With National Stress Awareness Month starting today (1st April) a new report has identified the legal sector reporting ‘notably higher stress levels compared to other professional services,’ calling on employers to do more to help balance the responsibilities of family life alongside demanding careers.
The recently published Modern Families Index (MFI) 2025: Legal Sector Report from Bright Horizons Family Solutions provides insight into the responses from a proportion of respondents to a survey of 3,000 UK working parents and carers who identified as working in legal services. First launched in 2012, the report looks at key trends around mental health and wellbeing, benchmarking the legal sector against other professional service sectors, and the wider survey group.
Encouragingly for employers 71% of respondents said they found their employer to be supportive of family life; above both other professional services (65%) and the wider survey group (68%). There were similar findings in the attitude towards work/home balance (72%, 65% and 65% respectively) and confidence in discussing family-related issues with line management (73%, 59%, 62% respectively)
But the legal profession scores higher when it comes to levels of stress with over one third (36%) of parents report high stress levels; compared to 29% in the overall survey group and 23% in other professional services. Fewer than one in ten (9%) legal sector parents have low stress levels, compared to 18% in the main survey.
The report suggests contributing factors to higher levels of stress include childcare breakdowns that clashed with work; seven in ten said they clashes in the last year, compared to 64% in the survey overall. With a return to the office on many firms’ agenda, flexibility of days (46% of respondents) and hours (38%), help with childcare costs (35%) and childcare cover (27%) were all on the wishlist when it came to supporting staff returning to the office. Nearly 3 in 10 (28%) of the overall survey respondents reported they are able to work more flexibly than the previous year, but only 22% in the legal sector sample.
“The findings of the survey demonstrate four reasons for legal firms, and indeed all employers, to invest in supporting the working parents and carers in their workforces.
said Jennifer Liston-Smith, Head of Thought-Leadership at Bright Horizons, commenting on the survey findings. It is ‘telling’ says the report, cost of living support is still firmly in mind with employer-subsidised care, enhanced parental/ dependant leave, and choice in employee benefits packages are top of employee wish lists according to the survey. Advice for parenting of teenagers and on family wellbeing all make the top five, which might be a surprise for some law firm partners – clearly the legal sector parents in our survey no longer see this as a private matter unrelated to work. The findings underscore the need for practical support from employers to help balance the responsibilities of family life alongside demanding careers.
- Productivity – with care solutions to enable people to attend work
- Easing the mental load – to enable everyone to be focused and psychologically present, even while carrying multiple responsibilities
- Talent attraction and retention – being the employer of choice when (77%) of legal sector parents say they carefully consider their childcare options before accepting a promotion or new job.
- Enabling potential – three-quarters of these legal sector parents felt confident that they could progress their careers whilst working flexibly, so given the support they are ready to apply their ambition to the task in hand.
“The pressures on law firms continue to increase in their complexity in a world of rapid technological change and economic uncertainty. However, one thing that is a consistent focus for most firms is talent attraction and retention. To recruit and retain working parents, businesses must be offering practical support so parents can manage their high pressure roles, alongside family life. Law firms that fail to provide sufficient support will be those that suffer reduced employee loyalty and engagement. Employee expectations are changing. It may come as a surprise to some law firm partners that 30% in our survey are looking for ‘parenting advice for teenagers’ when asked what they’d look for in a good employer.”
concludes Liston-Smith, adding
“Further, access to reliable, flexible back-up care for children, adults, elders, and even pets can be a true sanity-saver to working parents and carers who would otherwise struggle to work when care arrangements break down or schedules change.”
