Juliet Short: Giving back is good for lawyers' mental health

The Duncan Cotterill partner also talks about harnessing the potential of new tech

Juliet Short: Giving back is good for lawyers' mental health
Juliet Short

For Juliet Short, giving back to the community should be a key focus area for the legal profession. The Duncan Cotterill partner has taken on “some really deserving pro bono cases” that has allowed her to utilise her legal expertise to help the disadvantaged.

Last month, Short discussed the pleasure she finds in helping clients with their businesses. In the second half of this interview, Short talks about helping to grow other people’s careers, and why it’s important to harness the potential of new technology.

What is going on at Duncan Cotterill, are there any new programs and initiatives that you're particularly interested in or excited about?
Many things! I'm really interested in how we help our people to grow in their careers. We do a lot of tailored CPD to support people in different practice areas and at different stages of their career, in technical and other skills. I’m also excited about the role of new technology in our business and how we can harness that to create efficiencies and streamline our user experience.

Is there anything, in your in your opinion, that law as a profession should focus more on?
Giving back. I've had the opportunity to work on some really deserving pro bono cases throughout the course of my career that used my specialist skills. I think it’s part of our responsibility as professionals to give back. As a bonus, it's also been shown to be great for mental health.

What are the challenges you expect in your practice and in the business of law in general going forwards? What challenges are particularly pressing in the country's legal industry?
Adaptation to new technology is both a challenge and an opportunity. There is some fantastic tech in the pipeline that will make lawyers’ jobs more efficient and enable us to provide better service to our clients. Like any change, learning how to use it to best advantage will be a challenge, especially while it’s in a phase of rapid evolution. I’m excited to see where it takes us over the next decade.

If you weren’t doing law, what do you think you'd be doing as a career?
It’s been a long time since I pondered this question. As a kid I saw journalism as a very exciting career option and loved the idea of living all over the world, so possibly an international correspondent.