Wellness in Law: Be Part of the Solution

May 25, 2022

A research team at the Université de Sherbrooke wants to hear from lawyers and articling students in Alberta about mental health and wellness in the legal profession.

The team will be conducting confidential interviews with legal professionals from across Canada. The interviews form part of a national study on the mental health and wellness of lawyers, Quebec notaries, Ontario paralegals and articling students in Canada. The study also includes data collected from over 7,000 legal professionals last year. The anonymous and confidential findings from the study will be published in a series or reports beginning in the Fall 2022. The reports will make recommendations about supporting the mental health and wellness of legal professionals in Canada.

If you would like to share your thoughts on wellness in law through a confidential, virtual interview with a member of the Université de Sherbrooke research team, please see this poster for further details and instructions on how to participate. Interview participants will be selected on a first come, first served basis, and you are asked to express your interest no later than Friday, June 3.

The National Well-being Study is a project of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada in partnership will all law societies across Canada and the Canadian Bar Association (CBA). Dr. Nathalie Cadieux of the Université de Sherbrooke is leading the study, and all information collected in the course of the study will remain confidential. Each interviewer is bound by a confidentiality agreement and strict standards established by the Université de Sherbrooke’s Ethics Board. Further, the published findings in smaller jurisdictions, and where necessary in larger jurisdictions, will be aggregated to avoid any possibility of individual participants being identified.

The project partners — the Federation, the law societies and the CBA — will not have access to the names of interview participants or any of the information shared with the researchers. The project partners will receive the same reports that will be available to all regulated legal professionals in Canada through the law societies and the CBA, once each phase of the study is complete. As a law society member, you will receive information about, and access to the final reports.

Thank you for your interest in this important initiative for the legal profession in Canada.