Heating up or burning out? Is winning at all costs not winning at all?

Welcome to What Matters — a series of topics that aim to put some of the critical pieces together for lawyers. This month, we explore burnout in the legal industry in Australia. How to spot it, how to stop it in its tracks, and is the new right to disconnect the silver bullet?

[Insert lawyer here] Unyoked’s Global Nature Study found that extended time in nature reduces burnout even more than practices like mindfulness and yoga, with respondents experiencing a 16.2% reduction after two nights. Sound good? Why not try to win a weekend away for yourself?

Australia — work hard, play hard, stress harder?

In the legal and professional services industry, we like to think we’ve got the market cornered on stress. With long days, all-nighters, and ever-escalating client demands, we wear stress and overtime like a badge of honour. Australians are known for working hard, but we also “workout hard”. Parks and beaches are as busy at 6am as they are at midday as people smash out an early morning run, and CrossFit and Pilates classes are filled to overflowing. Complete only with a selfie, of course, and #lawyerlyfe (the sole excusable typo in our perfection-driven lives).

This drive, however, hides a more insidious core of chronic stress and burnout. The 2024 Global Wellbeing survey by activewear giant Lululemon flagged chilled-out Australia as the most burned-out country in the world. In a study across 15 countries and 16,000 respondents conducted by independent researchers Edelman Data & Intelligence, Australia took home gold ahead of Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, and the US. This isn’t an isolated result, either. Process automation market leaders UiPath doubled down on the claims, with the 2024 worker survey results indicating that 82% of Australian knowledge workers were suffering from burnout, with one-third saying they were very or extremely burned out. Again, Australia led the pack in this online survey of close to 10,000 respondents across nine countries.

So why is Australia so stressed out? And what can we do about it? Is the answer in the newly minted right to disconnect?

There was a time when lawyers could focus more on the law. Time flies, and so does technology.

Burning the midnight oil

Burnout is not a new phenomenon. It was first identified in 1974 and described by the World Health Organisation as chronic and prolonged stress, with the inability to complete the stress cycle and regulate the body. Like any energy exchange, it is the excess of stressors (emotional, mental, or otherwise) and the lack of resources to deal with them continued over a prolonged period — effectively, a supply and demand issue. For early humans, the fight, flight, or freeze response was provoked by a tiger quickly arriving in our lives and then (hopefully) leaving. Now, there is no escape from the tiger to allow the body and mind to return to a restful state. Instead, the tigers keep coming, and the body remains perpetually on high alert. Untreated, burnout can lead to depleted immune systems and exacerbate both physical and mental medical conditions, from insomnia, hypertension, and heart conditions to anxiety and depression.

The global pandemic and years following definitely turned up the heat, with the boundary between work and home becoming paper-thin. When work spills over into leisure time, this imbalance and the resulting lack of social connection contribute to burnout. At the office, a lack of autonomy, hazy role expectations, and an unsupportive environment are also factors. Too much to do in too little time, or conversely, too little to do and (billable) hours to fill also ramp up the effects.

While the build-up of stressors can occur slowly, there are somewhat universal signs that one might be experiencing burnout. These include a lack of motivation, both at work and outside, with things that usually bring you joy no longer hitting the spot. Some symptoms read like both cause and effect: exhaustion and tiredness are indications of burnout and likely lead to increased mistakes and frustration at work.

While it is obvious why individuals should care, workplaces with an eye on the bottom line can’t ignore the issue. McKinsey reports mental health-related absenteeism costs Australian businesses 13.6 billion USD per year.

Making moves or chasing your tail? We know lawyers can be competitive, so we remade a classic game for some fun and the metaphors but mainly so that lawyers could win a weekend away with Unyoked.

Burnout — a lawyer’s lot?

Why is burnout so prevalent in the law? And why is Australia the global burnout hotspot? Organisational psychology specialist Lisa Williams confirms the strong link between lawyers and burnout:

“One of the most prevalent contributing factors to burnout that I see in my clients is perfectionism; it’s particularly widespread in the legal profession where high-performing individuals put themselves under pressure to be the best.”

A lawyer’s inner critic is never satisfied with a job merely “done”; it must be perfect. Furthermore, law is about identifying errors, flaws, and gaps. This leads to many external critics too — partners, seniors, clients, and the other side are all ready to pick our work apart.

Law is also a service industry increasingly operating across multiple time zones and jurisdictions. While it might be nice to close the laptop at 5:01pm, if a client calls at 7pm, the call is answered, and the laptop opens again. These requests, reasonable or not, will keep us working when willpower and common sense say no. Clients can and will move for on-demand service and lower bills.

The setup of the legal industry is also a key culprit. More hours mean more billables, which means happy partners, happy firms, and greater chances of bonuses or promotions. We can take a holiday after this matter finishes, once the contract is signed, once the court hearing is over, we tell ourselves. But so often, it’s “once more into the breach” for the next matter, and the break never comes. Is it any wonder lawyers are so burned out when there are multiple drivers to keep going?

Productive disconnection

You might say that when we do get a weekend off or escape the office before 10pm, the lifestyle is better in Australia. Good weather draws us to the beach and outdoor activities. How can we possibly be so burned out when opportunities to disconnect are so abundant?

The Lululemon Report indicates that while Australians identify wellness as a top priority, the drive to “do wellness” is another source of burnout. We wake with the kookaburras for 5am run clubs and Crossfit challenges — if you’re not working just as hard at wellness as you are at work, you’re not doing it right. Rather than an antidote, it’s another source of stress and pressure, with social media comparisons not helping.

Does this work hard, play hard cycle lead to Australia’s sky-high stress levels? The Instagram page Aussie Corporate asked its followers why Australia is the unfortunate burnout champion. Answers varied: it’s a generational issue; we’re more self-aware, so identify it more; the rising cost of living. There’s also the sunny, healthy outdoor lifestyle expectation vs hard-yakka reality — no one takes a job in the UK or the US for an “easy life”. Add caring for children and ageing parents to the mix, and finding time to de-stress is a considerable squeeze.

Is there a solution in the right to disconnect?

As part of the recent update to the Fair Work Act, the right to disconnect (RtD) came into force on 26 August 2024 for large companies, with a rollout to small companies in August 2025. The introduction of RtD follows similar legislation in France, Belgium, Italy, and Argentina, with discussions underway in the UK. With this act, employees have a legal right to disengage from work-related communications (emails, messages, calls) outside of regular working hours without facing penalties or retaliation. It’s intended to establish boundaries between professional and personal life — a barrier blurred by technology and post-pandemic WFH.

While employees and those in HR and mental health fields welcome the legislation, the arrival of RtD has been met with scepticism in legal fields. While there is no official exclusion for those with higher incomes, a person’s seniority and remuneration play a part in whether outside-of-hours contact is “reasonable”. This is where law firms and similar professions may choose to draw battle lines. Anecdotally, law firms have shunned discussion on how the legislation would apply to law firms and their employees, focussing instead on how they can churn billable hours out of advising their clients how to approach the new law.

The act applies not only to employers but to the demands that clients put on lawyers — and managing clients and their expectations has long been a challenge in the legal industry. Client-related burnout is one of three scales of measuring personal burnout in the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, the global standard for understanding work-related exhaustion.

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What matters (from our perspective)

At Sky Discovery, we know lawyers and legal practice culture intimately. Many of our team members are former practising solicitors. And our client partners are talented lawyers working on great matters. We’re committed to providing outstanding service to our clients, but we also value shaping a great place to work. In-house, we routinely face the same challenges of extended hours and tight deadlines. So how do we help our staff disconnect and find some balance while achieving our mission of making life easier for lawyers?

Follow the sun

We know lawyers managing matters don’t always work 9 to 5, so we have developed a global footprint of experts to work when our clients do. Thanks to our international team in Australia, the UK, the USA, and India, we operate a “follow the sun” model. We can share work across the teams rather than one region remaining on-call all night. Clinical psychologist Dr Aileen Alegado says that we need to stop seeing being permanently switched on as a gift, and instead “reframe this as something unsustainable, unproductive, or even unprofessional”. After all, humans are not machines. And even computers need recharging.

Flexibility and agency

At Sky, we have flexible working practices so that our team members can work according to their needs. This might look like going for an afternoon run or working around school pick-up. How they use this flexibility is up to them. We want to ensure that high-stress periods are the exception rather than the rule, so people can disengage from permanent fight or flight mode and transition to rest and digest mode to recharge. Encouraging disconnection might support people to complete the stress cycle through proven methods like exercise, meditation, or social connection throughout the work day. However, Unyoked’s Global Nature Study found that extended time in nature reduces burnout even more than practices like mindfulness and yoga, with respondents experiencing a 16.2% reduction in burnout scores after two nights. So don’t just take a quick nap under your desk; disconnect for the whole weekend.

Better boundaries

Limiting the scope of a day and setting boundaries can significantly soothe the effects of chronic overworking. Rather than seeing these as a hindrance to performance at work, Dr Alegado suggests we should “start seeing having boundaries as [enabling us] to achieve peak performance and thrive at work, not just survive”. Being realistic with the amount of work possible in a day might also make us better co-workers and managers. Overwork exacerbates gender inequalities in the office and at home. McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report found when managers foster a culture of inclusion and well-being, employees are less burned out, happier in their roles, and less likely to consider leaving their organisations.

Lead by example

As leaders, it’s important to consider not only ourselves but the pressures and culture we create for our teams. Lisa Williams says, “there are increasing requirements of managers to lead their teams holistically and be responsible for helping people manage their work and life demands”. While writing flexible workplace policies is needed, so too is nudging teams to adopt healthy boundaries and behaviours through active encouragement — and leading by example. Greater self-awareness can help identify when others may be suffering burnout. At Sky, we find honest, open communication is key to making many things work. We have discussions among our teams on how best to work together, including preferred modes of contact outside regular working hours.

Smarter, not harder

Outsourcing and delegating can help clear some of the work off your desk and allow you to focus on more interesting and challenging work (rather than just admin and mouse-clicking). This is also why we at Sky Discovery exist — to help you get back to just being a lawyer. By outsourcing eDiscovery to our technical experts (both human and machine), you can short-circuit the too-long to-do list and, hopefully, spark a better work-life balance. In our What Matters series, we’ve previously discussed how AI capabilities can support low-risk tasks like searching, summarising, and translating documents — putting AI paralegal in your pocket. Lawyers who work with us are already winning time back. Just think: less putting out fires, more forest bathing.

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