The legal sector faces a turning point as more than half of people responding to a survey on their mental health and wellbeing said they anticipated leaving their role within the next five years. A third said they anticipated leaving the legal sector completely, with the normalisation of overworking playing a sizeable role in high levels of burnout and anxiety and undermining mental health and wellbeing.
The research ‘signals a profound risk to workforce stability at a time when the demand for legal services continues to grow’, according to mental health and wellbeing charity LawCare, which conducted the survey earlier this year. Results have been benchmarked against the 2021 report, the previous time the survey was carried out.
LawCare was has been supporting people working in the legal sector for over 25 years, providing free and confidential emotional support, peer support and information about mental health. The Life in the Law 2025 survey polled individuals and organisations across legal services to gain an understanding of the current state of mental health and wellbeing, seeking answers to five questions:
- How do people feel about working in the legal sector?
- What are the current levels of mental health and wellbeing of people in the legal sector?
- What is undermining mental health and wellbeing in the legal workplace?
- What could have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing in legal workplaces?
- What evidence-based steps can organisations take to improve mental health and wellbeing in the legal workplace?
The aim of the research was not only to identify the issues, but also come up with practical solutions.
The findings uncovered 60% of those surveyed considered their mental health to be ‘poor’. One of the key issues is the normalisation of long hours: 79% of respondents said they regularly work beyond their contracted hours, with nearly 10% saying they worked 21 or more hours – leading to higher risks of burnout and anxiety. Exactly half of the respondents said they had experienced anxiety either often, very often, or all of the time over the last 12 months.
Bullying, harassment and discrimination are also an issue for nearly a fifth of respondents, who said they had some experience of this in the preceding 12 months. The results follow the recent report into bullying and harassment within the Bar, described as a ‘culture of impunity’ by Baroness Harriet Harman KC, the report’s author.
Life in the Law 2025 also highlights the level of expectations at firms around delivering on billable time, particularly for those in supervisory or managerial roles, where 31% reported their targets or billable hours were adjusted to take into account the time they need to spend managing others or undertaking appropriate training.
However, LawCare says rather than dwell on the problems, ‘evidence-based sustainable solutions’ should be implemented. The report notes:
“There are simple evidence-based solutions. What’s needed is strong leadership and the commitment to put them in place… There are clear, practical steps that can be taken right now to lead towards a healthier sector. These include actively managing workloads to prevent burnout, embedding flexible and hybrid working practices that recognise and support diverse needs and evaluating workplace mental health and wellbeing initiatives to ensure they deliver real impact. The case has been made; we don’t need more evidence. It is time to move on from discussing the problems to implementing”
Without decisive action from leaders, the sector risks losing people, declining mental health, and a loss of public trust and confidence, the report adds. It outlines five evidence-based steps organisations can implement now to improve working practices in legal workplaces to better protect mental health and wellbeing:
1) Prevent burnout by actively managing workloads, rethinking targets and incentives, and challenging the culture of long hours.
2) Prioritise and value managing people.
3) Embed hybrid and flexible working practices that meet diverse needs.
4) Evaluate programmes and activities that support mental health and wellbeing at work to ensure they deliver real impact.
5) Equip people joining the sector with the skills and knowledge they need for a sustainable legal career.
LawCare’s CEO Elizabeth Rimmer said:
“We have it in our hands to transform the way we work and build a future where people are supported to perform at their best and build sustainable careers. The path to prioritising mental health and wellbeing before us is clear. Now is the time for leaders to act with courage: move away from practices that normalise overwork, which risk driving people out of the sector, and take the path to a better future by valuing people management.”
The charity adds it will start a programme of engagement to develop resources and training to support leaders and organisations to put these recommendations into practice in 2026 with an invitation to join an upcoming webinar on Wednesday 12 November, 12 to 1pm to find out more.
3 responses
Why are highly trained professionals like solicitors leaving the legal sector in droves? Why are they ‘burning out?
It all started with the passing of the deeply flawed, and internally inconsistent, Legal Services Act 2007 (Act) which undermined the legal sector’s professionalism by introducing the alien concept of ‘consumerism’.
Regulators have skewed the aims of the Clementi Report preceded the Act by being obsessed with consumerism which undermines traditional legal professionalism in several ways:
• Prioritising price over quality
• Focusing on outcomes over integrity
• Eroding the traditional concept of trust between a solicitor and his or her client
• Focusing purely on cost rather than the value of a bespoke, high-quality legal service.
A solicitor’s professional and ethical duties are non-negotiable. As representatives of the legal profession, solicitors must uphold the rule of law and the administration of justice. This duty supersedes consumerism.
The core of a solicitor’s ethical obligation is to act with integrity and honesty toward clients, the court, and colleagues. Unethical practices, such as dishonesty or compromising independence, can lead to serious sanctions regardless of client pressure.
Professionalism requires solicitors to maintain proper standards of work and competence. This ensures the client receives high-quality, effective legal services, protecting both the client and public confidence in the legal system.
The pressure exerted by ignorant politicians and over-powerful IT corporations respectively to commoditise legal services means solicitors are bullied on a daily basis to dumb down what they are doing. Moreover, conveyancers are harassed to sacrifice their professionalism.
A politician once characterised legal services as akin to ‘buying a can of baked beans. For most solicitors, especially property law practitioners, this is not why they entered the legal profession.
I was a fee earner for 20 years in Conveyancing. Not a solicitor. I worked in 3 firms over that time in the same capacity. Before that I worked as a secretary in various departments in solicitors firms. Attention to detail is everything. Every year new issues come to light not only requiring an in-depth understanding of each problem but how to solve it satisfactorily for the client, the lender, the buildings insurer etc & to prevent risk of claim against the firm. Even as recent as 10 years ago clients would thank you for discovering problems, solving them or letting them know that the property didn’t meet the lenders requirements. Now many clients yell at fee earners demanding they solve the unsolvable, then the estate agents join in, in many cases also under pressure to meet their targets, the mortgage advisors for the same reason, the insurance brokers, the sellers solicitors et al. While fee earners waste their time pacifying the long list of unpacifyable people their own targets are on the line and the same thing is happening on 30/40 other transactions. And this does not cover all the emails they send as well.
In my personal opinion based on experience the first step to putting conveyancing back on track would be to take back the power from the agents, mortgage advisors, insurance brokers etc. An email once a fortnight providing an update on the transaction to all of them would free up a massive amount of time to do the legal work. It would also prevent many misunderstandings If the all received the exact same message. If you have 50 matters on the go then you can reduce incoming calls by approx 250 per day. This is a reasonable estimate given that many Conveyancers have a much bigger work load. But it would also reduce stress considerably.
I would also point out that long hours for fee earners are not new. I am not suggesting they’re healthy, they’re not! But they have been a major part of a fee earner’s life since Bob Cratchet. Contrary to the general opinion of none legals, if they don’t stay in the office to work after hours, they take it home with them.
I left the legal profession last year. The stress levels had been too high for too long. Like millions of people I thought my job defined me. But it didn’t, what it was doing was slowly killing me. My husband had a heart attack. That really opened my eyes. I had very high blood pressure, my glasses were getting stronger every year, I didn’t realise I was depressed. But most of all I realised through counselling that the key to the depression was the job. There is no pleasure these days in Conveyancing. Very rarely time to breath, to take a moment to congratulate yourself on a good job done. Mostly it’s your boss on the phone pointing out you haven’t returned an agents call, the agent on the phone demanding updates not on just one matter but 6, emails demanding something by return, emails following up on angry calls in equally angry terms. I thought I was inadequate at my job. Until I left.
It took several months but now I can remember the times when I went to work with a smile on my face because I loved my job. If my husband was still here he’d tell you I loved it more than him & he was probably right. I enjoyed the intracercies of the issues that came up. I did the research when I needed to, attended courses & most importantly I had many satisfied customers who returned or recommended me.
I’m sorry for any fee earner in any area of law these days. You no longer have to just do your job well. You have to pacify many more people than you used to which these days seems to be more important than actually doing the job.
The system isn’t necessarily broken, but you have to give people the time to actually do the job and more importantly do the job well. This applies to all areas of law. Anything can be done quicker but can it be done right?
I’m going to be honest here, I have done this job for 15 + years. My mental health is on the floor at the moment. I have worked for a few firms and can honestly say I have come across some wonderfully clever and nice Solicitors/Conveyancers. BUT in terms of Management, I have seen some absolute shockers. A good Conveyancer/Solicitor does not make a good Manager/Partner/CEO etc. One of the things that affects fee earners most I think is not the clients, not the agents, not the brokers but the chronically poor Management at firms. I see far too often a lack of forward thinking, a lack of forward planning and an eagerness for short term solutions to long term problems. Frankly an unwillingness to invest in staff, invest in their wages/bonuses/incentives, invest in systems to make our lives easy and that does filter down to clients. Once again, the governing bodies are found wanting in making sure that bosses are good bosses. It all comes down to billing. At some point, there will be a trade union for lawyers/conveyancers/solicitors etc. and there will be strikes. Firms like to try and make out that they are different to other firms, the reality is a lot of them are the same and focused on the same thing. Employees are seen as dispensable.