The Diminishing Returns of Overwork: When Being 'Always On' Backfires

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Imagine the scene, it’s a gorgeous sunny day, you’re relaxing at the pool at a beautiful resort in Dubai, you look around and you see people on their phones. OK, they may be catching up on social media, texting their friends, reading an eBook, perhaps??

You then spot someone on their sunbed under an umbrella crouched over a laptop. ?They look like they’re really focused, concentrating on the screen, oblivious to their kids running around them.

Then you spot someone else at the other side of the pool. They’re also on their laptop! Surely they’re not working as well?

These are the hotel resorts where tourists come here for a much needed getaway from work for a couple of weeks. To relax and recharge.

Paying the Price of Constant Availability

In our perpetually connected world, the pressure to be ‘always on' is immense. Especially for lawyers.

This relentless drive for 24/7 availability comes at a brutal cost: declining mental health, fractured home lives, and skyrocketing professional anxiety.

The truth is simple - by allowing billable work to bleed into every waking hour, lawyers drastically heighten their risk of burnout:?

Over half already show symptoms, while a staggering 92% of UK lawyers battle work-related stress and anxiety at some point in their careers.

This ever-present professional anxiety takes an immense personal toll. But it also fuels the legal sector's stark attrition rate, with around 40% leaving the profession within 5 years of qualifying.

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The 'Always On' Reality?

Recent research from the UK from various Law Society surveys highlights a troubling reality of overwork and blurred boundaries plaguing lawyers:

• Over a third log more than 45 billable hours weekly, with many routinely working weekends.
• Only 30% feel able to properly separate professional and personal time.
• 53% struggle to use their full annual leave allowance.
• 60% use personal devices like mobiles for work, blurring those lines even further.

In this high-pressure, always-on environment, the harsh symptoms of burnout proliferate.

53% of solicitors report frequent stress and anxiety, while of those over 90% have experienced mental health issues related to their roles at some point.

It's clear the human costs are staggering. But what insidious forces are driving this damaging culture?

The Overwork Pressure Cooker

For lawyers, availability frequently gets fused with dedicated commitment and tenacity.

Despite well-documented risks, professionals who stay late or monitor work emails evenings and weekend are still often branded as "hardworking" heroes by their colleagues and even by themselves.

In the profit-focused, client-centric legal world, bending over backwards for accessibility feels like an unspoken requirement. There's also immense pressure to provide constant client updates - making any semblance of true "off hours" feel impossible.

But unrealistic expectations and toxic workplace culture aren't solely to blame.

Many lawyers themselves fuel the overwork cycle due to ingrained patterns and thought processes. When external demands temporarily wane, they instinctively create new self-imposed tasks to fill that void.

This potent combination of cultural pressures, client demands, and personal inability to disengage proves disastrous over time.

I have seen this far too often. I have spoken to many lawyers, clients who feel this first hand, more than a few ready to leave the profession altogether.

The Devastating Impacts

Being 'always on' chronically impedes basic human needs like quality sleep, exercise, nutrition and personal relationships.

In the short term, it manifests as harsh stress symptoms: fatigue, anxiety, irritability and poor concentration.

But when overwork persists unabated for months or years, more severe consequences arise - full-blown burnout crises, physical health problems like high blood pressure, and declines in mental health, divorce, and even premature death.

These repercussions don't just impact lawyers themselves, personal relationships and family lives suffer immensely too.

Despite 87% of UK lawyers ranking parenting as their top priority, only 53% are satisfied with the time they can actually spend being present with their children.

On top of the human costs, the professional impacts are equally corrosive.

Overwhelmed, burnt out lawyers experience plummeting job satisfaction, detachment from their career purpose, and heightened cynicism about the legal profession.

This perfect storm undermines performance and feeds the profession’s systemic retention issues. But it's also entirely preventable if lawyers can proactively erect reasonable boundaries.

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The Power of Healthy Boundaries

While the costs of endless availability are severe, the rewards for setting healthier work-life boundaries prove immense too.

Admittedly, developing healthier work habits is extremely difficult when you're already drowning in an 'always on' rut. ?

Decades of conditioning are hard to break alone - I have been out of the legal profession as a practitioner for 10 years and I still have to actively reinforce my boundaries around work and personal time.

Over two-thirds of lawyers believe achieving a better equilibrium would elevate their motivation, mental health, client service, and overall working standards.

But how can you realistically disconnect when there are always constant demands from clients, partners, juniors on your time?

What's the Solution?

The solution lies in a multi-pronged approach:

1. Build personal boundaries - Become selectively unavailable after typical work hours - don't reflexively answer late emails or calls unless truly urgent.
2. Physically separate yourself from tech – carve out tech free periods. Disable notifications and close laptop lids during evenings and weekends. I did this, it works!
3. Communicate your boundaries to your colleagues and especially to clients.
4. Know you are entitled to your downtime. Take your full holiday allowance instead of working through it.
5. Use your personal time to recharge before strain becomes unmanageable.

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Driving Cultural Change – Partners/Senior Managers

1. Model sustainable work habits, giving juniors "permission" to follow suit.
2. Be aware of those individuals who are working long hours, who readily respond during evenings and weekends, and may be struggling. Candidly discuss expectations around responsiveness and reasonable availability. Your support will be invaluable.
3. Respect colleagues' time off - avoid contacting them evenings/weekends unless it’s an emergency.
4. Offer flexible schedules and remote options to seamlessly integrate work and life - Champion the cause!
5. Celebrate lawyers who maintain boundaries, not just those staying late.

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By taking a united front - with lawyers asserting personal boundaries, with partners/senior management endorsing healthier practices and firms updating their policies, practices and expectations - a cultural transformation away from this destructive 'hustle' mentality CAN be achieved.

Being 'always on' is not a badge of honour. ?

Being rested, focused, respecting boundaries between work and life definitely is.

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The Bottom Line

• The legal profession’s prized 24/7 availability mindset is both unhealthy and dangerously outdated. ?
• The human costs of staying perpetually ‘available’ severely jeopardises lawyers’ mental health through mounting stress, anxiety and burnout.
• It frays personal relationships and corrodes work performance leading to soaring dropout rates, family breakdowns, preventable health crises.
• And are simply too severe to ignore any longer.
• Disconnecting from the 24/7 workflow is vital self-care, not disengagement.
• Firms must update cultural expectations and policies and it's time to rewrite the narrative around what "hard work" actually means for lawyers.

And believe me, there are many, many lawyers who love their career, they want to thrive, they just don't want to have to be 'always on' all the time.

Back to the Pool…

As you gaze around the resort pool once more, you can't help but feel a pang of sadness for those lawyers hunched over their laptops, oblivious to the stunning paradise surrounding them and their children laughing, having fun in the sunshine.

In their relentless hustle to stay 'always on' they've missed the entire point of the holiday - to unwind, recharge, and reconnect with what truly matters most.

If you are feeling the pressure of being ‘always on’, if you know you want to change but don’t know how to escape the 24/7 hustle. Let’s have a call I know I can help you through this.

Book a FREE call

We can identify your unique struggles, look at ways we can build your stress resilience, and help you rediscover the joy and purpose in your legal career. Together, we've got this!

Amanda ??

P.S. Share this article with your fellow lawyers! Let's start a conversation about how stress doesn’t have to define us but empowers us to thrive in demanding environments.

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