Lawyers do not get sick. They do not get stressed out. They do not become drug addicts or alcoholics. Lawyers are not affected by depression and anxiety, nor do they have financial problems or troubled relationships.
At least that’s the front they put on.
The pressure on lawyers, both in-house and in private practice, to constantly perform at an exceptionally high standard, to not make mistakes, and certainly to not admit them, creates a culture of secrecy in the legal profession about the struggles of life that others often talk about freely.
It’s a culture that goes from the courtroom to the boardroom, which forces in-house lawyers and those in private practice alike to wonder why they’re the only ones coping with money troubles, relationships, aging parents, and raising kids. The result is often a soul-searching journey to find the holy grail of the new millennium — the “work-life balance.”
The pursuit of this elusive prize has taken many lawyers from private practice to in-house positions. The perception that going in-house offers a less demanding professional life — no billable hours, unreasonable clients, or managing partners — is often just that: perception.
On the surface, the hours are regular and the work is always there. But the experts say the pressures are very much the same whether you’re a Bay Streeter, a sole practitioner, or in-house counsel, and achieving work-life balance is always challenging.
“I have not found any measurable difference in terms of the impact of lawyers’ struggles on their lives, whether they’re in-house counsel, in private practice, in legal publishing, or researchers,” says Doron Gold, a case manager with the Ontario Lawyers’ Assistance Program.
He says that billable hours are just one issue that lawyers deal with, eliminating them by taking an in-house position removes only one stressor among many.
OLAP is a confidential provincial program, for judges, lawyers, law students, and their immediate family, that provides professional counselling, peer support, assessment, and referrals to specialized programs and centres. “We sometimes like to think that lawyers can keep it together in a way that others can’t, and it’s not true. They just hold it in tighter.”
As a former family law lawyer and civil litigator, Gold says he left the practice of law after 10 years because he wanted to be involved in something that would lift people up, rather than tear them down.
On average, he says, OLAP can get from 10 to 30 new clients in a week, with issues ranging from drug, sex, and gambling addictions to people coping with poisonous work environments, marital issues, financial crises, anxiety and depression.
He says the notion of “work-life balance” is often a ridiculed term, a quaint thought where counsel don’t have to be responsible for billable hours or final decisions. “Many people think it’s about paying your dues, and people in the legal profession are willing to put up with a lot of garbage for the sake of what they think is career advancement,” he says.
