Prescription for change

At LawCare, we have recently released the findings and recommendations of our Life in the Law 2025 research. This is a follow-on academic study, produced in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, to our original Life in the Law 2020/21 report. 

The latest study looked at how working in law impacts mental health and wellbeing, both from an individual and organisational perspective (in 2021, we only looked at this from an individual perspective). We gathered results from over 1,500 individuals and 82 legal organisations from across the UK, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, tracing the broad journey through a legal career – from vocational training to managing people and future career intentions.

Why now?

The 2021 report was based on data collected in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five years later, there is a rapidly evolving legal landscape influenced by the current geopolitical climate, the transformation in the delivery of legal work by artificial intelligence (AI), the expectations of an intergenerational workforce, increased regulatory obligations and costs pressures from clients. At LawCare, we have seen the direct impact of this, with a 24% increase in people reaching out to us for emotional support over the last three years. 

Healthy lawyers are essential to a healthy legal sector; its long-term sustainability relies not only on attracting and retaining people, but also on fostering a culture where people can grow. When mental health and wellbeing are not prioritised, it doesn’t just affect people; it can also lead to serious ethical, financial and reputational consequences. The aim of our 2025 research was to provide a clear foundation for evidence-based action to support and protect mental health in the workplace across the UK legal sector. We sought to answer five key questions:

1. How do people feel about working in the legal sector?
2. What are the current levels of mental health and wellbeing of people in the sector?
3. What is undermining mental health and wellbeing in the workplace?
4. What could have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing at work?
5. What evidenced-based steps can organisations take to improve mental health and wellbeing at work? 

Key findings

Ways of working

In our survey, we asked how working in the sector had changed since January 2020. Just 13% of people said it had remained the same, while nearly half of respondents (49%) indicated that it had changed significantly in that time. Interestingly, 48.6% of people reported that these changes had positively impacted their mental health.   

Increased workloads, pressures and demands were cited as negative changes since January 2020. The most commonly identified positive change for individuals was hybrid working, due to the flexibility and better work–life balance this can provide. However, some challenges were also noted in relation to this, including a loss of social connection and sense of collegiality, as well as a growing expectation of 24/7 availability from clients. 

Additionally, we asked organisations if they had changed their approach to mental health and wellbeing since January 2020. 64.6% said yes, indicating that there had been increased awareness and discussion of these issues, with more training, resources and support being made available.

Mental health and wellbeing

Despite the positive changes noted above, our research highlighted that people in the sector continue to have low levels of mental wellbeing. Using the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5), we asked people to rank themselves from zero to five in response to five questions about how they’d felt over the past two weeks. The overall average score was 11.1, with 59.1% scoring under 13. A score below 13 has been suggested as the cut-off point for poor wellbeing.

Many people (43.4%) said their mental health and wellbeing was very significantly influenced by work, especially due to its ongoing high-pressure nature. Participants were also at high risk of burnout, and 50% said they had experienced anxiety often, very often or all the time over the last 12 months. One-quarter had not disclosed their mental health concerns at work for fear of negative consequences or that disclosure would not lead to action. 

Attitudes towards the sector

Based on these findings, it is perhaps unsurprising that 56.2% of the individuals surveyed said they could see themselves leaving their current role within the next five years (for reasons other than retirement). Not only this, but 32.1% indicated that they could see themselves leaving the legal sector altogether in that timeframe. Roughly one-third (32.3%) were not likely to recommend a career in law.

What is undermining wellbeing at work?

As part of the 2025 survey, we looked at some of the factors that could be undermining mental health and wellbeing at work; namely, work intensity, psychological safety (that is, how safe people feel to raise concerns, questions or ideas) and levels of bullying, harassment and discrimination. We found very high levels of work intensity, with over three-quarters (78.7%) working over their contracted hours. Levels of psychological safety fell on the lower half of the scale, and nearly one-fifth (19.1%) had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in the preceding 12 months. 

Individuals in the 26–35 age group had the lowest WHO-5 score for mental wellbeing and the highest scores for burnout. The average level of work intensity was highest in the 36–45 age group, but there was also a significant increase between 18–25 and 26–35. 

We also found that:

• People with caring responsibilities reported higher work intensity. 
• People who identified as disabled had lower mental wellbeing scores and higher burnout scores than those who didn’t. 
• Women had lower mental wellbeing scores and higher burnout scores than men. 
• Those who identified as neurodivergent had lower wellbeing scores than those who didn’t. 

This analysis shows the need for legal workplaces to acknowledge and address the link between mental health and diversity, equality and inclusion. 

The findings outlined above raise urgent questions about the long-term stability of the sector and signals a profound risk to workplace stability at a time when the demand for legal services continues to grow. These findings reflect unsustainable working practices that normalise overwork and undermine mental health, which, if not addressed, will drive attrition.

What support is already available?

We asked both people and organisations about what their workplaces are doing to support mental health and wellbeing. In our survey of organisations, most of them (87.8%) reported that the mental health and wellbeing of their people was a priority. This was reflected in over three-quarters having a designated individual or team responsible for wellbeing. Over two-thirds (68.3%) had policies in place in relation to mental health and wellbeing too. 

Individuals were asked about the mental health and wellbeing initiatives, support or services in their workplaces and if they found these helpful. Over half (54.9%) said they didn’t, with the remaining 45% saying they did. The measures that were found to be helpful were the provision of employee assistance programmes and access to counselling; events and initiatives to raise awareness and provide training on aspects of mental health; and a positive workplace culture, including access to supervision and wider policies and provisions, such as flexible working and reasonable adjustments.  

We found that organisations lack data when it comes to mental health and wellbeing of people in legal workplaces, with only 36.6% of organisations collecting it. Additionally, only half of organisations evaluated the effectiveness of the workplace programmes they had introduced. 

Despite mental health and wellbeing being a priority for organisations, and the increased provision of resources to support people, we did not see this translated into improved mental health, burnout and psychological safety scores for individuals.

What more can be done?

In the lead-up to the Life in the Law 2025 study, we ran a series of stakeholder roundtables to help develop the questions we would ask in our surveys. Based on these, we focused our 2025 surveys on two factors that can have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing: managing people and legal education. 

Managing people

As one participant said: “People management is a special skill … it does not follow that because someone is a good lawyer, they are a good manager.” Managers have a critical role in the legal workplace, from providing one-to-one catch-ups and supervision to supporting colleagues and fostering a positive workplace culture. Nearly half of the people that responded to our survey (49.7%) said they managed others. 

Equipping managers with the skills, confidence and resources to lead effectively is one of the most impactful changes organisations can make. Our study found that only 54.6% of those with managerial responsibilities had received training to support them in this role, even though 93% indicated that they thought this training should be mandatory. We found that 46.3% of organisations offered training to everyone who managed others, yet 66% of individuals with management responsibilities said further training would support them. 

Most managers in the legal sector are ‘accidental managers’; they take on management responsibilities along the promotion pathway, moving up the ladder because they are good lawyers, but not necessarily good managers. Being a good manager requires the development of a specific skill set that must be taught and learnt. 

When people are supported, recognised and valued, the workplace becomes more positive and productive, helping to protect mental health and wellbeing. This fosters psychological safety, as effective management builds trust and relationships where people feel able to share concerns, admit mistakes or ask for support. 

Fulfilling the important role of a manager requires considerable time. Yet, less than one-third (31.3%) of those with management responsibilities reported that their targets or billable hours were adjusted to accommodate the time needed to manage others and participate in training. In our survey of organisations, less than half (40.3%) adjusted targets or billable hours for those with management responsibilities. We also looked at whether there was recognition of the time and effort spent on people management and found that less than half of those in managerial roles (43.7%) received any recognition for this work.

Legal education

Most people coming into the legal sector will undertake vocational training before or at the time of entering the workplace. In our study, we explored people’s experience of this training. About half (54.8%) felt that it had “somewhat” prepared them for life in practice. People indicated that legal vocational training could be improved by a greater focus on wellbeing and resilience, building leadership and people skills, and developing an understanding of business needs and expectations, including legal technology. 

Certainly, with the rapid adoption of AI across the sector, and the implications this has for how legal services are delivered, it is vital that legal education provides those soon to enter the sector with the relevant skills and knowledge required for a legal career in the 21st century.

Key recommendations

The findings of our study demonstrate high levels of dissatisfaction with working in the legal sector. They show that many individuals have poor mental health and wellbeing, are at high risk of burnout, may not feel psychologically safe and have high levels of work intensity. 

Although many organisations have taken positive steps to support the mental health and wellbeing of their staff, most of these initiatives focus on raising awareness, or are reactive – that is, responding to an issue once it has already happened. What is not being addressed is accepting there are inherent risks in the way we work in law that undermine mental health and wellbeing. It is time now for leaders across the sector to take responsibility and start embedding preventative measures in day-to-day legal practice.

Life in the Law 2025 has five key recommendations to help achieve this:

1. Actively manage workloads to ensure they are kept at a sustainable level and identify what is driving them, so that steps can be taken to address this. Targets and expectations need to be realistic, and the common practice of rewarding those that exceed targets should be questioned, as this encourages overworking. 
2. Prioritise and value managing people by challenging the underlying assumption that a good lawyer makes a good manager. Managers should be trained and supported in their roles and recognised for time spent managing others.
3. Embed hybrid and flexible working into your culture. Our study shows how much these initiatives are valued and support mental health and wellbeing and inclusion. There are some challenges around social isolation and fostering collegiality, but through consultation and communication, these issues can be addressed. 
4. Evaluate existing workplace measures to support mental health and wellbeing. Leaders need to ensure that evaluation is prioritised to deepen organisational understanding of what works and why. Evaluation provides the opportunity to adopt impactful practices that protect mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. 
5. Legal education needs to equip people joining the sector with the skills and knowledge required for a sustainable career in law.

Conclusion

The challenge and opportunity before us is to act decisively now for a sustainable future. If we are to build a sustainable sector that is fit for the 21st century, leaders need to take tangible action on mental health and embed this into the DNA of everyday legal practice. A sector that champions mental health and wellbeing is progressive, inspires public trust and confidence, supports ethical behaviour and ensures that the law continues to be a profession a wide range of people will aspire to join and remain in.