Travis Schultz & Partners associate Rachel Last, a shortlisted contender for the rising star of the year category at this year’s Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards, said she “can’t emphasise enough” how important it is to develop healthy mental health habits and a work/life balance early on in one’s law career.

“I have never been afraid to admit to my own personal struggles. As a law student, I struggled with stress and anxiety. I battled through and came out the other side with a law degree and bright eyes for the career ahead of me,” she said.

“For me, my mental health is something which I must be constantly in tune to. I have to always maintain a work/life balance, otherwise, my mental health suffers, and I begin to struggle once again. This does not make me less of a person or a lawyer – my struggles give me strength, resilience, understanding, empathy, and many more skills which I bring to my work and my life.

“Unfortunately, there are still not enough practising lawyers willing to speak up about their own personal battles in order to reduce the stigma around mental illness. This is something that I continue to work on, encouraging my peers and colleagues to speak out about their own personal challenges in an open and honest manner so we can get these important conversations happening.”

Ms Last has become a mental health advocate on the Sunshine Coast and said that becoming a member of the University of the Sunshine Coast Alumni Mentoring Program in the past 12 months has provided an opportunity to mentor law students around the mental health warning signs, seeking help early and striving for a healthy work/life balance.

“When I initially signed on to the program to give ‘career advice’ to current USC law students, I quickly found that the students who were reaching out to me had burning questions and concerns about mental health habits and achieving a work/life balance in practice,” she said.

“I began incorporating my knowledge and advice on mental health warning signs, seeking help early, striving for work/life balance, and my personal story into my mentoring sessions. The students were so receptive to this advice and, more than that, it felt great!

“Through being involved in the Alumni Mentoring Program, I’ve discovered that being a mentor is rewarding; it simply feels good. Other learnings include: you don’t have to have the perfect advice – you just have to be a real person, listen to their concerns, and share your experiences; and being a mentor means being a “sounding board”, helping to take a fresh look at a problem, offering perspective, easing fears, and ultimately offering support,” Ms Last added.

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Finding a mentor of her own helped enormously when Ms Last first started her career as a lawyer, too.

“I went to a talk once where a practising lawyer said their most important piece of advice was to: ‘find a mentor’. They stressed the importance of having someone that you respect and that you can trust and go to for advice, whether it be in relation to a legal matter or whether it be on the bigger scale of your career as a whole. I heeded these words as I took the shaky steps into the world of legal practice and made certain that I was on the lookout for a mentor to call my own,” she said.

“I was fortunate that I found a mentor throughout my formative years as a lawyer, someone to guide me through the trials and tribulations that come with being in practice. My mentor took the time to teach and nurture a young lawyer, supporting me to be a full-fledged lawyer with my own file load and skills to boot.”

In addition to mentoring young students on the Sunshine Coast, Ms Last runs mental health initiatives at TSP and speaks at wellness events and advocated for the introduction of a director of wellbeing for the Law Students’ Association at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

“I do this advocacy work because I truly believe this is a topic that must be talked about for us to break down the walls around it. Mental health is, unfortunately, still the ‘elephant in the room’. We still have so far yet to go before mental health becomes a comfortable, everyday topic of conversation. Some people still squirm when the topic of mental health is raised, particularly amongst the older generation in the profession,” she added.

“However, it is only through discussing these issues openly, honestly and without judgment, that we will start to see a welcome change in the negative perceptions that exist. With this in mind, I have continued to have the hard and uncomfortable conversations, and I will continue to do so, determinedly and unapologetically.”

Lauren Croft

Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.