Survey reveals 4% of solicitors facing severe stress without knowing where to seek help

Earlier this year, the Journal surveyed the profession on employment and salary. The 1,888 solicitors from across Scotland who responded provided a clear guide about the landscape of Scottish law. Most were women and, encouragingly, most were happy with their roles (68% overall, 65% women). But some responses conveyed a bleaker yet still crucial and sometimes overlooked reality of life in the legal lane.

How solicitors feel at work goes well beyond how much income they’re bringing home. Instead, issues like morale, workload and workplace culture also break away from the barrier of the workplace and feed into personal lives, weekends and wider worries.

In our first feature, the Journal dug into the numbers behind workplace happiness. Here, however, we turn to burnout and stress. They’re major considerations, not just afterthoughts in the world of work – and, sadly, experienced by many who work in Scottish law.

Respondents acknowledge that working in law is a stressful pursuit – just 10% claim they don’t experience stress in their current role. More encouragingly, most can tolerate their environment, with 47% suggesting that stress levels are ‘manageable’.

But 4% report being stressed without knowing who to turn to for help, 16% are receiving support from their employer and 8% have sought assistance outside of work. Solicitors mark highest on the stress score (54%), followed by paralegals at 49%, yet both would mostly still become a lawyer all over again (66% and 59% respectively).

Formal focus

The country’s leading law firms are increasingly recognising the impact of health and wellbeing, which stress management comes under. So much so, Brodies LLP dedicates resources to the cause, from a wellbeing portal to agile working arrangements.

Emma Newlands [Editor's note — this Emma Newlands is not the writer involved in our series], its senior health and wellbeing manager, tells the Journal: “It’s encouraging to see stress and its impact reported alongside broader workplace sentiment, as it helps to build a more accurate picture of what the legal sector is experiencing.

“There’s been significant improvement in discussions around mental wellbeing, yet underreporting can remain a challenge where stigma still surrounds speaking openly and seeking support.

“The perception of stress being manageable should be accompanied by strong cultures of psychological safety where people feel supported by colleagues and the wider firm environment. At Brodies, we believe fostering this kind of culture requires visible leadership, ongoing conversations and accessible pathways for support. Continued measurement and genuine action are crucial to creating a healthier and more sustainable legal profession.”

Elsewhere at Brodies LLP, trainee Nakita Kaur reflects on the survey’s findings around pay and gender. For instance, 71% of men have received some sort of pay rise in the past 12 months compared to just 66% of women, and 51% of men are satisfied with their earnings, which drops to 47% for women. Forty-seven per cent of men are entitled to a bonus but just 44% of women, meaning women only score more highly on unsatisfaction – 33% compared to 26% of men.

Nakita’s initial reaction to these statistics was that the differences aren’t as stark as they might have been, but she adds: “That said, I do think the wider conversation around stress, burnout and morale in Scots law goes beyond pay rises, bonuses or formal progression opportunities. In my view, a lot of the issue comes down to the traditional model of legal work, particularly in private practice, which can still feel built around long hours, constant availability, productivity, output and time recording.

“I think that model can make it difficult for people who want a balanced family life, or who don’t want work to take up the best hours of every day. The profession often talks about wellbeing and flexibility, but I’m not sure the underlying structure has changed enough to make legal careers feel genuinely sustainable for everyone long-term.”

For Nakita, the question isn’t simply whether people are satisfied at a particular point in time but if the profession is designed in a way that allows people to build a career while also leading meaningful lives outside work: “I think that’s where stress and burnout can build, especially for those who feel they’re constantly trying to meet expectations that were created around an older-school way of working. I’m planning on a break from the legal profession after my traineeship ends in August.”

Changing face

The human rights-focused JustRight Scotland reflects on the impact of traditional career paths shifting – and the positives and negatives that accompany this.

“For those within a legal charity, this evolution brings added complexity to an already pressured environment. The sector faces multiple challenges: rising operational costs, the impact of AI in legal practice, increasing bureaucracy and tightening boundaries around what publicly funded legal work can realistically deliver. Across Scotland, but especially outside the central belt and in specialist areas of law with limited capacity but rising demand, securing civil legal aid representation is increasingly difficult,” explains its solicitor Laura Nairn.

“For a legal centre supporting the most vulnerable communities, pressures are compounded. The funding landscape is shrinking, legal aid systems remain bureaucratic and the cost-of-living crisis is intensifying demand while reducing available resources. These factors shape both service delivery and the lived experience of solicitors. This job is rewarding and I feel grateful but understand that working in this field can be particularly challenging.”

Top-down

Lesley Larg, managing partner of Thorntons, adds: “The research is a useful reminder that stress in the legal profession is widespread and, for some, genuinely difficult to manage. Positively, for most it’s manageable, but the 4% who are struggling without any sense of where to turn is the figure that stands out. That’s a small percentage on paper but a significant number of people in practice, and it’s always worth the profession reflecting on why that is and what can realistically be done about it.

“At Thorntons, we try to ensure conversations about wellbeing are normal, not exceptional. That means clear expectations, genuine flexibility and managers who are attentive to how their teams are doing. It’s not a complicated formula, but it does require sustained commitment from leadership to make it stick. It’s also important that firms consider what support looks like at every stage, not only at the point of entry.”

Ravinder Panesar, who heads wellbeing and engagement at the Law Society of Scotland, reflects on the elements revealing why those in-house seem happiest and least stressed. This is even though stress increases again at partner and director level, although those role-holders are most content with their remuneration.

She says: “These results highlight that long working hours and their impact on wellbeing remain a significant challenge for the profession. While salary is still a key driver of job satisfaction, work-life balance and workplace culture are increasingly important for satisfaction and retention. The statistics support the need to prioritise wellbeing and sustainable working practices, at all stages and levels.”

Early days

Emma Donald recently started an LLB in Edinburgh and compares her studies to a previous internship at Brodies LLP. During a stressful first year, she noticed mental health support felt stronger there than at university, despite law students’ burnout being well-documented.

However, she thinks encouragement in the system, often from other women from a range of backgrounds, is a key way of overcoming this.

Her course-mate Erin Macdonald is one such supporter, gaining great satisfaction from volunteering at Edinburgh Napier Law Clinic, providing free clarification and signposting. It’s this helping of people that led Erin to law – but she expects to encounter barriers, noting female employees often lack their male colleagues’ workplace incentives, such as better pay rises, promotions and bonuses, and are likelier to consider leaving.

“Burnout and stress are factors I consider as I explore my options. Even as a student, I see the attitude that high workload is simply characteristic of the profession, and law is time-consuming and expensive even before workplace culture stresses, which can be daunting. But it’s some solace that I know law firms promote positive mental health outcomes for employees,” explains Erin.

Back at JustRight Scotland, Laura agrees: “Most in the legal charity sector are motivated by desiring to help others so unsurprisingly tend to overwork and struggle to say no, especially when no other service can support. I’m still early-career, learning to navigate this, but working somewhere that these challenges, with understanding colleagues, makes a huge difference.

“Most of my supervisors and managers have been women, often balancing personal or caring responsibilities with senior roles. Women often feel the need to prove themselves, and I’ve observed them find themselves facing or tolerating unprofessional behaviour from colleagues and clients more than male counterparts.

“Speaking with colleagues questioning traditional workplace norms has been enlightening. It’s heartening to see increasing recognition of issues such as impostor syndrome. Visibility is crucial, but there’s still a long way to go.”

It’s clear that for experienced partners, or the newest members of the Scottish legal profession who haven’t even fully stepped into it yet, some things have to change as we head closer and closer to a new decade.

Yes, things have probably improved since the last one – with the Covid-19 pandemic at the start of the 2020s forcing us all to embrace more flexibility – but, as law continues to evolve, its ways of working and looking after its practitioners’ wellbeing must do the same.