Lawyers who work long hours face a 67 per cent higher risk of heart disease

By Aaron Ross, CEO, FirstCare

University College London (UCL) recently published the results of an 11-year study which shows that people who work an 11-hour day, compared to those who work seven or eight hours, increase their risk of heart disease by 67 per cent.

This is not the first study to yield worrying results. UCL previously showed that people with heavy workloads are 68 per cent more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease than those in less stressful positions. The Fukuoka Heart Study Group also found that working over 60 hours a week can double the chances of heart attack for those who are 40 plus. These studies should act as a wake-up call for law firms.

LawCare, a charity that supports lawyers with work-related health problems, says three in four calls to their helpline are from lawyers who are under extreme amounts of stress. The charity also reports excessive levels of alcohol consumption among young law firm trainees. In addition, Alcohol Concern states that the death rate from liver cirrhosis is double the national average among lawyers.

Law firms are not moral guardians for their staff, who are all capable of making their own decisions. However, there is a legal obligation in the UK for employers to have a strategy for tackling workplace stress. This has been developed with the understanding that unhappy, exhausted workers are unable to work at maximum productivity, which ultimately impacts on the bottom line.

Lawyers will always be in demanding roles, but firms can address the health impact of long hours. Offering counselling, employee assistance programmes or information resources are a good basis for any strategy. Employers should also try to minimise long working days, balance working patterns and reward staff in a way that helps restore them to health.

Facing the problem

It’s important to identify the cause of long hours and stress in law firms.

• Too much to do – this is probably the most relevant to law firms. When a big case or matter comes in, there may simply be more work to do than can be reasonably done in the necessary time period. This can be a serious problem for junior staff, who have less say over their work.

Unfortunately, this is the hardest problem to counteract. The most straightforward answer is to hire more staff or obtain temporary assistance.

Firms have a responsibility to ensure staff are not exploited. Would flexible working hours or home working make a difference? Can you change some antiquated processes or could the work be spread more evenly across the organisation?

• Firm culture – managers often judge people on how long they stay instead of how efficient they are. If practice heads are guilty of this, communicate the downfall of the approach and simply demand that it stops.

You may need to explain that this will not create a clock-watching culture – staying late for projects is not normally a concern for staff, but staying late unnecessarily or constantly is unfair, unhealthy and short-sighted.

• Poorly organised management – some firms are just badly organised. If you promote someone to manage staff, consider their aptitude for it. If they lack the necessary abilities, consider sending them on a management course.

• Bad time management – legal practitioners should be excellent at time management and as organised as possible in order to deal with the reactive nature of a client-facing industry.

• Workaholics – there is no doubt that many lawyers are passionate and dedicated, but not everyone else will want to work a workaholic’s hours. It is not good for their health and may be unnecessary.

Keep an eye out for workaholics and consider if outside professional assistance would help.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to address long working hours, but it is certainly something which should not continue as an accepted necessity of the legal industry.

The old adage of hard work never killing anyone is swiftly becoming the words of the unwise rather than the pragmatic businessperson.