Promoting Sustainability and Wellbeing for a Resilient Profession
Follow the movement towards mindfulness and fulfillment in the legal workplace as we strive to support sustainable legal careers.
Introduction
To build a sustainable values-based profession, a positive and ethical culture of purpose is paramount. A lawyer’s mental and physical wellbeing is key to sustainable legal careers and client satisfaction. Ranging from easy-to-deploy guides and mindfulness events to anecdotal examples and life coaching, follow the movement towards sustainability.
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Staying in the Game — Building Sustainable Legal Careers for Young Lawyers
Questions about sustainability in legal careers are no longer abstract. For many young lawyers, they surface early — in moments of transition, uncertainty, or quiet reflection about the kind of professional and personal lives they hope to build.
Against this backdrop, 22 junior and early mid-career lawyers gathered under the Staying in the Game programme, part of SAL’s broader efforts to support sustainable careers within the profession.
The programme forms part of a research initiative led by A/Prof Tan Seow Hon (SMU Yong Pung How School of Law), examining how lawyers sustain meaning, resilience, and professional identity over the course of their careers. It seeks to create intentional space for reflection at a time when questions about the long-term sustainability of legal practice are increasingly visible within the profession.
The initiative recognises that sustaining a legal career requires more than technical competence. It calls for clarity of purpose, supportive work cultures, and a grounded understanding of how professional identity evolves over time.
“At its core, the project is about helping lawyers reconnect their personal vision with their professional ethos, and with what they do day to day in legal practice,” A/Prof Tan shared.
The programme combined facilitated reflection with conversations featuring experienced practitioners who had navigated different stages of professional life, including Mrs Koh Juat Jong SC (FIDReC), Mr Andrew Ong, a retired corporate lawyer, and Mr Jason Wong, founder of the Yellow Ribbon Project. Their reflections centred on leadership, growth, and the responsibility lawyers carry not only to clients, but also to those they mentor and lead.
For Mr Joshua Tong (Kalco Law LLC), who is preparing to establish his own firm, the discussions arrived at a pivotal moment. One principle in particular resonated:
“No matter what you’ve received from the people above you, it is your choice how you want to make sense of it and affect the way you lead.”
In a profession often characterised by intensity and pressure, the idea that leadership is a matter of conscious choice — rather than inheritance — offered both responsibility and possibility.
“The law is inherently very stressful,” he reflected. “But I hope that even if I’m having a very bad day, I would be able to control myself enough to lead people well.”
Much of the programme was deliberately structured around small-group discussions and candid sharing. Guided by A/Prof Tan and lawyer-turned-life coach Ms Lim Su Ching, participants spoke openly about expectations, aspirations, and the realities of navigating early and mid-career transitions. The intention was not simply to provide space to pause, but to cultivate a sense of community and shared understanding.
The retreat closed not with prescriptions, but with questions: How do you want your life to count? How do you want to be remembered? Such questions resist quick solutions, yet they offer a starting point for aligning professional ambition with personal values.
Ultimately, Staying in the Game is less about avoiding difficulty and more about cultivating the conditions that allow lawyers to remain engaged, purposeful, and resilient over the long term. Sustainable legal careers are shaped not by single turning points, but by cumulative decisions about how one chooses to practise, to lead, and to grow.