It was a bad week for Big Law.
OK—I’m sure large law firms are happy to be raking in record revenue and profits, but for those that want to continue to attract and retain top talent, recent events highlight why so many of the best and the brightest are turned off by the industry.
Its culture is toxic.
The week started with news that an inquest conducted in the wake of the death last fall of law firm partner Vanessa Ford had experienced “an acute mental health crisis” before “taking her own life.”
Ford, who was known professionally as Vanessa Heap, was by all appearances a great success. She had achieved Big Law’s biggest prize—equity partnership at a well-regarded firm. She had recently completed a high-profile deal in which she played a key role. And unlike so many of the women lawyers of earlier generations, she had earned the coveted position of partner, a pinnacle of achievement in the legal community, while married with children.
But there’s the rub. Ford experienced “intense guilt” over missing family time as work on the deal intensified, according to the inquest, which added that she had been unable to spend time in the evening with her two young sons. This woman, who was described as “good at everything,” didn’t feel good enough. We don’t know what Ford was thinking in her last hours, but we know that the cult of perfectionism is pervasive among the high-achievers who rise to the top in Big Law, and they often believe anything short of perfectionism in their own lives is tantamount to failure.
The inquest findings went viral on social media, sparking intense discussion about the U.K.’s corporate culture. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time such conversations have taken place, nor will it be the last.
The essay “Big Law Killed My Husband,” written by Joanna Litt in 2018 about the suicide of her husband, also a law firm partner, created such fervor that Law.com dedicated a year to publishing scores of stories, commentary and podcasts examining mental health across every sector of the legal profession.
Recommendations from a 2022 groundbreaking Canadian study on mental health in the legal profession that included gut-wrenching stories from lawyers across the profession highlighted the role law schools, firms and regulators should play to better prepare young lawyers psychologically for the stresses of legal practice. And George Strathy, the now-retired Chief Justice of Ontario, Canada’s largest court system, continues to write and speak about the harm caused by the myth of the ideal lawyer.
That lawyer, he wrote in an essay that resonated across the industry, is “a fearless gladiator, wielding a razor-sharp intellectual broadsword. Always in control of their emotions. Erudite and articulate. Powering through long hours of work with pride and not breaking a sweat under pressure.” That lawyer, of course, does not exist. But the persistent myth, Strathy says, contributes to the harm to mental health occurring in the legal profession. It is one he wants to dispel.
In Australia, an Australian High Court Judge made a speech last fall, around the same time Vanessa Ford ended her life, about burnout in the legal profession. In that speech, she accused law firms of creating a culture of exploitation by requiring young lawyers to work long and unreasonable hours. Back in 2019, lawyers started pushing back, lodging complaints with workplace regulators about the grueling hours they were required to work. No firms were found to have engaged in wrongdoing.
It’s clear that after all the ink and conversations devoted to what we often refer to as “law firm culture,” not much has changed—or at least not enough. Issues surrounding work-life balance, women in the legal profession, heavy alcohol consumption among lawyers, working (or not working) from home, the stresses created by the billable hour, and more, are still as problematic as ever—perhaps more so in our post-COVID world.
To be sure, the legal community has made efforts to address some of these issues. But for every step forward, it seems to take two steps back...
