Biglaw

Overwhelming Majority Of Biglaw Staff Members Say Their Mental Health Needs Aren't Being Addressed

It's time for Biglaw to pay attention to the elephant in the room.

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Professional staff members at Biglaw firms are under a lot of stress and pressure to perform their jobs well, but it seems as though all of the recent attention that’s been paid to mental health in the legal profession is being afforded only to associates and partners. The results of a new survey by fSquared Marketing, a Canadian legal consulting firm, seem to confirm that this is how law firm staff members — legal marketers especially — feel about the situation.

The survey polled 200 law firm staff members, comprised of legal marketers and business professionals, 72 percent of whom worked in the U.S., with the remaining 24 percent in Canada and 4 percent in other countries.

The American Lawyer has the details on the results:

More than 75 percent of legal marketers agreed with the statement that they “often feel overwhelmed at work.” And it wasn’t about compensation or hours worked: More than 70 percent of respondents felt they are compensated appropriately. Much of the stress, they said, stems from the feeling that attorneys do not understand or respect their work.

Half of the respondents strongly agreed with the statement that attorneys lack respect for their role, while 74 percent of business professionals felt that lawyers do no understand their role in the firm. …

Only 9 percent of respondents agreed that there is a focus on the mental well-being of “non-lawyers,” and 71 percent said their law firm does not provide formal support related to stress management and mindfulness.

“It’s difficult to convey the stress to attorneys of what we do. To try and convey how many balls we are juggling sounds defensive and lame, so we suck it up and consequently [have] stress,” said one respondent. “I think mental health is an issue like many others in law firms: if there’s any attention paid to it, it’s as it relates to attorneys — not staff,” said another.

This is extremely disheartening news. We certainly hope that Biglaw firms will quickly address this elephant in the room that is their unhappy ranks of their staff members. These are the people who make sure law firms run efficiently, and it’s high time proper attention is paid to their needs.

Stressed Out: Law Firm Staff Say Their Mental Health Is Being Ignored, Survey Finds [American Lawyer]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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