Role
Paulo Karat is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Law School and leads the Wellbeing Group at NTU’s Centre for Legal Education. His role at NTU includes consultancy in the legal sector on issues around psychological resilience and wellbeing.
As a practising psychotherapist and registered mindfulness teacher, Paulo’s PhD research at NTU naturally focuses on lawyer mental health.
A former commercial / corporate lawyer, Paulo teaches on our graduate Solicitors’ Qualifying Examination preparation programmes (including Business Law, Tax, Commercial Law, Private Acquisitions and Corporate Finance).
Career overview
Paulo qualified as a solicitor in 1999. He specialised in intellectual property, commercial contracts and corporate law and worked at Freeths LLP and Addleshaw Goddard LLP. He left private practice to teach professional graduate courses at Nottingham Law School and also worked as a legal sector coach and in-house lawyer. He taught at NLS until leaving in 2011 to grow his start-up legal sector training software business. He grew the company to supply nearly 50% of the Top 100 UK law firms before experiencing a stress-induced breakdown. After his recovery he retrained as a psychotherapist and completed his MSc in Psychology at the Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice, Bangor University.
Research areas
Paulo's research interests include mental health and wellbeing in the legal sector (including the impact of personality, culture, values and beliefs). His doctoral research at NTU also focuses on lawyer mental health.
With colleagues in NTU Psychology, Paulo is also researching the impact of mindfulness interventions on higher education students.
External activity
Paulo is a qualified psychotherapist with his own private practice. Paulo has a particular specialism supporting lawyers and other professionals experiencing burnout. Paulo’s training in psychology informs his Wellbeing & Performance Programmes for early career lawyers which he runs from his Wellbeing Hub at his farm in Derbyshire.