To mark Mental Health Awareness Week 2021, we spoke with three speakers about the relationship between, and impact of, their intersectional identities and their mental health.

Our speakers share their own personal stories with their mental health as well as their thoughts on how the legal profession could promote positive mental health for people with multiple characteristics.

Speakers:

Rhian Smith (she/her)
Rhian is a medical negligence solicitor at JCP Solicitors and Disability Subcommittee Chair at Cardiff Law Society.
Rhian is very passionate about improving disability inclusion within professional services and speaks openly about her own experience as a lawyer with a hidden disability. She established the first D&I subcommittee within a local law society that is dedicated to improving disability inclusion and is committed to raising awareness of the ways in which businesses can make their workplaces more inclusive and why this serves the many, not the few.

Luke Williams (he/him)
Luke is a trans non-practising solicitor who trained at a London firm specialising in property law and private client work.
He was admitted as a solicitor in 2016 and now works in legal education. Luke joined the LGBT+ Lawyers Division Committee in November 2019 and is currently the vice-chair.

Ruihua Wang (she/her)
Ruihua is a senior in-house lawyer at Tradeweb Europe Limited, a member of our Ethnic Minority Lawyers Division Committee and vice-chair of the UK Society of Chinese Lawyers.
Born and bred in Shanghai, China, Ruihua underwent a remarkable transition from a Chinese lawyer to an English solicitor at the age of 30.
Having trained at a top law firm, Linklaters, she understood the challenges in admission and career progression faced by ethnic minority law students/lawyers and aims to help others in similar situations.