Attorneys are facing a crisis in their well-being. They wander in a desert of stress, looking for a source of water.
Studies show that attorneys experience much greater incidents of substance use disorder, mental health challenges, overworking and loneliness than the general population.
These studies point to a pervasive cause to this crisis: Law Firm Professional Culture.
Law firms are structured to be hierarchical, demanding large amounts of hours from lower ranking attorneys. These attorneys must overwork or lose out on promotions. This oppressive work culture rewards overworking and fosters unethical ways of creating more revenue for a case. This structure ignores or punishes those who seek to work less hours, create healthy work environments, and operate according to strict rules of professional attorney ethics.
This is the same phenomenon that operates in large mainstream corporate culture as well.
Leadership has to deliver high profits to reward shareholders and constantly seek greater efficiency from workers. This usually results in having team members take on multiple roles and work long hours for their set salary. Human resource professionals within these big companies and government organizations rarely help workers create a healthy, balanced career path with large organizations, instead spending their time on managing benefit packages.
When law firms create extraordinary expectations for lawyers, it creates a pressure that results in severe organizational conflicts. Managers monitor the workflow of the attorneys and have to squeeze more from the attorneys, based on the leadership’s revenue goals. This is why there is such high turnover in law offices, where taking your clients and going out on your own is a normal career choice.
However, solo attorney practice can be even worse, because there is nowhere it hide. The solo attorney is responsible for doing everything and must simultaneously lead, manage and operate the business delivering complex, specialized legal services. Most solo’s fail, and eventually return to a group practice in some form to get relief from the daunting tasks required to operate a basic law office.
Actualis has consultants, coaches and trainers with experience helping both large and small organizations create healthy, dynamic, viable and profitable companies.
- We understand how to focus on the 7 areas of legal business that must be systematized in order to be successful.
- We train law firms in how to work together as a viable, intelligent team and avoid the 5 Dysfunctions that keep law firms from being successful.
- We coach Leaders and Managers on how to communicate, and model, a company culture that supports the highest standards of professional ethics and positive work-live balance.
Contact us to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to see if we can assist you in creating a law office with which attorneys, and clients, seek to engage.
