I think this misconception that all lawyers are just, you know, they pay really well.

And actually that's not true at all. I mean, we are, you know, but for large city law firms, actually the, the, the salaries are, are quite, quite good. Um, but I've heard, some people talk about the fact that, once you get used to having that income. You then feel, you know, very stuck like you said.

o something else, it's hard, [: 00:13:00

So, you know, if you go straight from law school into, into practice and you're qualifying what say 20, well, early twenties, mid twenties, and you are then on six figure salaries at the minimum. You know, you are, you are pretty much 150,000, upwards. and, and that's a lot of money at such an early stage of your career.

And so if you do come to a point where you feel that, you know, I'm not sure this is right for me, then that there is this barrier kind of almost like an internal barrier you have to overcome to trade off. It's a trade off, isn't it? You, you, you have to think, how do I leave this?

yeah.

Poss Spoons

search, if I may, after that [: 00:14:00

a synthesis review and future research agenda. Tell us about that.

Lucinda: Yeah, sure. Well, this, this is the other side of the, I I, I, I remember kind of talking to you about the ethics side and saying, I'm gonna talk about the wellbeing side in a minute. And so this is the wellbeing side. So this is the first study of my PhD. and, we published this, last year?

Last year, the year before. essentially, when I kind of looked at what we know about lawyers' wellbeing, it was all over the place, as in there wasn't really, there wasn't a review that had been done. and I found that, um, you know, there were legal academics who had researched this area.

gists have also been looking [: 00:15:00

And it was great to pull it all together. And so that was the purpose of it, just to know what, you know, what do we know and what don't we know yet, on this topic. and. You know, I was talking about the kind of ethics side and the working environment. I think that's a strand which always interests me, kind of the workplace environment, work factors, workplace structures that, you know, that could really impact.

you know, on the one hand, ethics. Um, but on my kind of, when I look to the research that I'm doing on for my PhDs, how it can impact wellbeing, um, of lawyers. and so the review focused on identifying, you know, what, what we know, what we don't know from a workplace environment perspective. and I found basically that, there was a lot more research that I had expected, to be honest, a lot more empirical work that had been done, which was great news.

gh this, it was, uh, kind of [: 00:16:00

They work in a multitude of different contexts. You have, you know, even at the level of whether you're a solicitor or you're a barrister, or you are a chartered legal exec or, you know, whatever, you, you have your own. That can implicate, you know, where, where, where you work, the type of working environment that you work in, and also the kind of the social historic aspects to that that come with, you know, how you perceive your role to be.

but more on the kind of working environment side. was little context that kind of came through in existing studies. so it was almost trying to piece together. Okay, so what, what types of context might there might people be talking about? And the empirical work, and the conceptual work tended, tended to cluster around two contexts.

talk in the paper about how, [: 00:17:00

you know, one's, for example, we, you know, we've been talking about salaries, but for example, largest law firms quite high, salaries, legal aid solicitors, you know, they're barely making the min minimum wage, a lot of them. Um, yeah, so it was all, it was all fascinating to identify what we do know, what has, what work has been done, but to almost synthesize it in a way to, understand how context is very relevant.

We need to be paying much more attention to, to context and, how that can influence the type of work factors, the work stresses that each, kind of subfield, might be experiencing.

there a role for the sort of [: 00:18:00

of the working space and the architecture of that?

Lucinda: Interesting. Uh, no, I mean, I didn't, nothing like that came out from the review. but that's not to say that it's not important. And I think, it's an interesting question I did, which I don't know how to respond to. But, um, I will think about that because, what's comes through a lot and, and where, you know, what interests me

And the review almost set the scene for me then to continue and delve deeper into, to particular aspects is the way that jobs are

designed.

so the, the kind of the working environment from the perspective of, yeah, how, how work is done, how work is supported or perhaps, you know, lack of support. the whole system around, the kind of billable hours being quite the dominant metric of how people are measured and the kind of how, performance is measured and promotion prospects are measured.

gh. among that, It was those [: 00:19:00

Ross: Just curiosity. Maybe that's your next PhD. He said flippantly. So the, the headlines were the finding this two different primary focuses in terms of context from the city law firm to the legal aid,

things around job design and if I've got this right, that traditional reliance

on things like billable hours and,

opposed to, you know, that's [: 00:20:00

Um, but it was very much focused on the negative. And so we brought out in the, in the paper kind of this need to when we talk about wellbeing, we should remember that there is this other side as well. there is wellbeing that we should be looking at. So like work engagement, job satisfaction, purpose, and meaningfulness.

So it was, pointing that out as well. But from a theoretical perspective, I think what we try to do is, to explain how these different contexts are impacting wellbeing in such a way. And we drew on, um, we combined, and this is what I love about, 'cause I love everything to do with.

ubfields. Um, but we kind of [: 00:21:00

We integrated that with, conservation of resources theory, which then kind of almost is like a dovetailed really neatly because then conservation of resources theory can explain how the context then impacts on, on wellbeing. and so the focus is on resources.

While, it is almost twisting the narrative as, as well, to focus a bit more on the positive.

So rather than focusing on what is all going wrong, in the working environment, I'd like to look at it as in, well, what resources could buffer or could help, to help people meet some of the challenges. so what's important? What's important to these people as in what things do they value about work?

t. Um, a question that I had [: 00:22:00

which then led me onto my second study, which looked at, finding out, so really speaking to lawyers and finding out, well, what's important to you? but doing it in those two groups, to see whether there are differences. Uh, and there are which, you know, is, not surprising.

there are differences, between the two groups in terms of what they value, but there are similarities as well, like, you know, supervision being one of them, being managed well, being supported by your supervisor, by your manager.

That came out strongly for both

groups.

Ross: So your second

dy is kind of looking at the [: 00:23:00

Lucinda: Yeah.

what's important to you about your work?

Ross: Hmm.

Wonderful.

So I'm intrigued, Lucinda, about your database. Did that come from your research?

Lucinda: Yes. The idea came from, when we were doing the systematic review, I mean, I, because I identified all these papers, I thought, well, this is, this would valuable for people to, to, to be able to access. And so the bulk of the idea stemmed from that. And the backbones of it, were the kind of papers which formed part of the review are in the database.

Um, and then I've just been continually adding to it as soon, you know, as soon as I come across, papers that are, and, and, you know, it's, it's wonderful the community that I've, almost created informally because people who know that I'm researching this and who know of the database, and these are researchers who are also researching the space.

reat, but then they're like, [: 00:24:00

Who can then, you know, use it and tap into it. I mean, it is a work in progress because, it's on my website, but I created my website myself. And so it's quite basic. So what I've done is try to incorporate a database of sorts, with ability to filter. So you can search for keywords, you can filter by jurisdiction, by country, and you can, you know, do it that way. But it's, um, it's a work in progress and hopefully over time, you know, I'm still adding to it. But hopefully over time I will, be able to devote more time to, making it

better.

Ross: It, it takes me back to the value I see in you of being off

service, but also in collaborating. I think it seems you get real energy from collaborating.

Lucinda: I [: 00:25:00

Everyone has different theories, everyone has different methods that we can just kind of put in the pot and see what comes out. And, I really enjoy that part of just collaborating with others, a lot.

Ross: Now Lucinda, I, I, I feel obliged to ask this when I was preparing your, your bio.

How do you juggle everything and look after your own wellbeing? I,

Lucinda: so I have, uh, a very

loving family, they, they're also very quick to tell me, right? That's it. Laptop closed, stop now. and it's interesting because, you know, I've, I've learned about this, you know, the concept of where you see your work as like a calling or it's, you know, you're so engrossed with your work.

think there is some element [: 00:26:00

so trying to take breaks. yeah, again, family, uh, reminding me, uh, that I should take breaks. just having to make sure that I, I do that. I also love, I mean, my idea of, uh, taking breaks is also, learning though. So even though I'm taking a break, I'm reading up about something else.

but it's not necessarily to do my work, but I just, I think I'm naturally of that person, that type of person who I like to read about. I like to read a lot, um, and books of all, all sorts. So even when I'm. Not reading a book about psychology or law. I'm reading, um, another book, um, just to learn some fascinating bits about history and, and things like that.

So I think that's, that's just my personality and what I enjoy

doing.

hat keeps you going in those [: 00:27:00

oh, I'm not sure. Or we have a little bit of that self doubt. What, what keeps you

going and moving towards what matters?

Lucinda: that's a good question. I think the, I know like you say, it's very, you know, everyone has those moments and I've had loads of those moments. I think what I'm getting better at, doing is, not, not just remembering or reminding myself of, you know, what is really, really important and what I'm trying from an overall perspective trying to do in terms of, you know.

Find out more questions and that's the whole research piece and help others and in terms of developing ethical, healthy workplaces. But, I think what's really helpful is to, when I find, I'm in that moment where I'm thinking, oh, this is all going wrong, is just to stop. It's to stop for that moment.

Just stop for the rest of the day, take the rest of the day off, and then I'll start again tomorrow.

t I'm spiraling down. 'cause [: 00:28:00

Whereas, I see it now as more of a sign, right, okay, that means I just need to, I need to go do something completely different. Whether it's do a bit gardening or watch some telly or something like that. And, and also remembering, That even though things can feel really bad, at this moment, kind of remembering that actually in a week's time, this probably is insignificant and actually something else might happen and it, you'll be taken on a high and you'll think actually things are going really well.

And I suppose knowing that that's, gonna happen,

I'm great at it, but I think [: 00:29:00

Ross: Hmm.

Lucinda: um, in that

point.

Ross: Goes back to that, that awareness doesn't that

Lucinda: Oh, maybe,

Ross: possibly

So Lucinda, what you've just shared with us, there is a, is a wonderful takeaway for us also. Thank you so much I'd just like to thank you for, for coming on the show. I'll include a link to your website and your database and your research and the show notes. But thank you so

much for, for being here and for chatting with me.

I've loved this time

Lucinda: I really loved, being

on here just to chat to you. I've just really enjoyed it. so yeah, it's been a pleasure. It's such a pleasure to join you.

fm or wherever you get your [: 00:30:00

and you'll also find me posting on Instagram at People Soup, and I'm on LinkedIn too, as well as a new account on Blue Sky. Just search for my name. Now more than ever, you can help me reach more people with the special people, soup ingredients, stuff that could be really useful for them in navigating their working lives and also their lives outside of work. So please do share, subscribe, rate, and review. Thanks to Andy Glenn for his spoon magic and Alex Engelberg for his vocals.

But most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after yourselves. Pay supers and buy for now.

this has been an absolute delight, so I'm so

chuffed that you, you, you came on to chat

to

Lucinda: No, me too. I'm really, I'm really pleased and thank you so much for

inviting me and hopefully I'll get to see you, in person again

and properly chat this

time.