Top 10 stresses felt by working parents in the legal sector

What are the top 10 stresses felt by working parents in the legal sector?

As a provider of parental-transition coaching, our HR clients often ask us what working parents need right now to help them balance their working and family lives for the longer-term.  Our experiences working 1-1 with parents in the legal sector (and beyond) echo those which were raised in The Lawyer Working Parents Survey in March, which surveyed 1,200 working parents.  Below are some of the comments from the survey which we found particularly shocking and aligned very much with what we are hearing in our coaching sessions for parents:

  1. Younger generation of men feel frustrated by lack of flexibility and assistance
  2. The effects of Covid and gender imbalance on partner promotions for 2022
  3. Pressure to be available to clients as well as children is draining and unrealistic
  4. Worry we will all be expected to return to normal working hours and lose all flexibility
  5. Seeing senior, talented women leaving the profession in droves and suffering extreme stress
  6. Asking to reduce hours but worrying the amount of work won’t decrease
  7. Long-term, strategic client work is not getting done; what will the long-term impact of this be?  Working parents getting left behind?
  8. Legal sector is blinkered by concerns of client-servicing and bringing in work; all valid of course but not at the expense of employee health and wellbeing
  9. Older generation of men at the top of firms with no child care responsibilities and unchanged expectations – lost touch with what people need right now
  10. There is an expectation that you will draw on family for support to enable the work to be done – rather than get that support from the firm

Do these comments resonate with what you are hearing in your firm?  Or were you just as shocked as we were to see them listed out?

We would love to know what steps you have already taken to allays these concerns.  Many of our clients are law firms so we have tried and tested solutions to most of the above worries and insecurities.  Email helen@pandpcoaching.co.uk to continue this conversation.

This week’s blog is written by co-founder of Parent & Professional, Helen Letchfield.

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