In late 2021, legal news publisher revealed an exclusive insight into the average number of hours lawyers work across the top 100 law firms in the UK.
Out of the 2,500 junior lawyers survey, those working at Kirkland & Ellis had the highest average working day, starting at 9:14 am and finishing at 11:28 pm. US firms Ropes & Gray and Weil took the second and third spot.
The truth is, for the newly graduated lawyers lucky enough to get a spot at a top law firm, it’s not uncommon to rack up 80+ hours a week. As Megan Elizabeth Gray, who previously worked for a top tier law firm before switching to the role of in-house counsel at Condé Nast, points out in a new UUֱ article: “the idea that “being a good lawyer” seems to translate, among everything else, to constant availability and connectedness and, therefore, constant stress.”
It’s not surprising that the new generation of lawyers are demanding a better work life balance. In a recent survey, some 60% of midlevel associates said they would consider moving jobs for a better work-life balance, while only 27% said they would leave for more money. In addition, a separate survey found 22% of lawyers want to work from home full-time.
The nation’s leading law firms are making huge strides to incorporate flexible and remote working policies in a bid to attract and maintain legal talent.
An easy to find example would be the decision for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to allow their staff to work from home 50% of the time. Norton Rose Fulbright, Linklaters and Slaughter and May have all made similar changes to their policies.
But home working doesn’t always account for a suitable work life balance. As many of us learnt during the lockdown periods, working from home can be just as all-consuming (or arguably more so) than working from an office.
At the , Freshfields senior partner, Georgia Dawson, said gender parity and work life balance in the legal profession is heavily dependent on how performance is measured.
“The profession also needs to adopt a new approach to appraisals and evaluation. We need to measure outputs rather than inputs.” Dawson took this one step further during the panel discussion by calling for billable hours to be abolished.
In another survey that took place at the start of 2021, the following law firms were given an A* for their efforts in promoting a work life balance (ordered alphabetically):
Some of the initiatives these firms put into place were getting rid of a culture of presenteeism, allowing lawyers to manage their own schedules (and breaks), and encouraging out-of-office social activities.
However, some are sceptical that law firms will ever be able to offer a truly flexible work life balance.
James Knight, the CEO of platform law firm Keystone Law, which employs lawyers as independent legal consultants and offers a flexible working model, expressed doubt.
“When you think about disruptors no matter what industry it is, they haven’t changed from a conventional business, they’ve started from ground zero,” said Knight. “The conventional can’t adapt and become the unconventional, it just doesn’t happen.”
A new UUֱ report – Rise of the legal consultants – investigated claims that a third of all lawyers in the UK will be working as legal consultants by the year 2026. The number of lawyers choosing to become legal consultants at platform law firms including Keystone Law, gunnercooke, Taylor Rose and Excello Law is on the rise – especially as a result of the pandemic, which has only escalated the demand for a better work life balance.
These alternative law firms allow lawyers to choose when they work, how they work and who they work with – and they get to keep approximately three quarters of all their billings. The downside is that they are very unlikely to be referred work by other people within the business.
Joanne Losty, Recruitment Director at Excello Law, says: “As the younger generation of lawyers come through, who are more demanding about work-life balance and flexibility, that does create some challenges for law firms in terms of talent retention and career pathways.”
Nick Ducker swapped equity partnership at Manchester-based firm Shammah Nicholls in favour of going self-employed at gunnercooke, where he has been now for almost a decade.
“The whole model made perfect sense to me, the flexibility around the way you work but more importantly around the way that you interact with your clients,” he said.
“The profession has a certain reputation of billing every minute of every day to the client, but being in gunnercooke on a fixed-fee basis allowed me to just engage better with my clients.”
Aside from the remuneration structure, the only other key difference between the platform law model and a traditional firm is the way lawyers are treated, says Darryl Cooke, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at gunnercooke.
“We take away all the things that people don’t like about big law and give them total freedom. If they don’t want to work Fridays, they don’t work Fridays, if they want to take six weeks off in the summer, they take six weeks off in the summer.”
Going forward, we will see the demand for a better work life balance continue to grow across the legal profession – especially as new working models come into play.
David Pierce, Chief Commercial Officer at flexible legal service provider, Axiom, which has over 5,000 lawyers on its books internationally, says the war for legal talent will only continue to escalate in the years to come.
“The firms that find the best way to keep their talent are going to win, some of them are going to keep succumbing to the talent wars that we’re constantly reading about, not just associates but partners decamping and taking entire wings of offices with them, so the firms that figure that out will win, as well as the firms that figure out how to prioritise client and lawyer equally,” said Pierce.
Legal consultants and flexible lawyers are offered perks that lawyers working in traditional roles often miss out on, says James Harper, Senior General Counsel at UUֱ.
“It can offer things that other law firms can’t, for example the flexibility of someone returning after maternity and being able to work around school hours,” he said, highlighting how these models could potentially help to improve diversity in the legal profession.
“If you look at the upper echelons of law firms and their lack of diversity, particularly of senior female leadership, that is something that would suit this model and is an opportunity for growth.”
These alternative careers also suit those who don’t feel as though the traditional legal career path is for them.
Take family lawyer, Zoe Bloom, as an example. Bloom joined Keystone Law 11 years ago after realising the traditional legal career path wasn’t for her.
“I wanted more autonomy and wasn’t really prepared to play the games expected in a traditional practice,” said Bloom.
Cooke uttered similar sentiments about the workplace culture at his firm.
“We’ve got 500 people now so we’re just like big law but without all the downsides,” he said. “We don’t have the bureaucracy, we don’t have the politics, we don’t have the remuneration battles, we don’t have the hourly billing targets.”
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