In-House Leaders Face a Team of Dissatisfied, Burned-Out Lawyers

Lawyers burned out and dissatisfied by a lack of resources sufficient to carry out their jobs are increasingly looking for new employment, putting a strain on already overburdened in-house counsel, according to a survey published Thursday.

Nine out of 10 in-house lawyers are dissatisfied with their current job and a majority are “extremely stressed and burned out,” according to a survey of 300 in-house counsel by alternative legal service provider Axiom. Higher levels of dissatisfaction sit at the mid-level and junior levels of legal departments.

“Legal departments are facing the perfect storm of increasing work, decreasing staff, and limited budgets,” the report said. “With discontent high and departures on the horizon, GCs will need to figure out how to do more with even less than they have now.”

Every respondent reported an increase in both the volume and complexity of their team’s work. Administrative tasks takes too much time away from real work, said 41% of respondents, and more than one-third report not having the right expertise for their department’s needs.

But simply adding new hires doesn’t solve the problem, respondents said, partly because doing so doesn’t address the variety of expertise needed. Plus, finding and onboarding new lawyers is itself a time-consuming process.

One other interesting finding: Many of those lawyers who are looking to leave aren’t just thinking of going to an in-house posting with another company. Only 33% are considering staying in-house, while 38% are trying to retrace their steps back to working for a law firm. That illustrates, the report said, “just how demanding the in-house role (once thought of as a refuge from law firm life) has become.”