Lucinda Soon presented this seminar at the Mindful Business Charter (MBC) U.S. Member's Conference in New York in September 2024. Richard Martin from MBC moderated the session.
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Lucinda qualified as a solicitor of England and Wales in 2009, practising as a civil litigator before specialising in professional ethics and regulation. She has spent the past decade advising lawyers and law firms on regulatory risk and compliance, with corporate clients ranging from start-ups to established UK, US and global law firms. Lucinda has also advised professional bodies and regulators on ethical standards and policy development, giving her a well-rounded grasp of all things to do with legal ethics and regulation.
Lucinda is also an organisational psychologist and received her accreditation as a member of the British Psychological Society in 2019. She was awarded her MSc in Psychology with distinction from the University of East London, along with the Dean of School Award for Academic Excellence for her thesis on wellbeing in the solicitors’ profession, which was subsequently published in the International Journal of the Legal Profession.
Now a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Business and Law at Birkbeck, University of London, Lucinda’s research focuses on workplace culture and wellbeing in the legal sector. Her systematic review of lawyers’ wellbeing, co-authored with Professor Almuth McDowall and Dr Kevin Teoh and published in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, has received international recognition as the first review of its kind to map and synthesise the global literature on this topic over the past 50 years. She also peer reviews for academic journals on new empirical work relating to legal professional practice and wellbeing.
Lucinda is also a visiting lecturer at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. Within the Professional Law Institute, she is the Module Lead for Psychology for Legal Practitioners on the MSc Law & Professional Practice programme, applying psychology and behavioural ethics to legal practice.
Alongside her research and teaching, Lucinda works as an academic consultant to the legal sector, bringing together her experience in legal ethics, organisational psychology and legal risk management to create ethical and healthy workplaces in law. She uses rigorous academic methods and the best available evidence to help law firms and in-house legal teams create ethical and healthy working environments at the organisational level, and engages with bar associations, law societies, regulators, legal sector not-for-profits, and other stakeholder organisations to research and develop evidence-based policies and guidance at the profession-wide level.
Passionate about bridging the academic-practitioner divide, Lucinda advocates for greater collaboration between the two domains to strengthen the evidence base with practical value in mind. To facilitate the transfer of knowledge from research to practice, she maintains a research database with links to the growing evidence base on the topic of lawyers’ wellbeing.
Lucinda’s board member roles include being a trustee for LawCare, the mental health and wellbeing charity for the UK legal profession, and a Commissioner for the International Bar Association (IBA) Professional Wellbeing Commission.
Based in London, Lucinda works globally with law firms, in-house legal teams, professional associations, regulators, and academic researchers.
Selected publications
Soon, L., McDowall, A., & Teoh, K. R. H. (2023). Towards a context-specific approach to understanding lawyers’ well-being: a synthesis review and future research agenda. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 31(3), 550-573. doi.org/10.108...
Soon, L., Walsh, J. J., McDowall, A., & Teoh, K. R. H. (2021). The effects of basic psychological needs satisfaction and mindfulness on solicitors’ well-being. International Journal of the Legal Profession, 29(2), 143-158. doi.org/10.108...
www.lucindasoo...
10 окт 2024
