News
Anita McCallum | 6 August 2025
Evolving to meet the needs of the profession
A personal reflection from Anita McCallum, Director of Impact & Development, The Solicitors’ Charity.
I feel very blessed to be in my current role. Part detective, part reporter, and part observer (and would-be influencer) of human behaviour, the job is fascinating and enables me to be both internally and externally facing on behalf of the charity. It gives me the best of both worlds.
It was Winston Churchill who said: “The further back you can look, the further forward you are likely to see.”
And while the charity never dwells on the past, what has happened in its formative and subsequent years is vitally important to its development now, and gearing its future towards changing solicitor need.
Trawling through our archives (we have been around since 1858) looking for snippets to share with you and researching how we used to fund the charity has been a real treat for me!
It will come as no surprise then that since the first meeting of The Solicitors’ Charity (then known as the Solicitors Benevolent Association or SBA) in 1858 held at Radley’s Hotel, Blackfriars, London, the charity has evolved with the times and the ever-changing requirements of its clients. It’s lived through two world wars, seven pandemics (four influenza, one cholera, one HIV/AIDS and one corona virus type) and a succession of global financial and economic crises during the last two centuries. Some events of note from the archives are:
- 1939: During World War II, food parcels were sent from Canterbury Law Society New Zealand via the Law Society in London to provide for elderly solicitors and those not well enough to join food queues.
- 1958: In the centenary year there were 8,098 subscribers – 44% of the total number of solicitors in practice at the time. (As of September 2024, there were 206,116 solicitors on the roll, of whom 158,295 held a practising certificate.)
- 1995: The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Christopher Walford, a solicitor by profession, held the ‘Primrose Party’ at Mansion House. The SBA website was also created in this year (30 years ago).
- 2000: A promotional film featuring SBA beneficiaries was shown at the Law Society Conference.
In its most recent history, there has been a definite shift from being a financial grant-giving body to a more tailored, wellbeing support organisation.
The charity helps solicitors more holistically with emotional, professional, physical, or financial support during difficult times, which means referrals to expert partners in different specialisms, like career coaching or money management, and not just financial help. Although we still do that.
The individuals delivering support to solicitors analyse the patterns of awards made to clients, reflect on conversations had with them and regularly look at new ways of providing services which we hope will help (as well as improving the existing ones). Just look at the way our mental health provision has developed in the last quarter of a century:
The need for emotional support really was not acknowledged until the beginning of the 21st century and the dawning of the year 2000. In 2012, The Solicitors’ Charity began its partnership with LawCare, the mental health charity for the UK legal sector which provides direct emotional support (via phone, email and chat), training, information, research and advocacy.
The services provided through the two charities, have been described as a ‘lifeline’ with LawCare providing emotional support to 352 solicitors in England and Wales last year and, in total, to a staggering 3,669 since the partnership began. A decade later in 2022, funded psychotherapy sessions were introduced through provider, Onebright. In 2025, something called psychotherapeutic coaching was introduced. This will give clients the opportunity to work with a personal coach on life goals in a practical way, with the added reassurance of working with professionals who are also qualified in therapy and counselling.
Taking a tailored wellbeing approach and developing new and existing services takes considerable funding. And it’s no secret that the charity currently draws down on its reserves in a planned way to take account of complex and changing client need. 2025 is the year we’re calling on the profession to support its own through higher profile appeals for donations of all shapes and sizes.
Those in the legal sector are invited to show their support through donations of unclaimed client balances (or RCBs), one-off voluntary donations or by becoming a friend of The Solicitors’ Charity – a Firm Friend. As we approach our 170th birthday (in 2027), it’s a given that we’ll still be evolving and there for all solicitors, as well as having a pause for a well-earned celebration!
You can find out more about the ways to get involved.
