Fit your own oxygen mask first: the contemporary neoliberal university and the wellbeing of legal academics

Research in several countries has confirmed earlier studies showing the wellbeing of law students may decrease significantly during their legal education. As law schools are expected to respond to these findings, attention is moving towards the wellbeing of legal academics themselves, since their direct interaction with law students may help prevent the decline of law student wellbeing, if not positively promote their wellbeing. There is a paucity of research on the wellbeing of law teachers and their capacity to support student wellbeing. However, there is an increasing number of broader studies on the likely effects of the neoliberal university on staff and students. This chapter follows and complements an earlier paper reporting on results of national surveys of UK and Australian law teachers conducted in 2015 and 2017.