According to the 2024 Lawyer Satisfaction Survey — which marks Law360 Canada’s second deep dive into the feelings and thoughts that legal professionals have about their jobs — 90 per cent said they feel stressed at least some of the time, with nearly half of that group — 42 per cent of the overall sample — reporting feeling stressed most or all of the time.
Ellen Low of Toronto’s Ellen Low & Co. Employment Law said law continues to be a really challenging profession — not only in terms of technical challenges but also min anaging client expectations and trying to stay competitive.
“And I’ve noticed — particularly in the employment law bar — a proliferation of very small and or independent practitioners lately, and I find that when I speak with them some are quite stressed out because they don’t have a sort of formal mentorship, and so they don’t really have any way to speak to when things go sideways or when they’re dealing with really difficult, often opposing, counsel who works at an enormous law firm and his client has very deep pockets,” she said. “I find an impact can also be very stressful in terms of sort of staffing the file appropriately, and then delegating resources where they ought to be provided.”
And nearly half of respondents — 46 per cent — report their work-life balance has stayed the same over the past year. Thirty per cent said it had gotten worse, and a quarter said it had improved, with no substantial variation across rank, gender or firm size.
Robert de Toni, director of student and associate professional resources at Siskinds LLP, said he was called to the bar in 1996 and how the profession can help lawyers cope with stress “is a question that’s been asked as far back as that — and probably even before that as well.”
“I don’t know ultimately what the answer to that question is, but this profession does cause a lot of stress and burnout,” he said. “There’s no magical solution to this, but it is kind of burned into the culture, these expectations around working a lot. But as individuals, we have to take care of ourselves — we have to make sure we have practice in place to help us deal with the stress because the stress of practising law is just always going to be there.”
Brook Greenberg of Fasken LLP in Vancouver said it doesn’t surprise him that lawyers are feeling stress as part of their jobs.
“Evidence has shown there are high levels of stress and other mental health and substance use issues across all kinds of jurisdictions and practices, and those who have traditionally been underrepresented or discriminated against within the profession experience those things at even higher levels,” said Greenberg, who also serves as first vice-president of the Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC). “So, there’s a real intersectional and compounding aspect to the stressors in the legal profession, and it’s something that we all have to be very mindful of.”
Low said she “wished she had an answer” on how to solve stress issues in the profession, but offered some suggestions — one was developing a group of people who you do not work with but can reach out with on a very high level, without breaching confidentiality, to ask questions about how certain situations could be handled.
“And another is going to things in person if you can do so — I’ve spoken in a couple of different conferences this year and in all of them, the majority were tuning in online,” she said. “And that’s great, but connecting within the bar and getting to know other people expands your ability to ask those people questions and get some feedback.”
But Greenberg — who emphasized that he was speaking for himself, not his firm or the law society — said there was a silver lining in that people are talking more about stress issues and in a more evidence-based way.
“And I think people are now more open to seeking support and talking about how we can support each other,” he said.
The results of this survey are a combination of versions in English and French, which collected 256 and 27 answers, respectively, from July 19 to Sept. 2. Fifty-two per cent of respondents identified as men, 45 per cent as women and three per cent did not disclose their gender. Seventy-three per cent identified as white, 10 per cent chose not to disclose their race and seven per cent identified as other. Sixteen per cent of the respondents also selected one of the following six categories: South Asian (five per cent), Chinese (four per cent), Arab (two per cent), Indigenous (two per cent), Black (two per cent) and West Asian (one per cent).
Thirty-nine per cent of respondents were from Ontario, 22 per cent from British Columbia, 16 per cent from Alberta, 11 per cent from Quebec, five per cent from the Atlantic Provinces, four per cent from Manitoba, three per cent from Saskatchewan and one per cent from the Territories.
Graphics by Jason Mallory