The positive impact of legal advice and services on the mental wellbeing of UK veterans

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International Journal of the Legal Profession
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/cijl20
The positive impact of legal advice and services on
the mental wellbeing of UK veterans
Toni Beardmore, William G.A. Collier, Olaoluwa Olusanya, Gwyn Griffiths,
Victoria Knapp & Alex Baldwin
To cite this article: Toni Beardmore, William G.A. Collier, Olaoluwa Olusanya, Gwyn Griffiths,
Victoria Knapp & Alex Baldwin (2024) The positive impact of legal advice and services on the
mental wellbeing of UK veterans, International Journal of the Legal Profession, 31:2, 159-173,
DOI: 10.1080/09695958.2024.2351875
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2024.2351875
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The positive impact of legal advice and services on the
mental wellbeing of UK veterans
Toni Beardmore , William G.A. Collier , Olaoluwa Olusanya ,
Gwyn Griths, Victoria Knapp and Alex Baldwin
Department of Law and Criminology, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK
ABSTRACT
Law has been recognised as a significant social determinant of
health, however, micro-level legal advice interventions are
underexplored. The dearth of research concerning the
experience of British veterans highlights the need for uniquely
tailored support services. This need is emphasised by the
pervasiveness of mental health issues amongst this
population. We investigate the feasibility of remotely delivered
legal advice as a social intervention for supporting the mental
wellbeing of UK veterans. This is based on the Warwick-
Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale results from 67 participants,
who completed a pre and post legal intervention survey.
Average WEMWBS results were higher post-intervention,
particularly in participants with pre-identified mental health
issues. The dierence in overall scores pre and post
intervention is statistically significant (p = 0.034). A correlation
matrix identifies two variables, with one contributing to 59%
variance (LV2). These are identified as “Aective” (LV2), and
“Cognitive” (LV1). The dierence between LV2 results pre and
post intervention was significant (p = 0.016). Findings highlight
the importance of individualised interventions for veterans.
Free, remotely delivered, tailored legal advice and support
shows feasibility as a social intervention due to its ability to
encourage emotional disclosure, something which the veteran
population can struggle with.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 8 February 2024
Accepted 2 May 2024
Introduction
Recent statistics from the Ministry of Defence (2022, p. 1) show that in 2021/22,
“1 in 8 (12.5%) UK armed forces personnel were seen by military healthcare ser-
vices for a mental health related reason”. Among veterans, the prevalence of
mental health disorders was as high as 38% (Finnegan and Randles 2022).
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduc-
tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The
terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or
with their consent.
CONTACT Toni Beardmore Tob22@aber.ac.uk
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION
2024, VOL. 31, NO. 2, 159–173
https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2024.2351875

While there is a growing literature on the value of legal advice as an interven-
tion, it is still under researched.
Following Blodgett et al.’s (2022) systematic review of mental wellbeing inter-
ventions, social interventions, (distinguished as person-centred support and
advice) had a “medium to strong” impact on people’s mental wellbeing. The
observed impact of these social interventions surpassed that of some psychologi-
cal interventions (specifically, psychoeducation and mindfulness), physical inter-
ventions (promoting physical activity and health), and peer-support
interventions. Blodgett et al. (2022) called for more research on specific interven-
tion topics and modes of delivery to enhance our understanding of the eective-
ness of certain interventions in promoting mental wellbeing. In turn, this type of
research can provide valuable insights that can inform the development of more
eective policies and practices to improve people’s mental health.
An association has been found between advice service interventions and mental
health and wellbeing (Sefton 2010; Wintersteiger 2015; Young and Bates 2022).
Legal problems in general can exacerbate mental health challenges due to increased
stress and/or worry (Sefton 2010). Sefton (2010) argued that individuals experien-
cing mental health issues are more likely to experience a range of social welfare law
and civil law problems. Furthermore, it has been shown that when welfare advice is
given in healthcare environments, individuals tend to experience improved well-
being, which in turn reduces the demand for healthcare services (Parkinson and
Buttrick 2015). This may also be true when welfare advice is given outside of a
healthcare environment. In a systematic review investigating the link between
advice services and health and wellbeing, Young and Bates (2022) found that receiv-
ing advice was associated with improved mental health and wellbeing. However,
they also noted that the “association between advice services and health outcomes
is complex and not well evidenced” (Young and Bates 2022, p. 1714).
This paper contributes to three distinct strands of literature. First, it contributes
to the body of work on veterans’ mental health through the lens of positive mental
health. This paper is also adding to the growing literature on the role of legal advice
as a social intervention. Finally, the paper contributes to the large literature on
mental wellbeing interventions. It is noteworthy to mention that within the dis-
course, the terms mental health, mental wellbeing, and general wellbeing refer to
similar concepts. The mental health definition we have chosen is the WHO’s
(2022) interpretation which is as follows: “Mental health is a state of mental well-
being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life”. In addition, the
WHO’s definition resonates with the position that it is essential to view mental
health not only by the presence or absence of psychopathology but also by the our-
ishing of wellbeing (Aruta et al. 2022, p. 2; Horwood et al. 2023, p. 1; Keyes 2002;
Keyes and Lopez 2002). Moreover, extant research has found that higher levels of
mental wellbeing (ourishing) are protective against the incidence of Common
Mental Disorders (CMDs) (Santini et al. 2022; Schotanus-Dijkstra et al. 2017). Con-
versely, lower levels of mental wellbeing (languishing) have been associated with an
160 T. BEARDMORE ET AL.

increased risk of developing CMDs (Grant et al. 2013). Notably, the Warwick Edin-
burgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) used to evaluate improvements in
mental wellbeing in this study, has the ability to capture both the cognitive (psycho-
logical) and aective (emotional) dimensions of mental wellbeing. In addition,
studies to date show a significant negative correlation between WEMWBS and
widely respected measures of mental illness such as General Health Question-
naire-12 (GHQ-12) (Shah et al. 2021). In other words, individuals reporting
higher mental wellbeing scores have been found to have lower scores of psychiatric
morbidity. This has implication for veteran participants in this study who notably
had the opportunity to disclose mental health issues such as PTSD and depression.
This research aims to investigate the impact of free, remotely delivered, tai-
lored legal advice and support on veterans’ mental wellbeing. The objectives
were to (1) evaluate if legal advice positively impacted the mental wellbeing of
veterans pre and post intervention; and (2) identify trends regarding veterans’
demographic data and self-reported mental health and substance abuse data.
Sampling and study participants
The Veterans Legal Link (VLL) project is an access to justice project that
uniquely provides free legal advice and case work, and specialist support ser-
vices to veterans (any service leaver who served at least one day in the British
armed forces) and their families. There are several organisations in the UK
that provide veterans cursory or specific support for legal issues. One
example is The Centre for Military Justice which provides legal advice for
serious bullying, sexual harassment, gender-based violence, racial or other
forms of discrimination. In contrast, VLL provides a full suite of free legal
advice and case work and specialist support services to veterans and their
families that is unparallelled (Guide to Pro bono and Other Free Advice in
England and Wales, 2023). Moreover, over 40 veterans’ organisations use the
VLL as a referral partner for legal advice. This includes The Royal British
Legion, Project Nova, Help for Heroes, Blind Veterans UK, The Soldiers’,
Sailors’, and Airmen’s Families Association (SSAFA) and Veterans NHS
Wales. Furthermore, the project employs a fulltime non-practising solicitor
and a case work manager to deliver legal advice and conduct casework remotely
(including telephone, text messaging, email, online portal, letters, and so on)
and also to signpost veterans to support services.
VLL provided legal advice, case work and or signposting on the following
areas: Appeals (1%), Business Law (3%), Civil Law (15%), Complaints (4%),
Criminal Law (6%), Employment & Employment Law (10%), Estates (4%),
Family Law (37%), Housing (6%), Immigration (3%), Military Injury (13%),
and Social Care (1%). The participants for this study were drawn from the
service users of the project seeking legal advice and agreed to participate in
the research. Participants had an average of 11 years military service, with
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 161

75% having served in the Army, 12% from the Navy and 13% from the RAF,
and were made up of both male (82%) and female (18%) service leavers. In
addition, we collected demographics on current employment status, self-
reported substance abuse and mental health concerns/issues.
Methods
Data for this research was gathered from Veterans Legal Link’s casework database:
Auxilium. This included demographic and service data, how clients were referred,
area of law, and self-reported mental health or substance issues. Ethical approval
was obtained from the Aberystwyth University Ethics Committee.
Auxilium was used to distribute the WEMWBS to veterans accessing the
legal advice service. WEMWBS is a “user-friendly and psychometrically
sound measure of mental wellbeing” (Peacock et al. 2019, p. 4), providing
high levels of internal consistency and reliability against accepted criteria. It
provides an approximately normal distribution with no oor to ceiling eects
and is responsive to change, making it a suitable tool for monitoring mental
wellbeing in population samples. This research is based on 67 results.
Notably, WEMWBS recommends at least 30 clients to explore the impact of
an intervention (Warwick Medical School, 2023).
A pre-intervention survey was distributed upon registration of clients acces-
sing the legal advice service. A follow up, post survey was distributed upon res-
olution of the legal matter, or for more complex cases no sooner than two weeks
following the initial survey in line with WEMWBS guidance. The time between
completing the pre and post survey averaged at 122 days. Participants who did
not complete both pre and post intervention surveys were excluded. Clients com-
pleted the 14-question survey upon referral, and again after accessing legal advice.
Questions were related to positive aspects, relations, and functioning, and were
collected using a Likert scale of 1–5, indicating “none of the time” to “all of
the time” (Tennant et al. 2006). Scores were calculated to provide a singular,
reective value of someone’s mental wellbeing. This is shown in Figure 1.
The survey results were evaluated using the evaluation tool provided by
WEMWBS. The tool was used to analyse the following: mean and mean
change, percentage of people with significant change, and if change is statisti-
cally significant. Further statistical tests were also conducted to evaluate the
data. This included testing for latent variables within the WEMWBS survey
and associations with additionally reported data provided by participants
(mental health, substance abuse, etc.).
Findings
Following the receipt of legal advice and/or support intervention, the median
WEMWBS score increased from 28 to 32, with standard deviation reducing
162 T. BEARDMORE ET AL.

from 10.8 to 9.3. This suggests a positive correlation between receiving legal
advice/support, and an alleviation of mental wellbeing, as overall scores
improved and were clustered closer to the mean.
Non-parametric testing was conducted which found the dierence in scores
(pre and post intervention) to be statistically significant, with a Wilcoxon
Signed Rank test p-value = 0.034 against a 0.05 significance level.
Veterans who self-reported mental health issues before the intervention (n =
53) had a lower average WEMWBS score compared to those without mental
health issues (n = 14), at 28 and 37 respectively. However, both scores remain
lower than the general population average, at 50.1 for men, and 49.6 for
women (NHS 2016), showing the importance of empirical research on
mental wellbeing for this population. This factor of pre-existing mental
health issues on the WEMWBS scores is considered statistically significant,
with a Mann – Whitney U test p-value = 0.02.
For those without mental health issues, a Wilcoxon signed rank test found no
statistically significant dierence between median WEMWBS scores pre and
post legal intervention. However, the same testing found that those with
Figure 1. [Q8]Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) © University of Warwick
2006.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 163

mental health issues had a statistically significant dierence in scores (P = 0.06),
with the mean score for this group increasing from 28 to 32.
Further analysis was conducted, including a correlation matrix of the
WEMWBS measurements of mental wellbeing. This correlation matrix pro-
duced a Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity p value of 0.000, providing evidence that
the variables in our correlation matrix have a significant relationship, and are
not orthogonal.
The correlation matrix assumes the 14 variables can be reduced to two vari-
ables that explain 69% variance in the data (Table 1).
Notably, one variable accounts for 59% variance and the other for 10%
variance. A rotated component matrix found two latent variables (table 2),
which can be described as “Cognitive Factors” (LV1), and “Aective
Factors” (LV2) as the variables associated with LV1 are concerned with
thoughts and understanding, whereas LV2 is focused on feelings and
moods (shown in table 3).
Further non-parametric testing (Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test) on the latent
variables found that the LV2 WEMWBS scores significantly increased after
the intervention (p = 0.016), whereas the LV1 increase in scores was not statisti-
cally significant (p = 0.074).
Mental health factors were the only recorded characteristic which demon-
strated a significant association with significant change in WEMWBS scores
post-intervention. Notably, veterans who disclosed mental health issues upon
referral (n = 53), had significantly higher LV1 and LV2 scores after the legal
advice, casework or support intervention (LV1, p = 0.023; LV2, p = 0.001).
However, those who did not report mental health issues at the start of the inter-
vention (n = 14) had no significant change in either LV1 or LV2 scores (LV1,
p = 0.624; LV2, p = 0.378).
Table 1. Total variance of 14 WEMWBS variables, showing 2 latent variables accumulating to
69% variance.
Total variance explained
Component
Initial eigenvalues Extraction sums of squared loadings
Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumulative %
1 8.248 58.911 58.911 8.248 58.911 58.911
2 1.360 9.717 68.628 1.360 9.717 68.628
3 .796 5.688 74.316
4 .722 5.157 79.473
5 .553 3.950 83.422
6 .491 3.510 86.932
7 .374 2.672 89.605
8 .330 2.357 91.961
9 .287 2.050 94.011
10 .237 1.694 95.706
11 .214 1.530 97.235
12 .168 1.200 98.435
13 .127 .906 99.342
14 .092 .658 100.000
164 T. BEARDMORE ET AL.

It is important to note that the sample size for those without mental health
issues (n = 14) upon referral, is small. It is possible that the legal advice and
support intervention had some impact on WEMWBS scores. Yet if it did
have an impact, the data shows the eect is smaller than the eect observed
for those with mental health issues upon referral.
Discussion
Law has been recognised as “arguably one of the most important social deter-
minants of health (SDH)” (Genn 2019, p. 162; Tsai et al. 2017). Many studies in
the public health literature have ignored the important role of law as a SDH at
the micro-level and focused more on law as a population-wide intervention.
This has led some to conclude that “the need for free legal services to
improve health at a local or individual level has largely been overlooked”
(Beardon et al. 2020, p. 1; Granger et al. 2022, p. 2). Our findings show that
micro-level legal advice interventions have an important role to play in addres-
sing downstream (micro-level) SDH (Genn 2019, p. 161). The lack of free legal
Table 2. Rotated component matrix of the 14 WEMWBS variables.
Rotated Component Matrix
a
Component
1 2
S Feeling confident .864
S Thinking clearly .863
S Feeling good about self .799
S Able to make up own mind .765
S Delaing with problems .697
S Interested in new things .650 .492
S Useful .581 .579
S Interested in others .575 .567
S Feeling close to others .792
S Feeling loved .787
S Feeling cheerful .546 .714
S Relaxed .709
S Optimistic .688
S Energy to spare .441 .632
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
a
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 3 iterations.
Table 3. 14 variables reduced to 2 latent factors from the rotated component matrix.
LV1 Cognitive Factors LV2 Affective Factors
Feeling confident Feeling close to others
Thinking clearly Feeling loved
Feeling good about self Feeling cheerful
Able to make up own mind Feeling relaxed
Dealing with problems Feeling optimistic
Interested in new things Energy to spare
Feeling useful
Interested in others
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 165

support for veterans in the UK also attributes to this research gap, with the
Veterans Legal Link project uniquely providing a full suite of free legal
advice and case work and specialist support services to veterans and their
families (Brown 2023).
Whilst a great deal has been written about US veterans, comparatively little
has been written about the experience of British veterans (Iversen et al. 2005;
Larkin et al. 2016). It is now accepted that the transition challenges facing
UK military service leavers are inadequately reected in the literature, and
hence necessitate further empirical research to advance and expand support
services uniquely tailored to the UK veteran population (Larkin et al. 2016).
It should be pointed out in this regard that scant research exists on the social
determinants of mental illness within the UK Armed Forces and in the
veteran population (Fossey et al. 2018).
Furthermore, there is a distinct gap in access to support for veterans in a
formal, non-clinical, non-medical manner (Stevelink et al. 2019). Alongside
this gap in support for the veteran population, there is evidence that the rate
of PTSD is higher among veterans, at 7.4%, than the general public at 4%
(Murphy and Busuttil 2019, p. 1). However, Fulton et al. (2019), delineates a
sentiment amongst veterans that civilian medical services do not understand
them, and Ahern et al. (2015, p. 5) document the feeling of “normal is alien”
upon transitioning into civilian life. This demonstrates the need for more
research into these formal, non-medical support services and into their
ecacy and feasibility in addressing the social determinants that cause
mental ill health. Notably, some contemporary studies have provided non-
medical support for veterans using WEMWBS to assess the ecacy and feasi-
bility of the intervention (Everill et al. 2020; Kay et al. 2022; Roberts et al. 2019).
However, to our knowledge this is the first study to use the WEMWBS to evalu-
ate the feasibility of remotely delivered legal advice as a social intervention for
supporting the mental wellbeing UK veterans.
Significance of the study
This paper contributes to three distinct strands of literature. First, it contrib-
utes to the body of work on veterans’ mental health through the lens of posi-
tive mental health. This paper is also adding to the growing literature on the
role of legal advice as a social intervention. Finally, the paper contributes to
the large literature on mental wellbeing interventions. The recognition that
negative social determinants of health can adversely aect the mental well-
being of UK veterans combined with the growing demand for more tailored
mental health support services among veterans (Dafydd 2023), draw attention
to the need to deploy eective social interventions. This research provides
empirical evidence which can inform veterans’ mental health policy and prac-
tice, through a focus on legal advice and support intervention. Notably,
166 T. BEARDMORE ET AL.

veteran participants in this study adaptively responded to the legal interven-
tion, as was shown by the overall increase in the WEMWBS scores and a stat-
istically significant increase in the average WEMWBS score post-intervention
for individuals disclosing mental health issues. This provides unique insight
into how tailored legal advice and support can improve the mental wellbeing
of this population.
Our finding that the LV2 WEMWBS score significantly increased after the
intervention (p = 0.016), whereas the LV1 increase in score was not statisti-
cally significant (p = 0.074), indicates that the aective dimension of wellbeing
plays a more central role in veterans’ wellbeing than the cognitive dimension.
It is possible to speculate that legal advice and services provided to veterans
with CMDs elicited emotional disclosure, which in turn increased positive
emotion and correspondingly decreased negative emotion (Schüler et al.
2009), resulting in improved mental wellbeing (Bernard et al. 2006;
Edwards and Kotera 2021; Mendolia and Kleck 1993; Sloan et al. 2005;
Winick 2000). Allmark et al. (2013, p. 63) described this as a “counselling
eect”, a phenomenon wherein the positive impact of being listened to can
improve one’s health. These findings suggest the importance of individualised
and “client-centred” interventions for veterans. In other words, clients
respond well when they are being understood and listened to on a personal
basis. Something which may be particularly salient to veterans, who may be
more inclined to believe civilian services do not understand them (Fulton
et al. 2019; Dandeker et al. 2003) and who have a tendency to be less likely
to self-disclose due to masculine military norms (McAllister et al. 2019;
Osorio et al. 2012; Walker 2010). Moreover, disclosure in a legal setting
may alleviate the disinclination towards emotional disclosure as it is necessary
for the work being conducted on the client’s behalf (Hazard 1978). Therefore,
research and development of interventions in the legal space that encourage
aective aspects of wellbeing could be uniquely useful in improving the
mental wellbeing of veterans.
Finally, our findings also develop understandings of the modes of deliv-
ery for social interventions. In their systematic review, Young and Bates
(2022) found that the accessibility of advice services inuences health and
wellbeing outcomes. However, it should be pointed out that they are refer-
ring to studies that show that co-locating advice services in GP surgeries
increase clients’ ability to access these services. In contrast, the legal
advice service delivered in this study was conducted remotely with the
aim of counteracting systemic inequalities faced by our clients who are
often located in rural Wales, where there are barriers to accessing legal ser-
vices (Olusanya et al. 2022). Therefore, more research is needed into the
impact of dierent modes of delivery of advice service interventions (face
to face, telephone or online formats) and also to compare their relative
cost-eectiveness.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 167

Conclusion
This study sought to investigate the impact of legal advice and support services
on the mental health of UK veterans facing potential legal issues. Drawing from
a dataset obtained from Veterans Legal Link’s casework database (Auxilium),
this research evaluated the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale
(WEMWBS) scores of UK veterans pre and post legal intervention. Findings
of this analysis reveal a statistically significant increase in median WEMWBS
scores following the receipt of free, remotely delivered legal advice and
support services. This increase in the average WEMWBS score was particularly
significant amongst the veterans who self-reported mental health issues at the
beginning of the intervention.
Furthermore, this study primarily highlights the potential of legal advice as a
micro-level social determinant of mental health (SDMH) intervention, thereby
filling a critical gap in the existing literature. By addressing potential legal
issues that induce stress, Veterans Legal Link, as a legal advice service, demon-
strated the capacity to positively inuence the mental wellbeing of UK veterans.
Specifically, the analysis of latent variables in this study suggests that the aective
dimensions of wellbeing, such as emotional disclosure facilitated by a client-
centred approach to legal practice, play a central role in improving mental
health outcomes through inducing a potential “counselling eect”. In addition,
the significance of this study lies in its contribution to understanding the
mental wellbeing dynamics within the UK veteran population, and the ecacy
of legal interventions in addressing social determinants of mental health.
Based on the above findings, we recommend the development of tailored ser-
vices for UK veterans that integrate legal advice as a fundamental aspect of
enhancing their wellbeing. Notably, this study demonstrated that a legal advice
setting has the potential to improve wellbeing for clients with CMDs. In
essence, legal advice worked symbiotically with a client-centred approach to
produce a positive eect, as the legal setting and professionals facilitated veterans’
emotional disclosure. This is particularly important bearing in mind the fact that
studies have shown that a negative relationship exists between the military
culture of “toughness” and emotional disclosure (McAllister et al. 2019; Osorio
et al. 2012), with emotional challenges being perceived as a weakness (Walker
2010). This finding also has more general implications for the legal profession
as some scholars have argued that “lawyers fail to pay sucient attention to
the emotional consequences that accompany their practice” (Marson et al.
2019, p. 142). It follows that from a practical perspective, legal practitioners
working with veterans may modify their practices to ensure a more client-
centred approach so as to produce positive wellbeing outcomes. In this sense,
lawyer-client communication should be optimised to ensure that it is open, wel-
coming, and facilitates a “counselling eect” when working with veteran clients.
This could be done by strengthening two-way communications, or adopting a
168 T. BEARDMORE ET AL.

specific two-way communication model, in order to ensure that clients have the
opportunity for emotional disclosure, and to discuss how the potential legal issue
is impacting their wellbeing. More research should be conducted on optimising
the client experience and ensuring open and eective bidirectional communi-
cation between legal professionals and veteran clients, particularly in a remotely
delivered manner.
The limitations of this study included the following. First, a small sample size
of those not reporting mental health issues (n = 14), which can be attributed to
the challenges in getting all clients to complete both the pre and post intervention
WEMWBS survey. We cannot rule out the possibility of the legal advice interven-
tion having some impact on WEMWBS scores for this group, but it does not
show in this sample size. Thus, this study should be revisited with additional
data collected overtime from the Veterans Legal Link casework database.
Furthermore, a second limitation is that at the time of the post-intervention
survey, not all legal cases had been resolved. Some clients who responded to the
survey had received free legal advice and support, but still had an ongoing case.
Future research should be designed longitudinally and should ensure that par-
ticipants are asked to complete follow-up WEMWBS surveys at regular inter-
vals. This would alleviate the limitations of this study and could show if
mental wellbeing improves throughout the full legal case timeline, or if it
peaks or declines at certain points.
Essentially, while this study underscores the potential role of legal advice
interventions in improving the mental wellbeing of UK veterans, further (longi-
tudinal) research is warranted to address the above-mentioned limitations.
Building upon this research will advance our understanding of the law as a
social determinant of health, and legal advice as a micro-level intervention to
improve mental wellbeing outcomes in this population.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Ethical Approval ID: 20739
Funding
This work was supported by The National Lottery Community Fund [grant number
20224515].
ORCID
Toni Beardmore http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1354-0343
William G.A. Collier http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6793-4022
Olaoluwa Olusanya http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7855-6506
Alex Baldwin http://orcid.org/0009-0000-4611-8758
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 169

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