In-House Counsel

Why Quiet Quitting Is Simply A Signal That Workplace Burnout Is Real

For many lawyers in law firms, the rat race of the billable hour often precludes that hard stop from the workday. 

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Sad Patient Visiting Doctor. Young Woman With Stress Or BurnoutIf you’ve ever felt as though you’re on autopilot just struggling to get to Friday or agree there’s more to life than clocking in those billable hours on the weekends to impress the managing partner, you might empathize with the viral TikTok trend about quiet quitting.

Yet, quiet quitting isn’t about wanting to work at a below-average pace just to collect a paycheck. It’s a bigger dilemma faced by professionals across all career levels and industries, even in the legal profession. It’s when you become mentally checked out from work because you yearn for that work-life balance. But, for many lawyers in law firms, the rat race of the billable hour often precludes that hard stop from the workday.

Over the past two-plus years, there’s been a surge of lawyers in Biglaw making an exodus from brand-name firms in lieu of career happiness — ceasing those 80- to 100-hour work weeks, giving up the weekend facetime office visits, and attempting to find balance within their personal lives. Are they part of the quiet quitting culture? No, quiet quitting has simply become a coping mechanism, not a true reflection of a person’s ambition or aptitude. It’s about intentionally choosing to reduce tension, anxiety, and depression.

Every week, my LinkedIn and email inbox are filled with a range of messages — younger lawyers seeking ideas on how to transition out of law, midlevel and senior lawyers asking if it’s too late to make a change in their career, and executive-level lawyers wanting a major shift in their final years of practice before they seek a paid board seat. The common theme: workplace burnout and a desire to create more balance (i.e., find that career happiness).

COVID-19 has changed us. It’s caused us to re-evaluate our lives and re-evaluate our work. Boundaries became fuzzy and unclear as workdays blended into worknights while many professionals juggled parenting with full-time careers. The Great Resignation prompted a change for lawyers (and other professionals) who felt trapped by the money or the prestige of working for a big firm or brand company.

I’ve lost track of the number of senior executive leaders and lawyers who have contacted me in the past two years to overhaul their resume and LinkedIn profile because of the reasons mentioned above.

In fact, I worked more in 2020 and 2021 than I ever did previously to help clients make sweeping career changes. Guess what happened? I reached my own burnout. I had raging fatigue.

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So, I took action and set firm boundaries for my own sanity. That meant turning off my computer on the weekends (and not responding to any emails until Monday morning), initiating hard stops in my workday so I could mentally decompress, attending doctor’s appointments (instead of postponing them) to prioritize my health, ceasing to eat lunch at my desk just to send those extra emails, and creating more gaps in my calendar to spread out work rather than overextend myself.

However, all those actions stemmed from prior conditioning as a lawyer for 12 years — sleeping with my BlackBerry next to me in 2010 when I worked for a partner who bragged about her all-nighters and expected you to do the same, the associate who reported to the partner as to whose car was parked in the garage at 7:30 p.m., and the partner who expected you to work through lunch because he did as well. It’s hard to unlearn that behavior.

The result of my actions: I continued to perform at a high level for my clients but reduced my own tension and anxiety about obsessively overachieving.

Whether you’re mentally checked out from work, tired of chasing the “hustle” mentality, or seeking a transition into a new role that personally fulfills you, quiet quitting is merely a term that means refocusing your energy on what’s important to you — and yes, maybe that’s trading a higher salary or brand recognition for personal and professional fulfillment. Or maybe, quiet quitting is a wake-up call for law firms and Corporate America to understand that overworked doesn’t equate to true success in the workplace.

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Wendi Weiner is an attorney, career expert, and founder of The Writing Guru, an award-winning executive resume writing services company. Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, executives, and C-suite/Board leaders for their job search and digital footprint. She also writes for major publications about alternative careers for lawyers, personal branding, LinkedIn storytelling, career strategy, and the job search process. You can reach her by email at wendi@writingguru.net, connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @thewritingguru.  

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