The charity, which runs a helpline, webchat, email and peer support service for the legal profession received over 900 contacts in 2019 and saw an eight per cent rise in the number of people seeking help compared to 2018.

The most common problems cited were stress (26 per cent) and depression (12 per cent). The number of lawyers contacting the charity about bullying continues to increase, from 47 callers in 2018 to 80 last year – now accounting for 12 per cent of all contacts. 66 per cent of those who contacted LawCare about this issue said they were being bullied by a manager or superior.

The majority of callers to the helpline were women (67 per cent). Fifty-three per cent of all callers were trainees/pupils, or had been qualified less than five years, and a further 5 per cent were law students.

Elizabeth Rimmer, CEO of LawCare, said: “We spent 304 hours providing support on the phone last year, answering a call every 2 ½ hours. Last year also saw the launch of our new webchat service enabling us to provide support to more people.

“The biggest trend we’ve noticed is the number of people contacting us about bullying and harassment which is now one of the top three issues people contact us about, possibly because of a lot more attention on this issue in the media over the past couple of years. We will be undertaking more detailed research later this year to discover exactly how the culture of law is impacting on wellbeing and mental health, and we hope to use this to drive change in legal workplaces.”