We're Being Gaslighted About Lawyer Burnout

While I love that the legal profession has acknowledged the pervasiveness of lawyer burnout, I’m not a fan of how the surrounding discussion has effectively normalized it and put the burden of alleviating burnout on individuals rather than employers.

Lawyer burnout is a huge problem that’s sadly inevitable. Make sure you do all the self-care to mitigate the impact! If that doesn’t work, guess you just can’t hack it as a lawyer. ????♀? Best regards, the Legal Profession

That’s some serious gaslighting.?

Lawyer burnout is highly preventable.

The legal profession’s flawed conclusion results from a fundamental misunderstanding—whether willful or not—of what burnout is and what causes it (spoiler: it’s not your fault).

By understanding the hallmarks of and the workplace red flags that promote burnout, you’ll be able to protect yourself from toxic employers and to advocate for the resources you need.

Keep reading to learn how you can empower yourself to avoid toxic employers and understand when you’re suffering from burnout despite your best self-care efforts.

If you’d rather watch or listen, you can view the video “How Lawyer Stress Leads to Burned Out Attorneys” by clicking here.

THE RESEARCH BEHIND ATTORNEY BURNOUT

We’re fortunate to have a growing body of research focused on burnout in the legal profession.

One of the best resources I’ve found for lawyer burnout is Paula Davis. Not only is she a workplace burnout expert, researcher and consultant, she’s also a former lawyer herself.

Because she understands what it’s like to be a burned out attorney and advises law firms on workplace well-being, I rely substantially on her book Beating Burnout at Work in writing this article.

WHAT IS LAWYER BURNOUT?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines burnout as:

“a syndrome…resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” (emphasis added)

The two most important components of burnout are:

1. It is a chronic condition. Burnout goes beyond a rough week where you are understandably worn down from working on a massive project. We’re talking about a sustained burnout campaign.
2. It is specifically limited to workplace stress. While personal stressors can exacerbate burnout symptoms, they are not the cause.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE A BURNED OUT ATTORNEY?

The research points to three criteria that accurately measure the extent to which you’re experiencing burnout.

EXHAUSTION

Not surprisingly, this component of burnout is characterized by feeling physically and emotionally drained.

Exhaustion also manifests as disengaging emotionally and cognitively from your work as a means of coping with the overwhelm and overload.

CYNICISM

You check the box for cynicism when everyone and their dog starts to bother you—colleagues, supervisors, clients. To classify them as an annoyance would be a massive understatement.

The coping mechanism at play here shows up as you distancing yourself by ignoring the unique qualities of individuals, which results in less empathy and general care.

INEFFICACY

When you have a general outlook of, “Nothing I do matters, why bother trying?” you’re squarely within burnout territory.

You end up in this headspace when you lack important resources that you need in order to do your job and do it well. In this situation, it’s nearly impossible to feel a sense of accomplishment or see any impact in your work.

If Sense of Accomplishment or Impact is one of your core values (which is common among the lawyers I work with), inefficacy feels particularly debilitating.

So…would you say you’re suffering from burnout?

You are far from alone if you answered “yes”.

You are also not the cause of your burnout.

HOW TOXIC WORKPLACES CREATE BURNED OUT LAWYERS

Burnout is caused by an imbalance between your job demands and job resources.

When demands outweigh resources, you’ve got a recipe for burnout.

This explanation is particularly helpful in understanding how to prevent burnout in the first place.

(Looking at you, legal employers)

Lawyers can’t self-care their way out of burnout when the conditions for burnout remain unchanged in their workplace.

Not only does this make sense intuitively, but I can also report anecdotally that the lawyers I work with—from associates to equity partners—are masters of self-care.

There is no amount of healthy eating, sleep hygiene, exercise, meditation, mindfulness, vacation, sabbatical, or boundary-setting* that can ward off burnout when you’re working in a toxic workplace that promotes burnout and accepts it as normal and inevitable.

*Boundaries are one of my love languages. If anything, I err on the side of setting too many boundaries. That said, when there is an asymmetry of power—as there is between management and employees—boundaries are ignored even when purposefully set. In a toxic workplace, boundaries are illusory.

ADDRESSING ATTORNEY BURNOUT BY REDUCING WORKPLACE STRESS

Before we can ask our employers to help us prevent burnout, we need to understand what job demands and job resources are. From there, we can evaluate how to achieve the proper balance between the two.

JOB DEMANDS: THE CORE 6

Paula Davis defines “job demands” as elements of your job that require your sustained effort and energy.?

She identifies The Core 6 job demands that can lead to burnout when the proper resources aren’t available.

1. Lack of autonomy
2. High workload and work pressure, especially with inadequate staffing
3. Lack of support from leaders and colleagues
4. Unfairness (lack of transparency; arbitrary decision-making; favoritism)
5. Values disconnect
6. Lack of recognition

Any of those job demands sound familiar?

JOB RESOURCES

“Job resources” provide you with the motivation and energy to meet your job demands, which translates into personal growth, learning and professional development.

Some of the most impactful job resources identified by Paula Davis are:

• High-quality relationships with colleagues
• Participation in decision-making and decision authority
• Feedback
• Autonomy and job control
• Development opportunities
• Leader support
• Recognition
• Having meaningful work; impact
• Role clarity

Looking at those resources, make a mental note of which ones would help to alleviate what are currently unreasonable and untenable demands.

What I’ve learned from working with lawyers over the past decade is that they understand how these resources would help them do their jobs and routinely request them from their employers.?

Either they’re met with silence or the played-out response, “We’ve always done it this way.”

PREVENT LAWYER BURNOUT IN YOUR NEXT JOB

If you’ve asked for any of these perfectly reasonable job resources and received little to nothing in response—you need to find a workplace that doesn’t accept burnout as an unavoidable outcome.

I get that sometimes the most difficult part of leaving your current job is that you don’t know what you want to do next, especially if you feel like your skillset is highly specialized or your practice area is too niche.

A great place to start is with my free on-demand masterclass, 3 Simple Strategies for Uncovering Any Lawyer’s Transferable Skills. You’ll learn how to identify your transferable skills and focus on the results you’ve gotten in your prior roles so that you can communicate your value to any employer—legal or otherwise.

Feel free to send me a DM if you want to learn more about how I help lawyers like you find and land jobs that won’t lead them to burnout.

Annie

P.S. You can access the original article and accompanying video at https://thejdnation.com/blog/lawyer-burnout.