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. 2023 Jul 3;31(3):550–573. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2023.2206879

Towards a context-specific approach to understanding lawyers’ well-being: a synthesis review and future research agenda

Lucinda Soon 1,✉, Almuth McDowall 1, Kevin R H Teoh 1
PMCID: PMC11182068  PMID: 38895723

Abstract

Legal sector organisations face mounting pressure to protect and promote lawyers’ well-being. However, knowledge is fragmented, hindering research and practice development. Our review investigated current conceptual understanding and empirical evidence of contextual influences. We systematically mapped the global scholarly and grey literature published since 1970, reviewing 145 relevant publications. Lawyers’ well-being is conceptualised primarily as ill-being, despite well-being’s positive facets. Empirical consideration of work context is mostly absent, though we deduce a focus on large commercial law firm practice and public service/legal aid. Our explanatory synthesis is abductive, coalescing Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus with Hobfoll’s conservation of resources theory to explain how context influences lawyers’ well-being via distinct resource losses. We urge theoretical development to elucidate the role of context and theory-driven research on the cumulative effects of resource loss and gain. Recommendations for practice include a renewed focus on job design and line management upskilling.

Keywords: conservation of resources theory, lawyers, legal professionals, systematic review, work-related well-being

Introduction

Lawyers have integral roles in society as gatekeepers of the rule of law, proper administration of justice and promotion of fundamental freedoms (United Nations, UN, 1990). Yet several surveys conducted by professional bodies in different countries have raised concerns of stress, anxiety, depression and burnout among professionals ostensibly under strain (e.g. International Bar Association, IBA, 2021; LawCare, 2021; Law Society of England & Wales, 2019; New Zealand Law Society, 2018). These reports have generated concern in the profession and its regulators. In England and Wales, the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Workplace Culture Thematic Review highlights its expectations on firms to prioritise lawyers’ well-being systemically by addressing negative factors in the work environment (Solicitors Regulation Authority, 2022). Given mounting regulatory pressure to protect lawyers’ well-being, there is a need to understand root causes and contextual factors. Our review set out to integrate and synthesise the global literature on lawyers’ well-being to determine what we know, and what we do not know, as knowledge is currently fragmented across different disciplines. In doing so, we also respond to recent scholarship in systematic review methodology to not only summarise empirical findings but advance conceptual and theoretical development when doing so (Rojon et al., 2021).

To situate our review in wider discourse, we revisit how well-being has been conceptualised. Well-being is broadly framed as multidimensional, comprising positive facets such as work engagement, motivation, job satisfaction, personal growth, purpose and meaningfulness, as well as negative facets such as psychological strain, anxiety, depression, burnout and work-related trauma (Van Horn et al., 2004; Warr, 1987). Yet much of the well-being literature has focused on negative dimensions (Sonnentag, 2015).

Dominating theories include the demand-control theory (Karasek, 1979), the job demands–resources model (Demerouti et al., 2001) and the effort–reward imbalance (Siegrist, 1996) model, which have received much empirical support for the relationships between work demands, resources and psychological stress. However, they may be insufficient for nuanced consideration of contextual influences given profound changes to work including increased technology use, remote working and the globalisation of work (Houdmont & Leka, 2010; Macik-Frey et al., 2007).

Context-specific consideration of lawyers’ well-being is pertinent given that lawyers work in a variety of organisational settings and across different areas of legal practice, each characterised by distinct work conditions. Organisational settings vary to include large global law firms, small and medium-sized national firms, sole practices, in-house corporate teams, in-house public sector teams and community law centres. Lawyers may also practise as self-employed professionals. For example, in common law jurisdictions, barristers are often self-employed but collectively operate in chambers. Another contextual factor is variations in area of legal practice. Transactional lawyers advising multinational corporations, for example, may experience different work conditions from their litigation peers or those representing vulnerable individuals where access to legal representation relies on public funding.

Review objectives

This review aims to systematically map and synthesise primary empirical, conceptual and grey literature to elicit what we know and what we do not know about the well-being of practising lawyers. More specifically, we aimed to establish how lawyers’ well-being is conceptualised and to what extent it is influenced by contextual factors.

Method

We adopt systematic review methodology (SRm) as a rigorous and reliable way of assimilating, analysing and synthesising what we know about lawyers’ well-being in a transparent and structured way (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009; Rojon et al., 2021; Rojon & Saunders, 2012). A pilot search established that no prior systematic review with our explicit focus existed, thus warranting a review to bring together the evidence base. In doing so, we respond to SRm scholarship by offering a theoretical and conceptual framing of existing primary studies in addition to summarising empirical findings (Rojon et al., 2021). As we conducted a cross-disciplinary review including the socio-legal, psychological, organisational and management literature, as well as reports produced by legal professional bodies, stakeholder organisations and legal regulators, we took a pragmatic realist approach (Pawson, 2006).

Review protocol and stakeholder engagement

We developed an a priori systematic review protocol involving a stakeholder advisory panel that provided feedback on the protocol to ensure appropriate review scope and relevance (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009; Gough et al., 2017).

We interviewed 15 subject-matter experts virtually, from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) for 45–60 min. A 16th stakeholder reviewed by email response. Stakeholders were selected for their contextual knowledge of legal work and its context. Except for two psychologists, stakeholders were law academics, practising lawyers and former practising lawyers with established interests in researching and advising on lawyers’ well-being within their respective jurisdictions. We asked about the research questions, review protocol and identification of literature. We captured stakeholder responses and perspectives in note form or verbatim where relevant, which we analysed using content analysis to identify common themes. We made two significant changes following stakeholder feedback: (a) narrowing the scope of our review population and refining our review questions, accordingly; and (b) extending the search terms to increase capture of relevant literature. Original and revised versions of the review protocol are available on the Open Science Framework public register (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/9C3BK).

Final review questions

Our review was guided by the overarching question: What do we know, and what do we not know, about well-being in practising lawyers? More specific operational questions were:

  1. What is the breadth and nature of the literature on lawyers’ well-being?

  2. How is lawyers’ well-being defined and conceptualised?

  3. How does context influence lawyers’ well-being?

Locating the relevant literature

We formulated the final search terms (see Figure 1) iteratively following stakeholder engagement. We performed searches in EBSCOhost (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Premier, PsychArticles and PsychInfo), ProQuest Business Premium Collection, Scopus and Hein Online, and hand-searched relevant publications across professional body websites.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Review search terms.

Literature selection and evaluation

We screened references retrieved from the electronic databases in two stages: on title and abstract, followed by full text review (see Figure 2) to ensure all met the inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table 1) adding in hand-searched articles at the full-text stage. Data were managed using the EPPI Reviewer software.

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

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Literature selection and screening process.

Table 1.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Category Inclusion Exclusion
Review population Publications will be included in the review if the title, abstract or full text clearly specifies a primary or inclusive focus on:

  1. Practising lawyers (comprising but not limited to attorneys, solicitors, barristers, notaries, chartered legal executives, licensed conveyancers, patent and trademark attorneys, and costs lawyers); AND

  2. Practising in any country or recognised legal jurisdiction.

 Publications will be excluded from the review if the population specified in the title, abstract or full text solely comprises any one of the following:

  1. Judges, magistrates or persons practising in a judicial capacity.

  2. Law students or persons undertaking a recognised period of legal training prior to becoming licensed or registered and qualified to practise.

  3. Business support roles employed within the legal sector, including but not limited to functions relating to human resources, business development and IT.
Review concept To be included in the review, the publication’s title, abstract or full text must clearly specify a primary or inclusive focus on the well-being of the review population as specified above. Well-being will incorporate psychological, physical and/or affective dimensions. Any publication that does not clearly specify in the title, abstract or full text a primary or inclusive focus on the well-being of the review population will be excluded from the review.
Review context All contexts will be included in the review if they satisfy the inclusion criteria for population and concept as specified above.  
Publication type The following publication-types will be included in the review:

  1. Literature published within academic and scholarly peer-reviewed journals.

  2. Reports published by professional bodies, associations, organisations, and societies, operating within the law sector.

  3. Books, book chapters and book reviews.

  4. Conference papers, conference proceedings and symposia

  5. Dissertations and theses.

 Any publication will be excluded if it does not satisfy the inclusion criteria listed in relation to publication type, including, but not exclusively limited to:

  1. Journals and magazines published by the legal profession.

  2. News articles.

  3. Newsletters.

  4. Tribunal and court judgments.
Publication content Publications with a primary or inclusive focus on one or more of the following will be included:

  1. Descriptions or definitions of the ‘concept’ within the ‘population’ and ‘context’ parameters.

  2. Any factors that may contribute to or have an impact on the ‘concept’ within the ‘population’ and ‘context’ parameters.

  3. Any conceptual or theoretical frameworks that may be applied to explain the ‘concept’ within the ‘population’ and ‘context’ parameters.

  4. Any empirical data, acquired via any study design or methodology, of any factors related to or thought to contribute to or have an impact on the ‘concept’ within the ‘population’ and ‘context’ parameters.

 Any publication will be excluded if it does not satisfy the inclusion criteria listed in relation to publication content, and/or the publication does not satisfy the relevant inclusion criteria specified in relation to ‘review population’, ‘review concept’ and/or ‘review context’.
Publication date Publications must have been published between 1970 and the search date (inclusive) to be included. All publications published before 1 January 1970 will be excluded from the review.
Publication location All publication locations will be included in the review. No publication locations will be excluded from the review.
Publication language Publications written or published in the English language will be included in the review. Publications written or published in non-English languages will be excluded from the review.
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The second author moderated a sub-sample of publications for relevance and inclusion, and any disagreements were resolved by the third author. We used qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012) to identify categorical themes recorded in a bespoke data extraction form.

To address our first two review questions regarding mapping of the literature and conceptualisation, we did not omit any publications based on critical appraisal to ensure breadth. However, we undertook quality appraisal to screen literature for our third review question, checking the quality of deductions made (Pawson, 2006). We appraised the primary papers using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT; Hong et al., 2018) and conceptual literature using the grading system adapted from Adams and colleagues (2017). As a result, we excluded three primary studies for our third review question.

Review findings

The breadth and nature of the literature on lawyers’ well-being

The scholarly literature on lawyers’ well-being has grown exponentially over the past five decades, from just 17 articles published before the turn of the twenty-first century to 104 published thereafter. The majority of these (n = 80) were from 2010 onwards (see Figure 3) with notable growth of reports on lawyers’ well-being published by legal professional bodies from 2000.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

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Growth in publications over the past 50 years.

Ninety percent of scholarly publications on lawyers’ well-being over the past 50 years have emanated from: the USA (57.8%), Australia (22.3%), Canada (5.8%) and the UK (5.0%). Most of these comprise empirical studies (n = 74; 61.2%), of which 60.8% adopt quantitative cross-sectional methodology to examine correlations between well-being and explanatory variables.

Only 27 of the 74 empirical studies (36.5%) were theoretically grounded to explain observed relationships. Studies that utilised established theory (e.g. Bergin & Jimmieson, 2013, 2014; Brough & Boase, 2019; Costa & Ferreira, 2014; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012; Joudrey & Wallace, 2009; Tsai et al., 2009; Wallace, 2006) have mostly applied the demand-control theory (Karasek, 1979), the demand-control-support model (Johnson & Hall, 1988), the job-demands resources model (Demerouti et al., 2001) and the effort–reward imbalance model (Siegrist, 1996).

Over a third of empirical studies in the scholarly literature (39.2%) did not provide details of the organisational setting(s) in which participant lawyers worked. Of the remaining studies, 82.2% included a mix of settings comprising private practice law firms, barristers’ chambers, in-house corporations and public sector entities, and not-for-profit organisations such as charities, community law centres and public defender offices. Very few studies distinguished between different sizes of private practice law firms, and fewer still analysed findings against different work settings (e.g., Cadieux et al., 2019; Chan et al., 2014; Krill et al., 2016; Krill et al., 2023; Pierson et al., 2017). Owing to the paucity of published detail in respect of organisational setting and size, it is difficult to identify degrees to which relevant factors may affect lawyers’ well-being across different legal practice contexts. This is similarly observed in relation to practice area (work type), where more than half of empirical studies did not specify the areas of legal practice to which findings related (n = 39; 54.9%).

How lawyers’ well-being is defined and conceptualised

We reviewed empirical studies in the scholarly literature to understand how lawyers’ well-being has been defined and conceptualised. We purposively applied broad eligibility criteria to capture literature relating to lawyers’ psychological and physical well-being but found no publications on the latter. This finding confirms our expectations that studies in this field have conceptualised lawyers’ well-being purely in relation to psychological dimensions. Lawyers’ psychological well-being is variedly defined and conceptualised but with considerable overlap and agreement about multidimensionality (86 of the 121 included scholarly papers: 70.1%).

Lawyers’ well-being as a combination of negative outcomes

Stress, anxiety and depression feature prominently in the literature as manifestations of poor well-being in lawyers, with studies focusing on a combination of all three outcomes (e.g. Anker & Krill, 2021; Bergin & Jimmieson, 2013, 2014; Chan et al., 2014; Krill et al., 2016; Tang et al., 2020), or the presence of at least one or more of them (e.g. Costa & Ferreira, 2014; Omari & Paull, 2013; Wallace, 2006). Several studies report high rates of alcohol and substance use among lawyers alongside high levels of stress, anxiety and depression (Beck et al., 1995; Benjamin et al., 1990; Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014; Chan et al., 2014; Krill et al., 2016), with permissiveness toward alcohol at work found to be associated with risky drinking (Anker & Krill, 2021).

Quantitative studies have measured burnout among lawyers (e.g. Chlap & Brown, 2022; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012; Nickum & Desrumaux, 2022; Ogbonnaya et al., 2022; Sharma et al., 2010; Tsai et al., 2009),while interview participants in some qualitative studies use the word burnout to describe their experiences (e.g. Graffin, 2019; Westaby, 2010).

Experiences of trauma in lawyer populations have been addressed in relevant publications with considerable variation in respect of lawyers working with traumatic material or vulnerable clients (Leclerc et al., 2020; Léonard et al., 2020; Weir et al., 2021). Effects of trauma have been conceptualised in divergent ways: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Leclerc et al., 2020; Levin et al., 2012), secondary traumatic stress (STS; Graffin, 2019) and vicarious trauma (VT; Ordway et al., 2020; Vrklevski & Franklin, 2008). Some studies use the term trauma generally to refer to PTSD, STS and VT (e.g. Weir et al., 2021), while others examine the concept of compassion fatigue, alongside PTSD, STS and VT (e.g. Levin et al., 2011).

Select qualitative studies add to our understanding of how trauma is experienced by lawyers defending serious crime offenders and representing clients undergoing significant personal distress (Graffin, 2019; Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022; Weir et al., 2021, 2022; Westaby, 2010). Experiences include emotional labour (Westaby, 2010), invasive thoughts and sleep disturbances (Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022), difficulties in bringing closure to emotions felt and forgetting about the trauma of their clients, and becoming detached, alienated and disillusioned by their work (Graffin, 2019). Participants commonly describe emotional detachment as a vital self-protecting safeguarding mechanism and a marker of a competent and skilful lawyer acting objectively and nonjudgmentally; yet tensing against this justification are feelings of cynicism, disbelief and distrust of client narratives and others, resulting in negative changes to one’s worldview and reduced motivation at work (Graffin, 2019; Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022).

These studies describe symptoms that bear similarities to the concept of moral injury, which arises from exposure, either as the perpetrating agent of (by commission or omission), or witness of, potentially morally injurious events or experiences (PMIEs) that violate a person’s moral beliefs and expectations of themselves and others (Griffin et al., 2019). When faced with a PMIE, individuals may experience negative psychological emotions of guilt, shame, betrayal and disgust and increased risk of pathological outcomes including depression, anxiety and stress (Litz & Kerig, 2019).

Our review suggests that negative emotions attributed to moral injury are experienced by some lawyers working with traumatic material. Australian lawyers representing domestic violence and child abuse clients reported experiencing sadness, anger, frustration and disgust (Weir et al., 2022); defence attorneys representing sex offenders described similar feelings of anger, disgust and revulsion at the offences their clients had committed (Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022); and symptoms of guilt, shame and futility were a recurring theme in Graffin’s (2019) study of asylum lawyers. Graffin links this emotional toll to socio-political pressures in the form of substantial cuts to state-funded legal aid and the stigmatisation of asylum seekers in politics and society, which impact the ability for asylum lawyers to help their clients at a time when they need help the most.

Finally, several recent studies suggest that lawyers display higher rates of suicidal ideation than other professionals and the general population (Cadieux et al., 2022; Krill et al., 2023; Stack & Bowman, 2023; Thiese et al., 2021), with significant associations being found in respect of work overcommitment, perceived stress and loneliness (Krill et al., 2023).

Lawyers’ well-being beyond a state of ill-being

A much smaller proportion of the literature focuses on the positive features of well-being – mainly attitudinal such as work engagement (Brough & Boase, 2019; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012) and commitment to work or to the profession (Bergin & Jimmieson, 2013, 2015; Jackson et al., 1987), and affective well-being such as the degree to which lawyers are satisfied with their profession, job and/or life (e.g. Monahan & Swanson, 2019).

The predominant focus on lawyers’ poor well-being, as opposed to a more balanced appreciation of well-being beyond a state of ill-being, reflects the pattern observed more widely in the work-related well-being literature (Houdmont & Leka, 2010; Macik-Frey et al., 2007; Sonnentag, 2015). As with other professions, future enquiry into the more positive aspects of well-being as they relate to lawyers would be beneficial.

Contextualising lawyers’ well-being

We address our third review question by first contextualising the work environment of lawyers, adopting an abductive approach to infer relevant contexts and their characteristics from empirical and conceptual papers in the published and grey literature. We then offer a theoretical framework to explain how different work contexts influence lawyers’ well-being by drawing on the relevant empirical literature to date.

The work environments of lawyers

We conceptualise the diversity of contexts in which lawyers work using Bourdieu’s (1977) sociological theory of practice and his concepts of field and habitus. The legal profession may be regarded as a field with distinct subfields depending on, for example, practice area and organisational type. Each subfield is conceived to comprise a unique set of structures and conditions, which influence how people within the subfield feel and behave and the types of resources they consider valuable to have and retain.

Our analysis of lawyers’ work environments and their characteristics is necessarily limited to those that may be synthesised from the extant literature. Lawyers work in diverse settings, yet only a handful of studies have examined findings within different work contexts (e.g., Cadieux et al., 2019; Chan et al., 2014; Krill et al., 2016; Krill et al., 2023; Pierson et al., 2017).

We also note that empirical studies on lawyers working in private practice law firms presuppose certain work conditions to prevail regardless of firm size, notably high workloads, extreme time-billing targets, and an emphasis on revenue generation (e.g. Bagust, 2014; Geok-Choo et al., 2008; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012; Joudrey & Wallace, 2009; Omari & Paull, 2013; Tsai et al., 2009). Likewise, where participants are drawn from various work contexts, a focus on these work conditions are assumed to be characteristic of legal practice generally (e.g. Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014; Drew et al., 2015; Koltai et al., 2018; Wallace, 2006). Thus, our understanding remains limited in respect of the contextual differences that exist across legal practice and the degree to which different work conditions may be relevant to lawyers’ well-being. The conceptual literature provides valuable insight in this regard.

The work conditions that most empirical studies predicate to apply generally to legal practice are suggested in the conceptual literature to be more prevalent in large commercial law firm practice (e.g. Thornton, 2016). Likewise, experiences of trauma that have been empirically linked to certain areas of legal practice such as criminal law (Levin et al., 2011, 2012; Vrklevski & Franklin, 2008) and asylum law (Graffin, 2019; Weir et al., 2021) are suggested in the conceptual literature to also coalesce with other contextual factors, notably institutional cuts to public funding (Chan et al., 2014; Fleck & Francis, 2021).

We therefore deduce by abductive reasoning that the current literature predominantly focuses on two contexts of legal practice: large commercial law firm practice, and public service or legal aid practice. We find that these contexts (subfields) are characterised by different conditions and pressures, which have shaped and conditioned the development of distinct corresponding habitus. While the stark contrast between these two contexts is useful in developing our conceptual and theoretical framework, we acknowledge that most lawyers work in professional contexts that exist in between these two extremes, such as in sole practices, in small and medium-sized law firms and in-house in the private and public sector. We conceive these contexts to comprise different combinations of work structures and conditions, some of which may be more, or less, conducive to well-being. However, the dearth of existing literature on these other contexts limits our ability to abductively infer their contextual characteristics and demonstrate the application of our framework more widely.

The subfield and habitus of large commercial law firm practice. An emphasis on profit-making and the billable-hour system as the prevailing business model characterises large commercial law firm practice, which some scholars conceptualise has shifted the practice of law away from the traditional underpinnings of a profession focused on public service towards one motivated by commercial growth (C. Parker, 2014; Thornton, 2016). The emphasis on profit-making as a means of power and influence in the legal services market perpetuates heightened competition between individuals and organisations operating in this professional space and perceived expectations to cope with high workloads, technological advances and an accelerated pace of work (Cadieux et al., 2019; Omari & Paull, 2013). These conditions can stimulate overwork through enlarged time-billing targets as the dominant metric for productivity (Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014) and can potentially drive over-engagement behaviours associated with burnout (Nickum & Desrumaux, 2022). Some scholars surmise that the system incites competition among lawyers and pushes expected performance and productivity to extraordinary levels (e.g. Cortina et al., 2002; James, 2017; Omari & Paull, 2013). As a result, lawyers working in large commercial law firms may internalise their position as units of worth, easily replaceable if they do not accrue enough billable hours per day to meet their targets (Jones et al., 2020).

Lawyers are likely to experience greater levels of stress if their work conditions involve difficult relationships with clients or having to meet unrealistic client demands. Evidence supporting this association has been found in respect of other service professionals (Teoh & Hassard, 2020; Teoh et al., 2019). However, only two empirical studies have examined these associations in the extant literature on lawyers’ well-being. Notably, while dealing with difficult clients and client demands has been empirically linked to work-related stress experienced by lawyers practising in Singapore (Geok-Choo et al., 2008), another study on lawyers in Brazil did not find any significant correlation between the two (Costa & Ferreira, 2014). In both studies, participants’ work contexts were not explicitly identifiable, making it difficult to infer any distinguishing role of context beyond socio-cultural factors.

The literature suggests that lawyers in this subfield may experience other constraints including poor job autonomy and decision latitude (e.g. Bergin & Jimmieson, 2013; Costa & Ferreira, 2014; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012; Krieger & Sheldon, 2015; Tsai et al., 2009) and limited organisational support, particularly for lawyers lower down the hierarchical chain compared to more senior peers (Chlap & Brown 2022). Poor management practices, an over-emphasis on profit and targets, erosion of professional collegiality and a fear of failure may thwart social connectedness at work and propagate a culture of incivility, bullying and discrimination among lawyers (Baron, 2015; Thornton, 2016) and perceptions of combative, adversarial and instructive practices, which imbue a ‘keep fighting’ mentality (Jones et al., 2020). A corresponding stigma of weakness is also conceived in respect of stress or mental health difficulties (Bagust, 2014; Cartwright et al., 2019), which has been empirically linked to recovery- and stress-related outcomes (Wiley et al., 2023).

Opportunities to build competency and skills may be hindered by extreme time-billing targets and productivity metrics (Chan et al., 2014; Krieger & Sheldon, 2015). Lawyers in management positions may feel they have less time to adequately supervise, mentor and manage their team members owing to their time being consumed by fulfilling their targets (Jones et al., 2020). In addition to time pressure, concerns are raised around a lack of appropriate manager training as lawyers progress into supervisory positions (LawCare, 2021).

Difficulties relating to work–life balance are also cited, particularly by female lawyers (Thornton, 2016; Wallace, 2006). However, empirical study is scant considering the abundance of research examining other work-related demands and constraints. Few studies have qualitatively explored how lawyers define and make sense of the balance between their life and work contexts, and how they experience conflict when it arises. Indeed, only one study has sought to do so over the past 50 years (Tremblay, 2013). Nonetheless, some evidence suggests work–life/family conflict to be prevalent within this subfield of legal practice, increasing with firm size (Koltai et al., 2018), and may relate to higher perceived stress and attrition due to burnout (Anker & Krill, 2021).

The subfield and habitus of legal aid and public service lawyers. Continuous cuts to legal aid funding in Australia, the UK and the USA have radically transformed the context of lawyers working in specific areas of social justice and welfare law, placing acute pressure on the nature and conduct of legal practice (Chan et al., 2014). In England and Wales, the passing of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (UK) (LASPO) significantly cut public funding for the provision of legal services to disadvantaged groups in society, including those seeking asylum in the UK. Existing legal aid organisations are struggling to survive financially (Legal Aid Practitioners Group, LAPG, 2022). As a result, lawyers working in this subfield must take on additional cases to make ends meet and have the additional emotional stress of having to turn clients away who need their help because they do not have the resources to help them (Graffin, 2019). Like their large commercial law firm peers, public service and legal aid lawyers have experienced a similar increase in workload and work intensity over the past 50 years, with associated experiences of work–life conflict, albeit this pressure stems from different sources with incessant cuts to public funding and increased financial pressure for survival being the pertinent stressors for legal aid lawyers (LAPG, 2022).

Legal aid and public service lawyers are also more likely to enter the profession driven by altruistic purposes rather than monetary gain (Fleck & Francis, 2021). Some qualitative evidence supports this motivation and the importance these lawyers place on making a valuable contribution to society by assisting vulnerable and disadvantaged people (Graffin, 2019; Weir et al., 2021; Westaby, 2010). Yet, this sense of work meaningfulness is coupled with experiences of emotional labour (Westaby, 2010) and a loss of utility in fighting political agendas perceived to be intent on demolishing access to justice for disadvantaged groups, resulting in feelings of resentment and cynicism towards work (Graffin, 2019).

Another unique characteristic of this subfield is a high risk of exposure to traumatic work. These include: family lawyers whose clients frequently are those experiencing failed relationships, family breakdowns involving disputes over child custody and allegations of child abuse and domestic violence (e.g. Brobst, 2014; Ordway et al., 2020); criminal lawyers and their repeated review of morbid evidence arising from homicide and serious crimes (e.g. Levin & Greisberg, 2003; Maguire & Byrne, 2017; Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022; Vrklevski & Franklin, 2008); and immigration and asylum lawyers who frequently represent clients with traumatic histories such as war, violent crimes, torture, trafficking and separation from loved ones (e.g. Cartwright et al., 2019; Graffin, 2019; Westaby, 2010).

The corresponding habitus may be interpreted as one of survival and self-sacrifice, where sustaining tolerable profit-margins and making ends meet characterise this terrain (LAPG, 2022). Heavy workloads and high emotional demands are expected, requiring an ability to emotionally detach from the often-traumatic content of work (Fleck & Francis, 2021; Graffin, 2019; Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022; Weir et al., 2021). Social purpose and work meaningfulness, which one might deduce to follow from deeply held altruistic values towards helping disadvantaged populations of society, appear paradoxically to be a source of tension. Continuous cuts to public funding and negative political rhetoric result in distrust, demoralisation and embitterment leaving public service and legal aid lawyers struggling to retain the purpose and meaningfulness that inspired them to work in this area of legal practice in the first place (Fleck & Francis, 2021).

How work context influences lawyers’ well-being

We now position evidence from the empirical literature on lawyers’ well-being to explain how different work contexts may negatively impact well-being by reconciling Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice with Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory. Although a novel proposition, these two theories dovetail in that both place importance on the individual’s interpretation of available and valued resources in the production of individual behaviour and experience.

According to Bourdieu (1977), individual actions, behaviours and experiences are generated as people interpret and make sense of their (sub)field and habitus. Specifically, he articulates the availability and accumulation of symbolic capital (valued resources) in a (sub)field as driving how an individual in that social space interacts and feels. How this happens is not addressed by Bourdieu; however, we propose the mechanism may be explained by drawing on COR theory. Accordingly, individuals strive to obtain, retain, foster and protect resources they value (Hobfoll, 1989), and what they value is defined by their social context, namely the (sub)fields and habitus to which they belong, which legitimatises certain resources as valuable (Bourdieu, 1977). People inherently try to protect themselves from losing valued resources and are more susceptible to experiencing stress when such resources are threatened, diminished or lost (Hobfoll, 1989).

When a loss of a valued resource occurs, the negative effects on well-being are salient in both magnitude and speed. As a person experiences a lack of a resource, the negative impact on their well-being makes it more difficult for them to manage concurrent or subsequent demands in their environment, exposing them to greater vulnerability to experiencing additional resource loss. As a result, a person’s pool of resources, upon which they might utilise to confront the next stressful event or condition they experience, diminishes. When faced with multiple demands or constraints, simultaneously or sequentially, a rapid and cyclical depletion of resources can occur, which Hobfoll (1989) calls loss spirals or loss cycles. Thus, deleterious experiences such as work–home interference and exhaustion have been found to trigger other negative experiences over time in a loss cycle fashion, with each loss having the effect of diminishing well-being further (Demerouti et al., 2004).

Coalescing Bourdieu’s theory with COR theory thus permits a consideration of an individual’s work context to understand how it influences their well-being. Applying Bourdieu’s theory, the things about work that people perceive to be important are shaped by the structures and conditions of their subfield. COR theory identifies these things as resources, which if threatened or lost will negatively impact well-being.

Resources may take various forms. Simplistically, they are things people value and may be categorised into objects, conditions, personal characteristics and energies (Hobfoll, 1989). Halbesleben and colleagues (2014) more recently propose a goal-directed definition of resources to be anything perceived by an individual to help attain their goals. Thus, prior research suggests that resources may include job security (Selenko et al., 2013), autonomy or job control (Kühnel et al., 2012), opportunities for professional development (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009), co-worker or supervisor support (Chen et al., 2009), emotional intelligence (Winkel et al., 2011) and time away from work (Mojza et al., 2011).

Within the empirical literature, several resources are suggested to be positively associated with lawyers’ well-being, including job autonomy and decision latitude (e.g. Costa & Ferreira, 2014; Krieger & Sheldon, 2015; Nickum & Desrumaux, 2022), perceived competence, skill and intellectual challenge (e.g. Chan et al., 2014; Krill et al., 2022; Soon et al., 2022), perceived organisational support (Chlap & Brown 2022); support from colleagues (e.g. Cadieux et al., 2022); supervisor autonomy support (Sheldon & Krieger, 2022); social value in work (e.g. Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014); work-role fit (Hopkins & Gardner, 2012); mindfulness (E. G. Nielsen & Minda, 2021); and participating in leisure time activities or taking time off work (Joudrey & Wallace, 2009). However, resources valued by one group of lawyers inhabiting a particular subfield of legal practice are, according to Bourdieu, likely to differ from those valued by another group working in another subfield. Some resources are also likely to operate more generically across subfields.

The two subfields of legal practice drawn from this review can help to demonstrate how the loss cycles principle of COR theory may be applied to understand how different work contexts of lawyers can negatively impact their well-being through unique resource losses.

Loss cycles in large commercial law firm practice. Empirical studies have linked heavy workloads and overwork, an emphasis on profits, and time-billing targets to poor well-being outcomes in lawyer populations, including stress, anxiety, depression and burnout (e.g. Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014; Cadieux et al., 2019; Geok-Choo et al., 2008; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012; Koltai et al., 2018; Nickum & Desrumaux, 2022; Omari & Paull, 2013; Wallace, 2006). Perceptions of being valued for revenue generation over professionalism and skill have been associated with greater perceived stress (Krill et al., 2022). Empirical studies also link experiences of competence and skill to lawyers’ psychological well-being (Krieger & Sheldon, 2015; Soon et al., 2022) with higher levels of burnout, depression, anxiety and stress correlating with lower levels of perceived intellectually challenging work (Chan et al., 2014; Hopkins & Gardner, 2012).

Consistency between employee and organisational values are further suggested to reduce burnout, depressive symptoms and psychological distress (Cadieux et al., 2022). In addition, associations have been reported between job insecurity and stress, anxiety, depression, burnout and job dissatisfaction (e.g. Cadieux et al., 2022; Chan et al., 2014; Costa & Ferreira, 2014); workplace incivility and depression (e.g. Joudrey & Wallace, 2009); and low perceived organisational support and burnout (e.g. Chlap & Brown 2022). However, explanations as to how and why these work conditions produce these negative well-being outcomes are less well understood in the lawyer well-being literature.

In line with COR theory and its focus on resources, we suggest that the multiple and concurrent work conditions normative of the subfield of large commercial law firm practice may trigger the rapid depletion of valued resources, resulting in experiences of poor well-being and the potential generation of loss cycles. The subfield of large commercial law firm practice has several indications of it being potentially resource-diminishing. Heavy workloads propagated by enlarged time-billing targets, hypercompetitive practices and occurrences of workplace incivility between colleagues and peers tense against the perceived availability of valued resources including job autonomy and decision latitude (Nickum & Desrumaux, 2022), social connectivity and professional collegiality (Geok-Choo et al., 2008), career recognition and progression (Chan et al., 2014), perceived professionalism, competence and skill (Krill et al., 2022), job security (Costa & Ferreira, 2014), organisational support (Chlap & Brown 2022) and work–life balance (Tremblay, 2013). Each resource loss precipitates further loss by depleting remaining resources available to cope with the persistent stressors or new acute stressors that may arise.

Loss cycles in public service and legal aid practice. Likewise, this subfield has several indications of it being potentially resource-diminishing. Under threat of, or actual, loss are valued resources of autonomy and job control (Weir et al., 2021) and social connectedness (Jackson et al., 1987), as observed to affect the subfield of large commercial law firm practice. However, distinct resources under threat for legal aid lawyers also appear to include work meaningfulness, positive worldview, purpose and utility, financial stability and co-worker/supervisor support, which may cumulatively result in loss cycles with increasingly diminishing effects on well-being.

Lawyers practising in public service and legal aid law experience a complex web of emotional demands and constraints. Despite experiencing a strong sense of meaning and purpose from their work (Weir et al., 2021; Westaby, 2010), institutional stressors exist in the form of continuous cuts to public funding (Graffin, 2019; Weir et al., 2021). With reduced funding allocated per case and fewer cases being eligible for funding, legal aid lawyers now face heavier workloads for lower income, a consequence of needing to make financial ends meet. These conditions threaten experiences of purpose and work meaningfulness, and may imbue a state of demoralisation, guilt, shame and cynicism, arising from being persistently degraded, monitored and restrained by political agendas and rhetoric (Graffin, 2019).

Public service and legal aid lawyers must also grapple with frequent exposure to traumatic material, by virtue of working with vulnerable and often traumatised clients. The need to neutralise feelings arising from traumatic work content is regarded a vital skill that develops with experience; yet through lack of training, entrants to the profession are inadequately equipped with the skills to deal effectively with their emotional regulation (Shechory Bitton & Mashiach, 2022). This is exacerbated by heavy workloads that leave little time for co-worker or supervisory support, a core resource that may help lawyers exposed to traumatic work to process and make sense of their emotions (Weir et al., 2021).

Thus, we identify that unique resources are at risk of loss depending on professional context. For commercial law firm practice, these include recognition and career growth, perceived professionalism and competence, job security and organisational support. Legal aid lawyers face distinct threats to experiences of purpose and utility, work meaningfulness, positive worldview, co-worker/supervisory support, and financial stability. Unique outcomes include low motivation and job/life dissatisfaction for commercial lawyers, and trauma symptoms and moral injury for legal aid and public service lawyers, arising from the emotional valence of their work.

Discussion and directions for future research

Having addressed each of our operational review questions, we now address our overarching question: What do we know, and what do we not know, about well-being in practising lawyers? We establish that scholarly literature on lawyers’ well-being has grown considerably since the early 1980s, conceptualising lawyers’ well-being in multiple ways broadly mirroring established well-being models (e.g. Van Horn et al., 2004; Warr, 1994). However, we identify a distinct focus on negative well-being dimensions such as burnout, stress, anxiety, depression and trauma. This predominant focus on poor well-being mirrors the well-being literature more broadly and may be due, in part, to most theories dominating this field being focused on outcomes associated with work stress, such as demand-control theory (Karasek, 1979) and the effort–reward imbalance model (Siegrist, 1996). Select studies in the extant literature on lawyers’ well-being have examined work engagement and job/life satisfaction, but a plethora of other positive dimensions exist. For example, experiencing purpose and meaningfulness in life features prominently in several established models of well-being, as do personal growth and flourishing (e.g. Ryff, 1989; van Horn et al., 2004). Yet, research on these more positive measures of well-being remain comparably scant in the prevailing literature as compared to the negative features of the concept, both in relation to lawyers’ well-being and more generally in other occupations (Bakker & Derks, 2010). This presents a key area for future research.

We note methodological shortcomings in the extant literature, which mean that we know little about causal factors from which meaningful interventions may be designed. More than two thirds of empirical studies on lawyers’ well-being have utilised quantitative cross-sectional methods, which inherently limits our understanding of potential causal relationships. A notable dearth of qualitative research further hinders our understanding of the depth and breadth of experiences. For example, professional membership and engaging in work that serves a societal purpose are conceived to be of great importance to lawyers; however, beyond a small number of qualitative studies exploring this sense of meaning and purpose among lawyers working with vulnerable clients, evidence to support this general conception across legal practice is lacking. In addition, how some lawyers might traverse their sense of purpose and meaning with the daily challenges and demands of work would be greatly advanced through future qualitative research.

We propose that a greater acknowledgement of the variety of contexts in which lawyers work is needed to add depth and nuance to the relevance and indeed prevalence across legal practice of potential explanatory variables and their impact on lawyers’ well-being. Our review identifies that save for empirical studies on lawyers working with vulnerable clients, most studies have focused on variables that the conceptual literature suggests are more likely to prevail in large commercial law firms, such as pressure to bill more hours to meet targets and an emphasis on profit-making. This one-size-fits-all approach neglects the experiences of a significant population of lawyers who practise in much smaller firms or in-house within the private, public and third sectors, where work environments may be far less extreme. Equally important to the question of ‘what works and why’ are investigations of ‘to whom and when’ might situations be productive to well-being (Pawson, 2006). We thus encourage a more context-driven approach to understanding lawyers’ well-being to advance our knowledge in this regard and to elicit new avenues for future enquiry.

Theoretical development

Only a small proportion of studies have applied established psychological theories to situate and explain findings, and fewer still have sought to elicit relevant contexts to which findings might more usefully apply. We propose that the field of lawyers’ well-being would move forward significantly by future research adopting a stronger emphasis on context within a theoretical framework, which allows for the context to the well-being dynamic to be examined and explored. Our paper presents one way in which this may be achieved.

We addressed the conceptual challenge of considering well-being in the context of legal professionals through the lens of work context by proposing the novel integration of Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice and Hobfoll’s (1989) COR theory. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory to understand the work environments of lawyers, we note a heavy focus in the extant literature on large commercial law firm practice on the one hand, and public service and legal aid lawyers on the other. We identify distinct work structures and conditions affecting each of these subfields, which define the habitus of lawyers working within those environments. Our synthesis offers a potential mechanism by which these different subfields influence well-being. Applying COR theory, we propose that the unique combinations of work structures and conditions prevailing within each subfield generates perceptions of importance towards having and retaining certain resources. When these resources are threatened or lost, a negative spiral (loss cycle) can follow, resulting in diminished experiences of well-being.

Our synthesis suggests that lawyers’ well-being is the outcome of the extent to which work conditions within a particular subfield threaten, or cause actual loss of, respective resources. For lawyers practising in large commercial law firms, important resources may include perceived intellectual competency and skill, professional recognition and career growth, professional collegiality and social connectedness, organisational support, job security and work–life balance. For public service and legal aid lawyers, other resources appear to be uniquely important, such as work meaningfulness, maintaining a positive worldview, purpose and utility, financial stability and co-worker and supervisor support.

However, we acknowledge that several unanswered questions arise from our synthesis of the prevailing literature. According to Bourdieu (1977), not only do fields and subfields generate distinct resource configurations, the relative value placed on specific resources and configurations may also differ. COR theory acknowledges that its principles and corollaries must be situated within the relevant ecology of contexts of the population being studied; while the same principles and rules of conservation will apply, ‘different resources will be valued, or at least the ranking of those resources will be different’ (Hobfoll et al., 2018, p.120).

We propose that lawyers may value different resources, and to differing degrees of value, depending on the context (subfield) in which they work. For example, while professional recognition and career success may be important resources for lawyers working in large commercial law firm practice, the value attached to these resources appears less prominent for public service and legal aid lawyers, where civic duty and promoting social change may hold more value. On the other hand, some resources such as work that stimulate mastery, competency and skill may be equally valued across subfields, albeit at threat of loss owing to different institutional pressures and practices.

Though our synthesis draws on the two distinct subfields of legal practice most evident from the extant literature, we acknowledge that other subfields exist and propose that each will have their own corresponding configuration of valued resources. One example relates to in-house lawyers. As these lawyers work in very different settings to their private practice counterparts, they are likely to value different resources or at least rank the value of resources differently. Capturing a taxonomy of resources and the values that attach to resources within the ecology of contexts will contribute to our understanding of lawyers’ well-being and add value to the wider COR literature.

Finally, a consequence of the literature’s predominant focus on lawyers’ negative well-being was that we were not able to examine the application of COR theory’s corresponding principle of a gain spiral leading to positive well-being outcomes (Hobfoll, 2010). As organisations face pressure not only to protect but also to promote lawyers’ well-being, there is a clear need to understand this positive half of the process. The literature suggests that several resources are positively associated with lawyers’ well-being, such as autonomy, intellectual challenge, supervisor and co-worker support and social value in work; however, further enquiry is needed into how gain spirals in legal practice may be triggered by resource accumulation.

Practical implications

We highlight several work structures and demands affecting large commercial law firm practice and public service and legal aid practice, respectively, which are associated with increased lawyer stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout and decreased job and life satisfaction. These include heavy workloads (e.g. Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014), perceptions of being valued for revenue generation over professionalism (Krill et al., 2022), inconsistency between employee and organisational values (Cadieux et al., 2022), constraints over job autonomy and decision latitude (e.g. Costa & Ferreira, 2014), low perceived organisational support particularly in relation to junior and mid-level lawyers (Chlap & Brown 2022) and exposure to traumatic work (e.g. Graffin, 2019; Léonard et al., 2020).

These findings suggest that a renewed focus on job design is needed to investigate ways in which lawyers’ work can be better managed and organised to reduce demands and increase resources (S. K. Parker et al., 2017). Several frameworks exist to help organisations do this via organisational-level interventions that involve the participation of employees and leadership support, and which follow a structured process of planning, implementation and evaluation (Leka et al., 2011; K. Nielsen et al., 2010).

Our review found no organisational-level interventions that were focused on redesigning lawyers’ jobs to alleviate negative well-being outcomes. However, we draw insight from studies on other service professionals, such as healthcare professionals, who experience similar work stressors as lawyers, including heavy workloads, intense and complex work, work–life conflict and a stigma associated with a perceived failure to cope (Kinman & Teoh, 2018). Effective organisational-level interventions for healthcare professionals have included streamlining administrative processes to free up time for other activities (Panagioti et al., 2017); implementing a ‘listen-ask-develop’ team-based model based on the assumption that systems are the problem, not people, and alleviating the problems by improving team relationships, processes and systems (West & Coia, 2019); and co-designing training programmes and interventions with employees (West et al., 2016).

We acknowledge the challenge of redesigning traditional working practices such as the chargeable hours model, which have existed in the legal profession for almost a century. However, smaller changes to the way that lawyers’ jobs are designed may also produce positive well-being outcomes. We see an opportune time for legal sector organisations to question the effectiveness of current working practices and explore alternative job design models that are aimed at improving not only client service but also the well-being of the people delivering those services.

We further propose a need for legal sector organisations to upskill supervisors/line managers on the behavioural competencies relevant to lawyers’ well-being. Line managers play a vital role in protecting and promoting the well-being of those they supervise and manage as their actions or inactions can buffer or exacerbate the impact of work stressors (Inceoglu et al., 2018; M. L. Nielsen et al., 2006). Management competencies relevant to preventing and reducing stress at work include being respectful and responsible, managing emotions and having integrity, proactively managing and communicating existing and future work, dealing with conflicts and difficult situations promptly and fairly and being accessible, sociable and engaging empathetically with employees (Donaldson-Feilder et al., 2009; Yarker et al., 2007, 2008). Research on the extent to which these behaviours may be developed in managers is still in its infancy (Yarker et al., 2022); however, the need for organisations to create a context that supports, encourages and gives managers the time to develop these critical behaviours has been found to play a significant role (Lewis et al., 2016).

Review limitations

This review captures a sufficient breadth and representation of the literature to identify all relevant concepts and perspectives, rather than adopt an exhaustive approach, which owing to resource and time restrictions would have been an impossible task (Gough et al., 2017). Several limitations are therefore noted. More publications may exist than were retrieved owing to language and database limitations. Although stakeholder engagement helped us to refine our population and concept search terms into as relevant a list as possible, legal professional titles and well-being synonyms vary considerably across countries and jurisdictions, meaning that some relevant studies may have been missed.

Conclusion

Our review is the first to systematically map and synthesise the scholarly and grey literature on lawyers’ well-being that has developed across disciplines over the past 50 years. We find that several work structures and demands are associated with negative well-being outcomes in lawyers, yet causal relationships remain less well understood, as do the mechanisms underpinning such relationships. The prevailing focal preponderance on poor well-being suggests an important avenue for enquiry into well-being’s positive facets.

In responding to Rojon and colleagues’ (2021) call for more systematic reviews to advance conceptual and theoretical development via an explanatory synthesis of evidence, rather than a summary of current findings, our review proposes a novel integrative theoretical approach to explain how professional contexts impact work-related well-being, by coalescing Bourdieu’s (1977) concepts of subfield and habitus with Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resources theory. We have demonstrated the application of this approach to lawyers; however, we suggest, it may be usefully applied to other professions and occupations.

Although professional contexts vary considerably in legal practice, we note that their impact on lawyers’ well-being has received minimal consideration. Through our abductive synthesis of the literature, we explain how large commercial law firm practice and public service and legal aid practice may impact well-being in unique and overlapping ways via threats to, or actual loss of, valued resources. We encourage future research to adopt more theory-driven, rigorously designed and context-specific approaches. This, we suggest, will greatly benefit our global endeavours to facilitate progress in practice.

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Lucinda Soon has declared no conflicts of interest

Almuth McDowall has declared no conflicts of interest

Kevin R. H. Teoh has declared no conflicts of interest

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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