ANALYSIS: Female Lawyers Report More Stress, Burnout than Males

According to recent Bloomberg Law survey data, female lawyers are working longer hours and dealing with more burnout than their male counterparts.

Bloomberg Law conducted its biannual Attorney Workload & Hours Survey in August, which focused on lawyers’ experiences in the first half of 2023. Overall, average hours worked and billed are down slightly from prior years, but mental and physical health issues still abound among attorneys—and the picture is grimmer for female respondents. While this is disappointing, it isn’t surprising to me, given recent headlines about women in the legal profession.

Working Less, But More Than ‘9 to 5'

The survey results indicate that lawyers are putting in more than the “traditional” 40-hour work week, but hours worked and billed have declined over the past two years.

Since Bloomberg Law began collecting this data in 2021, the average reported hours worked have decreased by five hours per week—from 53 average weekly hours in the first half of 2021 to 48 in the first half of 2023. Reported billable hours have likewise decreased by five hours—from 42 average billed hours to 37.

There are several possible explanations as to why the reported hours are declining:

• the earlier surveys were done in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and some attorneys likely worked more during that time;
• attorneys are now working less because there’s less work to be had amid legal layoffs and threats of a national recession; or
• legal organizations are using new AI tools to increase efficiency and reduce attorney hours.

The downward trend is true of both male and female attorneys, though for the past two years, female attorneys have consistently reported working and billing at least one hour more per week than male attorney respondents. This may be because females are tasked with the office “housework” at firms, which leads to both more billable and non-billable administrative hours. It may also be because male attorneys might be taking more time for themselves.

Female Attorneys Are Feeling the Burn(out)

The average amount of time attorneys said they felt burned out in their jobs (48%) stayed fairly steady from last year, and, just like last year, female respondents said they felt burnout at higher rates (56%) than male attorneys (41%). The survey results showed that those respondents who have children under the age of 18 in the home experienced more burnout, and female respondents suffered this to a greater degree than males.

The survey also asked respondents what issues they faced in the past six months because of work, and provided examples ranging from sleep disruption and physical health issues to anxiety and depression. A higher percentage of female respondents than males reported experiencing every problem, with the exception of “thoughts of self-harm,” which had equal percentages for both genders.

Additionally, only 10% of female respondents said that they experienced “none of these” problems due to work-related issues, while 21% of male respondents answered the same.

The Gender Gap in Self-Care

The average weekly time spent on self-care continues to rise from 2021, and is now at 7.2 hours. However, female attorneys have consistently reported spending less time on self-care than their male counterparts.

In fact, the gap between reported male and female attorney self-care hours has widened since Bloomberg Law’s last analysis on the topic.

Two years ago, female attorneys reported spending 5.1 hours per week on self-care—1.1 hours less than male attorneys. Now, female attorneys shared that they spent 5.6 hours per week on self-care—over three hours less than the average 8.9 hours per week reported by male attorneys.

When parenting minor children is added into the equation, the self-care hours spent by female respondents drops down to 3.9 hours per week. Working mom respondents, in other words, are spending barely a half hour a day on themselves and are experiencing more burnout.

Perhaps practicing more self-care hours would mitigate the higher burnout rates experienced by female respondents—it’s unclear whether taking less time for self-care causes burnout, or vice versa, or neither.

Additionally, telling anyone, especially a working mom, to practice more self-care is a bit like telling someone in the middle of a panic attack to ‘calm down.’ One word that I focus on in this advice though is ‘practice.’ As a working mom, I try to remember that I can’t control external factors, but that I can control what I practice: setting boundaries, taking breaks, and being present at home when I sign off at the end of the business day. Well-being is not a goal, it’s a process.

Bloomberg Law subscribers can find related content on our  Surveys, Reports & Data Analysis page, our Legal Operations page, our In Focus: Lawyer Development page, and our In Focus: Lawyer Well-Being page.

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