The legal field has historically glorified gruelling work hours, but the times they are a’ changin. With some 92% of lawyers experiencing high stress levels or burnout, the conversation around what is expected of legal workers is beginning to change — and the firms that prioritise the working experience may just find that they give themselves a significant competitive advantage in an age when attracting and retaining top talent is more important than ever.
What’s more, supporting legal employees doesn’t require that the wheel be reinvented. Even making a few minor shifts can have a noticeable impact on workloads and stress levels. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at how leading law firms ensure that their employees are well looked after — and in a position to deliver their best work.
They Set Limits
As we said above, long work hours have long been the norm in the legal industry, but that doesn’t mean that they should be. Not only do gruelling working schedules significantly increase the risk of stress and burnout, but they can also negatively impact outcomes. Legal professionals simply don’t work to their highest level if they’re constantly feeling on the brink.
Leading firms provide staff with the space they need to rest and recuperate outside of work, often having policies that say employees aren’t to be contacted except in genuine emergencies. That, plus encouraging staff to use their PTO, can go a long way towards ensuring staff members feel that the firm has their best interests at heart.
They Make Document Review Easier to Manage
Document review can be highly repetitive and monotonous. With that said, it’s also highly important. Those three characteristics can cause stress levels to rise, since a team member has to navigate the complexity of managing their morale while also ensuring that they do an accurate job.
Leading law firms support their employees by making document review easier to manage. There’s software that supports eDiscovery for Law Firms by making the task a lot more straightforward, dramatically speeding up the process while also ensuring that no details are missed. For many legal employees, document review is their biggest morale-killer, and that’s why the best law firms ensure they do what they can to make the job easier.
They Ask Staff What They Need
Asking staff what they need supports them in two ways. First, it can just provide the tools or resources they need to work at their highest level. Second, it demonstrates that the law firm genuinely cares about the employees’ experience — and that can go a long way towards making them feel supported.
They Support Career Development
The best talent is ambitious — and if they’re not working for a law firm that provides the environment in which those ambitions can be met, then they’ll be much more likely to seek out opportunities at law firms that will support their development. In addition, providing learning opportunities and mentorship programs can go a long way towards making the employee feel supported and that the firm has an interest in their success.
