I've been doing a few free awareness raising webinars this year about moral injury in law. If your firm is unaware of this important risk factor, you're falling behind the curve. This podcast with Clara Rose Consultancy gives you all the information you need in the form of an engaging conversation, that you can listen to while you sip a cool drink in a shady spot in your garden. 😎

Empresa Psychology supports law firms to identify and address moral injury, both preventatively and after it has occurred. Through years of reviewing the existing literature and distilling effective, evidence-based strategies to support teams and individuals, we have created the RAILS^TM Framework that offers firms a practical structure for action:

Recognise: You can’t fix a problem that you can’t see or name. When I deliver training on this topic, the most common piece of feedback I get is: “It’s so good to have a name for this experience”. Raising awareness is a powerful starting place and can be done easily through introductory webinars or as part of away days and awareness week initiatives. Developing a shared language in your firm can have an immediate positive impact.

Avert: Prevention is better than cure and this is a key way to avoid detrimental impacts on both wellbeing and performance. This is particularly impactful with trainees and junior lawyers (particularly in light of the high attrition levels we’ve seen in the last couple of years within this cohort specifically). One solution I always recommend: embed this module into your trainee induction programme. This will equip the incoming generation of lawyers with the knowledge to spot moral distress as it occurs, and use the appropriate tool to process it and prevent it from developing into moral injury.  

Intervene: The reality is that many firms have individuals and whole teams who have been experiencing moral injury for years. These teams require more advanced interventions and workshops tailored to specific team contexts. The effective interventions are specific to moral injury and not strategies you will find in your standard wellbeing resources.

Lead: It is widely accepted that leaders have a significant impact on firm culture and on the wellbeing of those they manage. There are multiple ways we can equip leaders to address moral injury from the ground up. Leaders are likely to have experienced their own moral injury, but will need a different type of support to identify and address this within themselves. Additionally, most managers are equipped with the skills to have practical conversations about workload, but some will benefit from further upskilling in handling conversations about ethical conflicts effectively and supportively.  

Sustain: Like burnout and vicarious trauma, addressing moral injury is not a one-and-done because the experiences that cause it are ongoing. Providing regular processing spaces for teams, particularly those in high risk practice areas, will embed learning that has occurred through training, and provide the final piece of the puzzle for creating sustainable resilience across the firm.

We round up the important news relating to people risk, so you don't have to. Here are our top picks from the last month:

💡 Don't miss this article from Lewis Silkin, describing how taking psychological safety seriously at their firm has helped to reduce unnecessary stress and make people feel more supported.

💡 This Forbes article highlights a point we regularly speak to clients about - it's not just about spending money on 'wellbeing' interventions. The author argues that "corporate wellness budgets are booming but burnout persists because employers push meditation and apps instead of fixing toxic workloads and poor management". Addressing these root causes of commercial risks such as absenteeism and attrition is something we specialise in, to provide meaningful impact and real ROI.

💡 LawCare published this deepdive article, written by our founder and CEO, which provides both the business case and the blueprint for how to get ahead of the detrimental impacts of moral injury on performance and attrition in your firm.