The City Lawyers Working Themselves to Death

The unwritten message fed to law firm partners is to show no sign of struggle. So when an overworked partner decided to email the head of the firm saying she felt herself spiralling, perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised by the lack of urgency in his response.

“I emailed my boss saying there’s zero help here, it’s all-consuming,” she says. “They booked a meeting in the diary, but now it’s been moved to later this month. He probably thinks I’m just flipping out.”

The partner says she copes by venting to her husband or “getting p—-d” with her friends.

But it doesn’t fix the fundamental issues in the legal sector, which she says is still run by “d— swingers happy to talk about how they work all the hours God sends”.

Senior leaders are starting to speak out in the hope of getting rid of the stigma. Dominic Griffiths, the London head of law firm Mayer Brown, says he too suffered in silence after battling a mental health crisis years ago.

He says: “I didn’t tell anyone at work and just about managed to cope. It is no secret that law is a high pressure and high stakes sector. You cannot get away from that fact, especially when you are working with large global clients.”

James Bremen, chair of construction and engineering at Quinn Emanuel, a US law firm based in London, recalls twice being hospitalised with pneumonia triggered by physical exhaustion from a period of working extremely late nights with only two hours of sleep.

The issue of mental health in the legal sector was thrown into the spotlight earlier this month following the death of Vanessa Ford, a senior partner at Pinsent Masons, who according to a coroner’s inquest was suffering from an “acute mental health crisis”.

The inquest heard she worked 18-hour days advising on the sale of Everton FC in the months prior to her death, trade publication Law.com reported. A Pinsent Masons spokesman said the firm was “assessing how we can make appropriate changes that will genuinely make a difference”.

In 2019, Paul Rawlinson, the former head of Baker McKenzie, took his own life after suffering from an “acute depressive illness”. David Latham, a partner at Hogan Lovells struggling with work-related stress, died in 2013 a day after he told a colleague that he was going to kill himself. It was dismissed as a “flippant” comment, Westminster coroner’s court heard.

The deaths of senior lawyers, such as Paul Rawlinson, have shone a spotlight on the legal industry

In a recent study conducted by mental health charity LawCare, lawyers across the UK said they are at high risk of burnout and face intense workloads. However, despite widespread efforts to improve mental health in the legal sector, particularly after Covid, insiders say little has changed.

A spotlight was shone on the sector’s toxic culture last year, when an associate of US law firm Paul Hastings shared a list of “non-negotiable expectations” for junior colleagues which included “you are ‘online’ 24/7. No exceptions, no excuses”.

Other rules on the list included “clients expect everything to be done perfectly and delivered yesterday” and “‘I don’t know’ is never an acceptable answer”.

Paul Hastings at the time said the list was prepared by an associate and the views “do not reflect the views of the firm or its partners”.

But the slide laid bare an uncomfortable reality for many.

“Even when not working, I found myself thinking about work,” admits a lawyer who has just quit his job at a top City firm as a result of the pressures. “It’s the sleepless nights – going to bed and then lying awake thinking about work.”

Lucy Myers, the founder of Therapeutic Coaching Consultancy, says unhealthy behaviours such as working long hours without a break and taking on multiple projects can even be seen as “strengths” within legal circles. Those suffering then double down further, heading for burnout.

“This is when the unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance or alcohol abuse and gambling can kick in. They’re another attempt to ‘survive’ and find a way to keep going,” she says.

“Eventually their personal relationships begin to suffer as a result, which can exacerbate the feeling that the job has to be the priority. And so the cycle continues.”

Patrick Krill, a former US lawyer who has conducted academic studies on mental health, addiction and suicide, has found that alcohol has become the “primary drug of choice” to help lawyers cope with stress.

He says: “The use of alcohol is very culturally embedded in the legal profession, and it is something beginning in law school that is highly normalised.”

However, many find the work itself addicting especially because the industry tends to “lionise” workaholics, adds Krill.

Sahar Farooqi, a commercial barrister and former partner at DAC Beachcroft, recalls once bringing his work laptop on holiday to Santorini while working on large international disputes with very tight deadlines.

He would sneak off to the bathroom to send emails and wait until everyone was asleep to do more work.

“Like any kind of addict, you think you’ve gotten away with it because you’ve managed to close your laptop, put your phone back in your pocket and return to whatever the social setting was,” he says. “People can sense that you’re not present.”

Often what stops lawyers from breaking free is what attracted them to the profession in the first place: money. City partners, constantly judged by the profits they generate, are rewarded with seven-figure pay packages and bonuses.

This puts pressure on more senior lawyers with financial commitments such as mortgages and private school fees.

Jonathan Moult, who became a psychologist after many years as a senior partner, adds: “When people say, ‘what do you miss about the law?’ I think I, and most people say, it’s the money.

“It’s a very money-based environment and it is difficult to give up.

The pressure is particularly high on law firm partners, who as owners of the business carry the responsibility of avoiding cyber attacks and anti-money-laundering breaches, while managing the expectations of Gen Z lawyers demanding a better work-life balance.

Skill shortages among junior lawyers who trained remotely during the pandemic have added to this burden, increasing the reputational and liability risks on their supervising partners.

Bremen, who has been a lawyer for more than 25 years, says: “If you can’t have the same level of reliance that you used to have on young people then that pressure comes back on to you to make sure it’s right.”

He notes that Quinn Emanuel, a US law firm based in London, resolves this challenge by carefully hiring lawyers who are eager to work hard, and is upfront with recruits about its extremely high expectations. Additionally it monitors staff to provide support when needed.

To make real change some believe that law firms need to forget all the soft policies they’ve been working on and just get rid of billable hours, which pile pressure on staff and encourage long hours.

Leah Steele, a former Irwin Mitchell lawyer turned burnout coach, is sceptical. She argues that scrapping the billable hours would see metric-obsessed firms quickly find another way to measure performance and productivity.

One London head of a US law firm instead argued that workers must speak out if they need help – they can’t solely rely on their employers to always spot the signs.

He says: “You need the person to take some responsibility for their own mental health in the same way that you take responsibility for your physical health. But you need the firm to create an environment that’s receptive if someone says, ‘I’m having issues, I’m struggling’.”