Law Isn’t Breaking Lawyers—the Culture Around It Is

By Elisabeth Folk

The pressure to hit billable targets. The anxiety of never having “enough time.” The constant teeter-totter between work and life. All of it is taking a toll on lawyers’ mental health.

The truth is most lawyers like the substance of their work. What wears them down is the culture around it. As the saying goes: people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. And in law, that often means they leave environments that prize hours and output over humanity and health.

The Teeter-Totter of Work and Life in Law

Everywhere we look right now, we see stories about the toll work is taking on people’s mental health. The theme is the same: many of us are struggling to balance what we give to our work with what we have left to give to our lives outside of it.

For lawyers, this tension is especially sharp. We’ve all realized there’s no such thing as perfect balance—sometimes you’re riding high, steady and fulfilled, and other times you’re dragged down by the weight of deadlines, billable hours, and client demands.

Add to that the performance anxiety of meeting hourly targets, and you have the perfect storm of dissatisfaction and disconnection.

Why Culture Matters

The irony is that lawyers don’t leave because they’ve lost interest in practicing law. They leave because of poor management, unsustainable expectations, or workplace conditions that leadership tolerates—or even encourages.

Workplace culture is the difference-maker. The more empathetic and caring an employer can be, the more their people will give in return.

As my colleague Rebecca recently put it, “caring for time is a way of caring for people.” That resonates deeply. Time is the resource lawyers tell us they never have enough of. And yet, time is what protects their health, their relationships, and ultimately their ability to do the very work firms rely on.

When work consumes lawyers to the point of breaking them down physically and mentally, nobody wins—not the individual, not their clients, and not the firm. But when culture shifts—when leaders choose to honour time and create space for people to breathe—the entire profession has the chance to thrive.

How SGI Helps

At SGI, this is exactly why we do the work we do. We know that lawyers don’t need more pressure—they need better tools, stronger habits, and workplaces that recognize their humanity as much as their productivity.

Through one-on-one coaching, group programs like Know :: Be :: Do ::, operations support, and leadership forums for firm leaders, we help lawyers and law firms create practices that are not only successful but sustainable. Because when you care for time, culture, and people, you create the conditions for everyone to thrive.