BY ELIZABETH RIMMER
LawCare’s Life in the Law 2025 report reveals that well-being is low, with almost a third seeing themselves leaving the legal sector altogether within the next five years. High levels of workload are commonplace and those specialising in immigration and asylum law face additional pressure from working in an increasingly hostile environment. Elizabeth Rimmer, Chief Executive of LawCare, explains the report’s findings and sets out the steps organisations must take to safeguard workplace mental health and ensure sustainable working environments.
At LawCare we exist for one reason: to support and promote mental health and well-being in the legal sector across the UK. For over 25 years we have been listening to legal professionals – lawyers, paralegals, trainees/apprentices and those working in non-legal roles – who reach out to us when they are struggling. They may be worried about a mistake they have made, feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of work, facing an investigation by the SRA or wondering if they are cut out for a career in the law.
We also undertake research. We have just released our Life in the Law 2025 report, which highlights the opportunity to build a legal sector which values its people and protects their mental health and well-being at work.
Our insights from listening to people about their day-to-day life in the law and what our research tells us reveal an uncomfortable truth: legal professionals are under strain, the work is intense, long hours are the norm, and it is hard to admit you are struggling for fear of the consequences for your career.
There is no doubt that we are living and working in an era of rapid change. The delivery of legal services and the way we work in law is undergoing a profound transformation. Flexible and hybrid working are becoming the norm, AI tools are developing exponentially, the regulatory framework and the obligations that creates are becoming more complex, and the expectations of legal professionals and clients are evolving.
The high profile of immigration on both the public and political agenda also has a direct impact on the legal professionals working in this practice area. The heated rhetoric has brought immigration lawyers into spotlight – they have been vilified, faced threats and been harassed. This takes an emotional toll, increasing stress and the risk of vicarious trauma, and can also undermine the public’s trust and confidence in immigration legal work.
And against this backdrop of change and the current political climate in the UK around immigration, is the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with the wider global geopolitical context and the undermining of the rule of law in some jurisdictions.
To ensure life in the law is sustainable, we need to understand how these changes and the current climate are impacting individuals’ mental health and well-being, and what steps workplaces can take to address this.
Life in the Law 2025 study
From January to March 2025, we asked people across the sector about working in law and about their mental health, and we also asked firms, chambers and in-house teams about the mental health support offered in their organisations. Our research sought to answer five key questions:
- How do people feel about working in the legal sector?
- How is the mental health and well-being of people in the legal sector?
- What is undermining mental health and well-being in the workplace?
- What could have a positive impact on mental health and well-being at work?
- What evidence-based steps can organisations take to improve mental health and well-being in the workplace?
How do people feel about working in the legal sector?
We asked people about their perceptions of working in the legal sector. The findings show significant numbers of people are considering changing roles or leaving the sector altogether. Recruiting people is a costly and resource intensive process, so if these findings were mirrored across the sector, this could have significant economic and reputational consequences. We asked people to explain their reasons for these responses. The pressures of work, poor work life balance and toxic working cultures were all reported.
- A majority (56.2%) said that they could see themselves leaving their current workplace within the next five years.
- Nearly a third (32.1%) could also see themselves leaving the legal sector within the next five years.
- 32.3% were ‘Not likely’ to recommend law as a career.
How is the mental health and well-being of people in the legal sector?
Our findings indicate that well-being is low across the sector, with people at high risk of burnout and many experiencing anxiety.
- Low levels of mental well-being – nearly 60% reported poor mental well-being.
- 43.4% said their mental health and well-being was very significantly influenced by work.
- At high risk of burnout (where people feel emotionally exhausted by, and disengaged in, their work).
- 50.0% said they had experienced anxiety, either often, very often or all the time, over the last 12 months.
What is undermining mental health and well-being in the legal workplace?
We asked people about work intensity, psychological safety and bullying, harassment and discrimination. We found:
- Very high levels of work intensity – over three quarters (78.8%) are working over their contracted time, with ten percent (8.5%) estimating they worked 21+ extra hours per week.
- Levels of psychological safety (how safe people feel to raise concerns, questions and ideas) fall in the lower half of the scale.
- Bullying, harassment and discrimination – nearly a fifth (19.5%) had experienced this at work in the preceding 12 months.
Who is most impacted?
We undertook further analysis to explore the relationships between individual characteristics and mental well-being, psychological safety, work intensity and burnout. We found the age group 26-35 had the lowest mental well-being and burnout scores, compared to other age ranges. Those with caring responsibilities had higher work intensity scores compared to those with no caring responsibilities. People who identified as disabled had lower mental well-being scores than those that did not. Those who identified as female had lower mental well-being scores and higher burnout scores compared to those who identified as male. We asked if peopled identified as neurodivergent and found those that did had lower mental well-being scores compared to those that did not.
These findings show that workplaces need to acknowledge and address the links between well-being and diversity, equality and inclusion.
What could have a positive impact on mental health and well-being in legal workplaces?
We ran a series of stakeholder roundtables to help us develop the survey questions. Drawing on the insights gained from these, we focussed our research questions on two factors that can have a positive impact on mental health and well-being at work: managing people and legal education.
Managers have a crucial role to play in supporting mental health at work and fostering a positive workplace culture, yet our findings indicate that they are not adequately resourced and supported.
Most people joining the sector will undergo vocational training before coming into the workplace. Responses to the questions about this legal training indicate that there is an opportunity to provide more education on well-being, leadership, communications and for training to be highly practical and reflect the realities of working in legal practice.
- Training managers – only 54.6% of those with managerial responsibilities had received training to support them in managing people.
- Valuing people management – less than a third (31.3%) said that their targets or billable hours were adjusted to take into account the time they need to spend managing others or undertaking appropriate training.
- Legal vocational education that better equips people with the skills and knowledge needed for a sustainable legal career
What evidence-based steps can organisations take to improve mental health and well-being in the legal workplace?
Many organisations have taken positive steps to support mental health at work; most of these efforts focus on raising awareness or reacting to concerns once they have arisen. The next step now is to widen the approach to prevention, by moving beyond reactive support and embedding preventative measures and workplace practices that protect mental health. The evidence from our report shows that despite increased activity and growing awareness, which is encouraging, we are not seeing any real change. We have identified five evidenced-based recommendations that could improve mental health and well-being in the workplace:
- Actively manage workloads – Excessive work intensity harms well-being and mental health, so leaders must tackle root causes by managing workloads, rethinking targets and incentives, and challenging the culture of long hours.
- Prioritise and value managing people – Legal workplaces should give people managers enough time, targeted training, and ongoing support, and recognise management as a critical skill. Senior lawyers should not be assumed to be good managers without proper development.
- Embed hybrid and flexible working options – These ways of working support well-being and inclusion, but to work well they must be designed with care, balancing benefits with challenges like isolation, and shaped through open dialogue and collaboration.
- Evaluate programmes and activities that support mental health and well-being at work – Legal workplaces should regularly assess whether their mental health and well-being programmes are working, analyse and learn from the results, and make any necessary improvements and adjustments.
- Legal education and training should equip people joining the sector with the skills and knowledge they need for a sustainable legal career.
The particular importance of people management
Although we do not have any specific findings from our study in relation to immigration practitioners, people management should be a key priority for all immigration firms.
Supportive managers are consistently associated with better mental health outcomes in employees. Managers have a direct and powerful impact on workplace culture, as this is shaped by how people are manged, supported and developed. Effective people management:
- builds trust and psychological safety
- boosts motivation and belonging
- helps identify and mitigate risks that could lead to complaints or claims
- can deal with problems, mistakes or pressures of work before they become serious, provide a space to check in about mental health, and support retention.
It is important that firms equip those who manage others with training and support. It is critical that managers have the time to meet their management responsibilities and should not be expected to undertake this on top of a full case load. Their management responsibilities should be recognised in annual appraisals and performance indicators too.
A Call to Action
It is clear from our findings that the pressures of legal practice have a significant negative impact on mental health and well-being. However, it is also clear that there are number of evidence-based practical steps that can be taken to address this.
The priority now is strong leadership and decisive action to embed practices that support and protect mental health and well-being into everyday legal work. The recommendations of our report call on leaders to take responsibility and make mental health and well-being a core part of the business of law.
Taking this action will safeguard workplace mental health and ensure sustainable working environments.
If you need support
We know it can be hard to reach out for help if you are struggling when you are experiencing a difficult time. LawCare’s support service is confidential, so you don’t need to worry that your employer is going to find out that you contacted us. We won’t ask for details of your workplace, and you don’t need to give us your name. We are here to support everyone in the sector from students to those nearing retirement. All our volunteers and staff have worked in the law and understand the particular pressures of working in the legal sector. We know from the people who do contact us, how much better they feel after just one conversation.
If you’re struggling, you are not alone. Call us on 0800 279 6888, email support@lawcare.org.uk, or chat with us online at www.lawcare.org.uk. There are also numerous resources and further information on our website.
Elizabeth Rimmer has been Chief Executive of LawCare since 2014. She started her working life as a solicitor specialising in clinical negligence, and has been managing and developing charities in the mental health sector for over 15 years.
ILPA invites members and other leading experts to contribute articles to its monthly blog. The views expressed in all blog posts are the authors’ own and are not necessarily those of ILPA.
ILPA Well-being
ILPA runs a Well-being Working Group for members which meets on a regular basis. It was established in 2018 to raise awareness about mental health and well-being in the immigration sector, and aims to cultivate a culture amongst immigration practitioners where well-being is discussed openly and not stigmatised. It also seeks to ensure that all immigration practitioners know where to access help if needed, and works collectively to create cultural and systemic change within the sector by facilitating workshops, training and conferences on the topics of mental health, well-being and vicarious trauma. You can find a range of resources on the well-being hub.
- Document Date
- Friday October 10, 2025