Estimated read time: 10 minutes
Summary
- Half of people working in law experienced anxiety often, very often, or all of the time in the past 12 months, with nearly 60% reporting poor mental well-being.
- LawCare received 1,037 contacts in 2024, a 13% rise on 2023 and the highest in its 25-year history, with stress and anxiety the main issue in 39% of cases.
- More than three-quarters (80%) of legal professionals work beyond their contracted hours, with the culture of overwork driving burnout scores to levels that signal sector-wide concern.
- Over half of those surveyed could see themselves leaving their current workplace within five years, with workload, mental health, and lack of control cited as key drivers.
- The consultant solicitor model offers experienced lawyers a way to regain autonomy, reduce anxiety, and rebuild careers around well-being through flexible structures and strong support.
Is your legal career making you anxious?
You qualified years ago. Built a client base. Did everything the profession demanded. Yet Sunday evenings bring tightness in your chest. Sleep comes in fragments. Small tasks feel impossibly heavy. You wonder, quietly, how much longer you can sustain this.
Anxiety sharpens focus before a trial or a complex negotiation. When it becomes the constant backdrop to every working day, it stops being useful. It erodes health, damages relationships, and strips away any sense of satisfaction in work that should, by rights, feel rewarding.
In law, that low-level feeling of dread is not unusual. LawCare’s 2025 Life in the Law report found that half of people working in the sector experienced anxiety often, very often, or all of the time over the previous 12 months. Nearly 60% reported poor mental well-being, with many showing signs of high burnout risk.
The figures match what many lawyers privately describe: high performance coming at a cost of permanent unease.
What anxiety looks like in practice
Anxiety in legal work rarely announces itself dramatically. It accumulates in the margins of the working day until everything feels tense.
Common patterns include:
- Persistent worry about missing something in a document, deadline, or email chain
- Racing thoughts at night about client matters or colleagues’ expectations
- Sense of dread when the phone rings or new instructions arrive
- Physical symptoms such as chest tightness, headaches, and digestive trouble
- Inability to switch off, even during supposed time away from work
LawCare’s 2024 impact figures clearly show the scale of the problem. The charity received 1,037 contacts during the year, the highest number in its 25-year existence and a 13% increase on 2023. Stress and anxiety were the main problems in 39% of those contacts, ahead of career worries at 15% and bullying or harassment at 10%.
The numbers reflect what many solicitors already know but rarely say aloud. They continue to perform well, hit deadlines, and serve clients competently. But they feel permanently on edge whilst doing so.
Why legal careers breed anxiety
Clients rarely seek legal advice when life is running smoothly. They arrive in crisis, with money, liberty, or reputation at stake. That pressure is intrinsic to the work, and most lawyers accept it as part of the territory.
The structure of many firms, however, amplifies that inherent stress:
- Long, unpredictable hours around court hearings, transactions, and completions
- Billable hour targets that reward overwork and penalise rest
- Adversarial cultures where mistakes can feel career-ending
- Little say over which clients you act for or how much work lands on your desk
- Promotion paths that depend on constant visibility and personal sacrifice
- Nearly 80% of respondents to the Life in the Law survey said they regularly worked beyond their contracted hours. Almost one in ten estimated they worked 21 or more extra hours each week.
Over time, this combination wears people down. Short bursts of intense effort become chronic anxiety and burnout. The sector’s average burnout score now sits at 37.8, above the 34.8 threshold that indicates serious concern.
Young lawyers appear to bear the heaviest burden. Those aged 26 to 35 reported the lowest mental well-being scores and the highest burnout levels, a pattern that has prompted wider sector commentary on unsustainable early-career expectations.
Steps solicitors can take to ease anxiety.
Noticing what is happening matters. Pushing through indefinitely rarely ends well.
Practical actions that help many lawyers include:
Setting clear boundaries
Even in demanding roles, it is sometimes possible to agree on basic limits. One evening a week without email. Clearer rules about weekend availability. Focus on small changes that create breathing space.
- Speaking to someone you trust
Sharing concerns with a colleague, mentor, friend, or family member reduces the feeling of carrying everything alone. Professional support from a GP, therapist, or specialist charity such as LawCare offers structured help tailored to the pressures of legal work. - Challenging perfectionism
Many solicitors hold themselves to standards no client has requested. Allowing “good enough” on some tasks can reduce internal pressure without compromising quality or ethics.
These measures can stabilise things in the short term. When the underlying structure of the job remains unchanged, though, the same patterns often return.
When the problem is structural
For a growing number of solicitors, the turning point comes with a stark realisation. The issue is not a personal failure of resilience. It is the way their work is organised.
LawCare’s research shows that 56% of legal professionals could see themselves leaving their current workplace within five years, with 32% contemplating leaving the sector entirely. Workload, mental health, and lack of control emerge repeatedly as key reasons.
One respondent to the Life in the Law survey put it bluntly: “My work is slowly killing me.” Another said, “I would like to leave but couldn’t afford to and don’t know what else to do.”
These are not isolated voices. They reflect a profession at a turning point, where conventional career paths no longer hold the appeal they once did and where many lawyers are actively seeking structures that support rather than undermine their well-being.
Consultant roles and New Model Law Firms are among the alternatives. Instead of being locked into a single firm’s hierarchy and expectations, Solicitors can choose environments that better align with their values and capacity.
How becoming a consultant solicitor can reduce anxiety
Consultancy is not a cure for every stressor in legal work. Client matters will still carry pressure. Complex cases will still demand focus and stamina. What changes are the conditions under which that work happens?.
Consultant solicitors typically gain:
Control over workload
Consultants decide how many matters to handle, which clients to work with, and when capacity is genuinely full. The ability to say no without fear of internal repercussions can, by itself, reduce chronic anxiety.
Flexibility in time and location
With secure remote systems and cloud-based tools, consultants can structure their days around periods of peak concentration and personal commitments. Work fits around life, not the other way around.
Fewer internal politics
Without rigid hierarchies and competition for partnerships, many consultants report spending less time worrying about office dynamics and more time focusing on serving clients well and living well outside work.
A clearer link between effort and income
Fee share structures mean earnings often better reflect the work actually done. This can make financial pressure feel fairer and more predictable, reducing the anxiety that comes with arbitrary salary caps or opaque bonus calculations.
When these elements come together, anxiety caused by lack of control, constant overload, and conflicting expectations often eases. Lawyers remain busy. They still work hard. The work, however, no longer feels like it is steadily eroding their health.
A 2024 survey by LexisNexis found that only 25% of associates at law firms wanted to make partner at their current firm, dropping to 22% at large firms. When asked about priorities for a new role, 71% put work-life balance in their top three. One associate with over ten years’ experience said, “The model of earning as much as you can usually comes with gaining weight, making no progress outside of work, and becoming depressed and stressed.”
The consultant model responds directly to these concerns.
How Nexa supports healthier careers
Nexa’s approach rests on a straightforward principle: give experienced lawyers control over their practice and provide robust support. The implications for mental health are direct.
Consultants at Nexa receive:
- A culture built on flexibility, openness, and respect, not targets or presenteeism
- Full operational support covering compliance, professional indemnity insurance, IT systems including LEAP and Practical Law, billing, and administration
- Best in class fee share, with prompt payments
- Access to a collaborative community that reduces the isolation sometimes associated with self-employment
By removing imposed targets and stripping away unnecessary bureaucracy, Nexa allows lawyers to design sustainable practices. Many use that freedom to spend more time with family, pursue interests or portfolio careers alongside legal work, or grow client bases at a pace that suits their energy and capacity.
For solicitors who have spent years in environments where anxiety felt inevitable, the shift can be profound. They still face difficult cases and demanding clients. The overall frame of their working life, however, has changed in ways that protect rather than threaten their well-being.
Considering your next step
If these descriptions resonate, you are far from alone. The statistics emerging from LawCare’s research, alongside wider surveys of the profession, show large numbers of solicitors reassessing what they want from their careers and how they might protect their mental health without abandoning law entirely.
Exploring consultancy does not require an immediate decision. It opens a conversation about whether a different structure could help you feel less anxious, more in control of your time and income, and better able to sustain a career you worked hard to build.
At Nexa, the team can explain how the consultant model works in practice, what support you can expect, and what makes someone a good fit for this way of working.
The conversation is confidential and carries no obligation.
Your skills, experience, and professional integrity remain valuable. You have choices about the environment in which you use them.
FAQs
- Is it normal to feel anxious as a lawyer?
Short bursts of anxiety around high-stakes moments are common and can even be helpful. Ongoing anxiety that disrupts sleep, mood, concentration, or daily life is a sign that something needs attention and support. - How widespread are anxiety and burnout in the legal sector now?
LawCare’s 2025 Life in the Law report shows half of legal professionals experiencing anxiety often or more frequently, nearly 60% reporting poor mental well-being, and sector-wide burnout scores indicating high risk. The 26 to 35 age group has the lowest well-being and the highest burnout levels. - What do the latest LawCare contact figures tell us?
LawCare received 1,037 contacts in 2024, a 13% rise on 2023 and the highest in its 25-year history. Stress and anxiety were the main issues in 39% of cases, making them the leading reason legal professionals sought help. - Can changing how I work really reduce my anxiety?
For many lawyers, having more control over workload, clients, and working patterns has a measurable impact on anxiety levels and overall well-being. Structural change often matters as much as personal coping strategies, particularly when anxiety stems from a lack of autonomy rather than the nature of legal work itself. - How can Nexa help if I am thinking of becoming a consultant?
Nexa provides full regulatory cover, professional indemnity insurance, technology, including case management and legal research tools, comprehensive administration, and a supportive professional community. This infrastructure allows you to focus on clients and design a career that fits your life while maintaining high professional standards and reducing the pressures that fuel anxiety in traditional settings.