Stress in the City: How the UK’s top law firms manage employee wellbeing

The legal world has been rocked by the recent suicide of a US partner which has led to an examination of the high-stress, long-hours culture prevalent in elite law firms.

The widow of Sidley Austin partner Gabe MacConaill, who killed himself last month, wrote a heartbreaking open letter in the American Lawyer magazine detailing the extreme stress MacConaill had been under in his last months and the devastating impact of his suicide on her.

His widow, Joanna Litt, wrote that an underlying mental health disorder, coupled with a “high-pressure job and a culture where it’s shameful to ask for help”, created a “perfect storm” that contributed to his suicide.

While MacConaill’s case is an extreme example, it has shone a light on the long hours lawyers working in the City’s top law firms are expected to put in, and the stress that this can cause.

One litigation partner says: “Law is a premium service industry. It means people have to work long hours, [and] it relies on a model of people billing a certain amount of hours to make profitability.”

Lawyers at leading US and UK firms in the City regularly bill more than 2,000 hours a year, with a handful breaking the 3,000-hour mark.

A legal recruiter says: “Most firms don’t get 2,000 hour targets. The targets range from 1,750 to 1,900 but the expectation and the model is to get from 2,000 to 2,300 hours charged, and if you are hitting that you are at your most profitable.”

A private equity partner at a US firm says “I rarely leave the office before 10pm” while a US firm associate says “there are people at my firm that work until 2am most days”.

Some firms and departments have particularly macho reputations, with one corporate team at a Magic Circle firm calling themselves “the Spitfire Squadron” to reflect their hard-

charging ethos, while others tell tales of 100-plus hour stints in the office on deals.

Lawyers at leading firms are richly rewarded, with profit per equity partner (PEP) at US firms Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins on £3.7m and £2.5m respectively, and PEP at Magic Circle firms Linklaters and Allen & Overy at £1.54m and £1.64m last year.

Junior lawyers are also paid handsomely, with basic pay at top US firms stretching from £144,000 for first year lawyers to £231,500 for fifth years.

The high pay, however, comes with an implicit expectation that your phone will always be on, and at crunch times, work will always come first.

“Fifteen years ago if a client sent you an email you could respond the next day. If I get an email now and I haven’t responded in 15 minutes someone will call, and then if I don’t pick up they will think I am dead,” a US firm partner jokes macabrely.

Legal recruiter Freddie Lawson of FRS Associates says new technology has both helped and hindered the ability of lawyers to deal with their heavy workload.

“Technology is brilliant for allowing lawyers to work more flexibly, and the firms that have allowed that quicker than anyone else are those firms where there is a need to work hard.

“The double-edged sword is the technology means you just don’t switch off, so it’s not only the long hours, it’s the ‘I’m going home but because of the connectivity my phone is buzzing and I have to respond’.”

The stress and long hours lawyers face can take their toll, with statistics from charity Lawcare, which provides a 365-days-a-year helpline for lawyers, showing that in 2017 nearly half the calls it received were related to workplace stress (27 per cent) and depression (17 per cent).

Its chief executive Elizabeth Rimmer says: “I think [long hours] is a fundamental issue in the law, it is contributing to poor mental health and well-being for people because they don’t have that time to unwind and recover.”

There is little sense the long hours culture is about to go away, but there does seem to be increasing recognition of the problems it can cause.

A Magic Circle corporate partner says: “People do work incredibly long hours, but there is now an increased move towards flexible working and a greater appreciation of work-life balance. In the olden days if you didn’t work until midnight you were a bit of a wimp, but there is shift away from that.”

The high pay makes it is easier for lawyers to outsource other parts of their life, a US firm partner says: “The firm pays you well, which facilitates your life because you can get all of that stuff to support you, a nanny, a decent school close by.”

Kirkland has taken this a step further with the introduction this month of a concierge service for its lawyers, to help them run errands, book holidays and even move house.

Firms are also introducing initiatives to help lawyers deal with stress, and anecdotally, telling lawyers with extreme annual hourly billing rates to work less.

Last month Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest, and nine law firms, including Pinsent Masons, Addleshaw Goddard, Clifford Chance and Hogan Lovells, launched the Mindful Business Charter, aimed at easing the pressure clients can exert on their external law firms.

Kate Dodd, a diversity and inclusion consultant at Pinsent, says: “This is not about working less, we are not unrealistic. This is about working better.”

She continued: “You won’t get a load of lawyers who don’t work hard, but a load of lawyers who, when the time comes to put the foot on the pedal, will have some gas left in the tank.”

For those that are feeling the pressure, Rimmer says: “Talk to someone, call us, don’t manage it all on your own. We can listen and help you think about what you might do to manage that pressure.”

An associate at a US firm says, while he works long hours and cares about his job, he always tries to keep things in perspective.

“Ultimately, contrary to what my friends and girlfriend might think, I don’t get too emotional about work. It’s a means to an end, it’s a job and it’s not my life. It shouldn’t affect your health.”