Every client who instructs Sequentus is offered ten sessions of one-to-one counselling, free of charge. No referral, no waiting list, and no involvement from the lawyer running their case.
People are often surprised by this, and occasionally suspicious of it — a law firm offering therapy sounds like a marketing exercise. It isn’t. It was in the plan from the beginning, and the reasoning is more practical than sentimental.
Why the support is necessary
Litigation anxiety is real. In professional discipline it is heightened, because what is at stake is not only someone’s livelihood but their professional identity, and very often their personal identity too. Being asked to account for your competence or your integrity strikes at the core of most people.
Facing that without support is close to impossible. And a client who is holding all of that alone is, in purely practical terms, less able to engage with their own case — less able to think clearly, weigh options, and give us proper instructions. Supporting a client’s resilience isn’t a kindness bolted onto the legal work. It improves the legal work.
Why it sits outside the legal team
The obvious question is why we didn’t simply ask our lawyers to handle the emotional side of things. There are several reasons, and they all point the same way.
Because it isn’t our expertise. We’re trained to help people solve problems, and we do draw on empathy constantly. But we also have to stay objective, and there is a fine line between empathy and sympathy that a lawyer has to hold. The emotional and personal consequences of a fitness-to-practise process are simply not things that we, as lawyers, are equipped to carry. They are better handled by trained professionals.
Because both professions are client-led. Confidentiality is critical to lawyers and to mental health professionals alike, and both disciplines work by assisting and supporting rather than steering someone toward a particular conclusion. Keeping the two functions genuinely separate protects that in both directions.
Because clients need someone who isn’t running their case. Counselling gives a client an independent space to explore the frustration and anxiety the process generates — with someone who is not a colleague, not a friend, and not a member of their family. With the best will in the world, weekly conversations with your lawyer are unlikely to make you feel better about your situation as a whole.
None of this means we avoid the emotional side of a case. It means we’ve made proper provision for it, so that we can concentrate on the legal side.
How it works
When a client instructs us, they receive information about the service and contact details for our mental health practice manager. There is no referral process — they simply get in touch and arrange an assessment session.
From there they’re assigned to a specific counsellor and meet weekly. Clients start with ten sessions, followed by a review, with further sessions available where they’re needed. All of it is free.
Our counsellors work to a solution-focused model, aimed at specific outcomes around the impact of the fitness-to-practise process, rather than open-ended therapy without a destination.
And the offer stays open. Clients who don’t want it at the outset can start later, and clients who finish a block and find things change can come back at any point in the process.
Sequentus Legal Services represents healthcare registrants before the GMC, GPhC, NMC and other regulators, on fixed fees.
