Ravi Kaur Mahey, director in the childcare and family department at national firm, Cartwright King, has argued that legal employers needed to focus on creating inclusive policies and flexible systems where individuals could openly communicate their needs – without being medically labelled.
First reported by Legal Futures, Ms Mahey was firm on this belief:
“Law firms identify needs with labels,” she said. “I advocate that we shouldn’t need formal diagnoses.”
Mahey, who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) five years ago, described her early experiences of seeking support at work as isolating.
“There was no understanding of what it [having ADHD] meant. They thought it was an issue that only affected young boys.”
According to the solicitor, the biggest barrier to workplace adjustments remained the diagnostic process, which is often lengthy, expensive and overall misunderstood. She said:
“There’s a huge waiting list for diagnosis, and many neurodivergent lawyers may not understand what their condition is. But they still have needs that should be recognised.”
Emphasising the need for structure within the legal sector, Mahey noted that switching from reactive, label-based approaches to proactive inclusive strategies is essential.
“It’s all about firms creating structures where their people share their needs and have a platform where they can share their neurodiversity. That is the best way to educate.”
She called for firms to invest in:
Reflecting on her early years in practice, Mahey shared how the pressures of conventional legal workflows led to cycles of intense productivity, which led to burnout.
“I’d work really intensely for a couple of months, burn out, then recover for a week. As an associate, that led to frequent mental health breakdowns.”
It wasn’t until she stepped into a management role in 2014 – with greater autonomy – that she found space to tailor her style of work.
“I had a CEO who was very interested in letting people work how they wanted, as long as it delivered results.”
She also noted how her ADHD became an asset in leadership, specifically in her ability to empathise with and support her team members, giving her “high empathy skills” and the ability to “recognise needs without needing labels.”
At one stage, she managed up to seven neurodiverse lawyers — part of what she described as “a new generation where ADHD or dyslexia is picked up by the education system”. Managing them, she said, “forced me to really understand what their lived experience was.”
Mahey was clear that her journey of self-understanding is still ongoing. Through discussions with a psychiatrist, she learned that her neurodivergent presentation is an overlap of ADHD and autism – a complexity that challenges conventional frameworks for diagnosing.
She says it has taken “years to unlayer and unmask who I am as a person”
Despite early fears that disclosing her neurodivergence could damage her career, she now speaks openly and frequently at public events.
“I was worried that being open would be career suicide, but thankfully that did not happen.”
