Anastasia Volkova
Why the best firms are rethinking lawyer wellbeing as a strategic imperative
You’ve built a successful practice. Your firm has a strong reputation, loyal clients, and a track record of excellent work. You’ve invested significantly in recruiting talented lawyers who are bright, driven, and genuinely committed to their clients.
Yet despite your best efforts, you’re watching experienced solicitors leave. Some move in-house. Others retrain entirely. A few simply burn out and disappear from the profession. Each departure represents not just recruitment costs, but lost institutional knowledge, disrupted client relationships, and months of reduced productivity while new hires get up to speed.
If you’re reading this, you probably already sense something needs to change. You’ve likely implemented wellbeing initiatives – perhaps an Employee Assistance Programme, a mental health policy, or occasional wellness events. But you’re wondering why these well-intentioned efforts haven’t moved the needle.
I’m a psychologist who works with legal professionals, and I’d like to share a different perspective on what might actually help.
The Business Case Is Clearer Than Ever
The financial impact of lawyer turnover is substantial, though it often goes untracked. Consider what each departure actually costs:
• Recruitment and onboarding: £15,000-£30,000 per solicitor
• Productivity gap: 6-12 months until new hires reach full competency
• Lost institutional knowledge and client relationships
• Increased risk of errors when teams are stretched thin
• Reputational impact in a market where word travels fast
But beyond the financial metrics, there’s a deeper question worth considering: are we inadvertently creating an environment where talented lawyers can’t sustain their careers long-term?
Why Traditional Wellbeing Initiatives Often Fall Short
Many firms have made genuine efforts to support lawyer wellbeing. The challenge is that conventional approaches often treat mental health as an individual issue rather than a systemic one.
The typical wellbeing programme offers resources for lawyers to use when they’re struggling – an EAP, access to counselling, perhaps stress management workshops. These are valuable, but they have limitations.
They place the burden entirely on the individual to recognise they need help and seek it out, often at the point when they’re least able to do so. They don’t address the underlying structural factors that contribute to psychological strain in the first place. They can inadvertently reinforce the message that struggling is a personal failing rather than a predictable response to challenging work.
It’s rather like providing excellent emergency medical services while not addressing the workplace hazards causing the injuries. Both are needed, but prevention is more effective than treatment alone.
A Different Approach: Building Wellbeing Into Practice Structure
Some forward-thinking firms are taking a different path. Rather than treating wellbeing as an optional extra, they’re integrating psychological support into the fundamental structure of legal practice.
What this actually looks like:
Proactive psychological support
Rather than waiting for crisis points, firms provide regular, scheduled supervision sessions with psychologists – similar to how peer review or continuing professional development is structured. This normalizes psychological support as part of professional practice, not a sign of weakness.
Case debriefing as standard practice
Facilitated sessions where lawyers can discuss the emotional impact of difficult cases, not just the legal strategy. This is particularly valuable for those handling trauma-informed work, family law, criminal defense, or other emotionally demanding areas.
Structural boundaries that actually work
Moving beyond stated policies to genuine operational changes: realistic email response expectations, protected time for non-billable work, and systems that ensure workload coverage so lawyers can actually disconnect during leave.
Training in psychological skills
Professional development that includes trauma-informed practice, emotional regulation techniques, and ethical decision-making support – the skills law school doesn’t teach but that lawyers desperately need.
Leadership that models vulnerability
When senior partners openly discuss their own challenges and how they manage them, it gives permission for others to do the same. This is perhaps the most powerful intervention of all.
Addressing the Practical Concerns
I understand the immediate questions this raises. How do we fund this? How do we measure ROI? How do we implement changes without disrupting client service?
These are legitimate concerns. In my experience working with firms, the most successful approaches start modestly – implementing one meaningful change properly rather than attempting a complete overhaul. Often this begins with a pilot programme in one department or practice area.
As for cost, it’s worth comparing the investment in preventive support against what you’re currently spending on recruitment, reduced productivity, sick leave, quiet quitting and risk management. Most firms find that systematic wellbeing support is cost-neutral or cost-positive within 18-24 months, before accounting for the less quantifiable benefits: better client outcomes, easier recruitment, and reduced reputational risk.
Recent research indicates that lawyer wellbeing has a measurable impact on case outcomes, client satisfaction, and professional liability claims. From a purely business perspective, this is becoming difficult to ignore.
The Regulatory Landscape Is Shifting
It’s also worth noting that regulators are paying increasing attention to workplace wellbeing. The Solicitors Regulation Authority and Law Society have both signaled that firm-level responsibility for lawyer wellbeing will be an area of focus. Early movers will be better positioned than those waiting for mandatory requirements.
Moving Forward
If this resonates with your experience, I’d encourage you to consider whether your current approach to lawyer wellbeing is achieving what you’d hoped. The question isn’t whether your lawyers are experiencing psychological strain – in demanding practice areas, some level of stress is inevitable. The question is whether your firm has the structures in place to make that strain sustainable rather than destructive.
The firms that get this right don’t just retain more lawyers, they build more sustainable practices that deliver better outcomes for clients while creating careers that talented solicitors can maintain over the long term. That’s not just good for your lawyers. It’s good for your business.
Research Survey: Wellbeing in Law
I’m currently conducting research into how legal professionals experience mental wellbeing in their work. Whether you’re a Partner, Senior Associate, Solicitor, or work law leadership, your anonymous insights are valuable. The survey takes under 2 minutes. Contribute here