Anastasia Volkova
Last month, one of your senior associates on the partnership track gave notice. Stellar performer. Partnership track. You assumed it was the usual story: a competitor poached them with a better package.
But their departure had nothing to do with money. They left because they couldn’t breathe.
And they’re not the only one counting down the days. Many of their peers are quietly making the same calculation.
The Real Problem is Culture, Not Program Awareness
Firms sponsor meditation apps and employee assistant programs (EAP). They roll out flexible working policies and invest in awareness campaigns. In fact, your associate satisfaction survey shows 78% awareness of wellbeing resources.
Yet, actual usage hovers at single digits: 4%.
If this is not a wellbeing policy problem, what is it?
Your people aren’t requesting mental health support out of ignorance or disinterest. They are not using it because they’re wary it may cost them partnership. They’ve watched colleagues get quietly moved off key clients after taking stress leave. They’ve heard partners joke about someone’s ‘mental health day.’
Lawyers perceive mental health resources as symbolic because the underlying culture hasn’t changed. The biggest barrier to seeking mental health help is still a stigma of being seen as weak, uncommitted, or unable to handle the pressure. In too many firms, the unwritten lesson is clear: stress is tolerated, but being seen to struggle is not.
This is where firms need to get radical.
You Can’t Meditate Your Way Out of a 2,000 Billable Hour Target
International trade lawyers juggling seven time zones. Family lawyers absorbing clients’ trauma while managing their own caseloads. Corporate teams are perpetually on standby for M&A deadlines that materialize at midnight.
This isn’t about resilience. It’s about basic human biology. Research shows that individual coping strategies fail when systemic pressure is relentless. Because you cannot expect people to perform at elite levels indefinitely without systematic recovery. Systemic stress eventually overwhelms even the most robust coping strategies. Sustained elite performance requires structured recovery and support, not just encouragement to “try harder”.
The Intervention that Actually Works: Make Psychological Support Mandatory
There is, however, an intervention that can transform your firm’s culture: mandatory psychological check-ins for every lawyer. Not optional. Not stigmatized. Required.
Hear me out —because firms that have implemented this are seeing measurable results. In my consulting work, I’ve observed:
– Significant retention improvements within 18 months.
– Early intervention preventing burnout-related absences that would have lasted months.
– More accurate performance reviews because lawyers had a safe outlet for work stress instead of letting it contaminate client relationships.
Firms should change the script and consider making mental health support mandatory. They could, for example, do the following:
- Allow every lawyer, at every level, to schedule confidential psychological check-ins
- Make participation in mental health programs mandatory—making support a shared experience, removing stigma
- Mental health support sessions should be treated no differently than performance reviews or practice development hours: they should be treated as part and parcel of the legal profession.
When implemented, these and other policies could drastically improve retention rates, performance and employee satisfaction within law firms. Mental health support could also serve to identify emerging burn-out in lawyers before it results in extended absence. The legal profession must create new channels for honest conversations about workloads and client demands.
Why Mandatory Changes Everything
When psychological check-ins are mandatory for everyone—from first-year to senior partners, three things happen:
1. Stigma evaporates. You’re not ‘the one with problems.’ You’re doing what everyone does, like annual reviews or CPD hours. Just like you wouldn’t skip your annual performance review, you wouldn’t skip your psychological check-in. It becomes an ordinary part of the job, not a red flag for “the struggling”.
2. Early Detection Saves Careers. By the time most lawyers seek help, they’re already in crisis. They’ve been suffering for months or years, their performance has declined, and recovery takes much longer.
Mandatory check-ins allow psychologists to spot early warning signs: disrupted sleep, irritability, detachment, perfectionism spiraling into anxiety —before it becomes a crisis that costs you a six-month absence and recruitment fees. Think of it like regular medical check-ups. You don’t wait until you’re have a heart attack to see a cardiologist. Why do we treat mental health differently?
3. You get actionable data. Imagine when three lawyers in your Asia practice all report identical stressors, that’s not individual weakness. That’s a structural issue you can fix—if you know about it.
4. People Stop Resisting. Lawyers resist seeking help because it feels like admitting failure. But when it’s required, that resistance dissolves. You’re not asking for support—you’re following firm policy. The mental barrier drops.
I’ve seen this work. At one firm I consulted with, they made quarterly CFT-based check-ins mandatory for all international lawyers. Within six months, lawyers stopped viewing these sessions as “therapy for broken people” and started treating them like strategic planning meetings for their own wellbeing.
5. It Creates a Venting Outlet. Lawyers need somewhere to process the emotional weight of their work without fear of judgment. In mandatory sessions, they can talk about:
- The client who screamed at them over a customs delay
- The guilt of missing their child’s birthday for the third time
- The fear that they’re not good enough for this career
These aren’t “performance issues”—they’re human experiences that affect performance. Having a professional, confidential space to process them prevents emotional buildup that leads to explosion or implosion.
6. Firms Can Monitor Wellbeing. Right now, most firms have a faint or no idea how their lawyers are really doing until someone breaks down, quits, or worse. Anonymous surveys help, but they’re snapshot data without follow-up.
Mandatory psychological check-ins give firms real-time data (of course, consensual, aggregated and anonymized!) about stress levels, workload impact, and emerging patterns. For example, if multiple lawyers in the Asia office are reporting severe sleep disruption, that’s actionable information. Maybe the time zone expectations are unrealistic. Maybe staffing is inadequate. Maybe a particular partner is creating a toxic environment.
You can’t fix what you can’t see.
7. It Models Leadership Commitment. When senior partners attend their own mandatory sessions and talk openly (within appropriate boundaries) about prioritizing wellbeing, it sends a powerful message: this isn’t weakness, this is professionalism.
Leadership sets culture. If partners treat psychological check-ins as valuable, associates will too.
Addressing common objections:
“We don’t have time for this.”
You don’t have time NOT to. Calculate time of losing one senior associate: recruitment, onboarding, lost client relationships, decreased team morale. Now multiply by however many lawyers are quietly suffering. 50 minutes monthly or quarterly is a bargain.
“Lawyers will resist being forced.”
Initial resistance is real. But when they experience genuine benefits—practical stress management skills, early problem-solving, actually feeling heard—adoption rates increase as mental health support becomes part of the firm’s DNA. I’ve watched this shift happen in under three months.
“How do we ensure quality?”
Partner with psychologists who specialize in high-performing professionals under systemic pressure, not with generalists.
“It’s too expensive.”
Attrition, burnout, and “quiet quitting” are far more costly. Preventive mental health support repays itself many times over.
What This Looks Like In Practice
Mandatory monthly or quarterly sessions of 50 minutes should be private, scheduled like any other professional obligation, and guarantee absolute confidentiality.
The psychologist provides aggregated, anonymized feedback to leadership: ‘Your international team is showing consistent signs of time-zone fatigue—this needs attention’ or ‘Three people mentioned the same partner’s communication style as a significant stressor.’ These reports should never identify individuals. They should merely allow leadership to spot patterns: overburden teams, problematic management, systemic stress points.
You get intelligence. Lawyers get support. Nobody gets singled out.
The Bottom Line
Mandatory psychological check-ins aren’t about treating lawyers as fragile. They’re about treating lawyers as elite performers who require comprehensive support to sustain excellence—like athletes with sports psychologists, not because they’re weak, but because peak performance requires infrastructure. Culture change will not happen with symbolic gestures or optional wellness perks. If you’re serious about retention and peak performance, build robust, mandatory support into the core of your practice.
Your associates need this. Your retention metrics need this. Your partnership pipeline needs this. And honestly? You probably need this too.
Anastasia Volkova is an HCPC-registered psychologist and CFT specialist who works with law firms to implement mandatory psychological support systems that actually work. She provides individual therapy and coaching for legal professionals, as well as consultancy for firms ready to move beyond performative wellbeing initiatives. If you’re ready for a conversation about what sustainable practice looks like at your firm, she’s ready to have it.