Legal professionals are working an average 7 hours and 21 minutes extra contractual hours a week or 14 days a year according to research carried out by Douglas Scott Legal Recruitment – with some Criminal Lawyers logging up to 38 additional hours. The findings represent an improvement compared to 2014 when lawyers were putting in an average 9 hours 17 minutes “overtime” a week which equated to 18 days a year.
72% of lawyers are working longer than their contracted hours. Criminal Law tops the league with an average of 9.5 additional hours, followed by Litigation and ADR clocking up 8.5 extra hours per week. General practice professionals have seen the biggest drop in additional hours from, 10 to 6, which equates to nearly 8 days less time spent in the office.
The research also highlights that legal professionals are 20% happier in their roles compared to the previous year.
Director Jon Nolan comments “It is great to see the pendulum swing back in favour of work-life balance. Ambitious lawyers will always need to demonstrate flexibility in their working days but we are looking at diminishing returns here – to perform at your highest level you have to keep your battery charged.”
Douglas Scott – the multi-award winning legal recruitment specialists – gathered in data from nearly 2,000 survey respondents and crunched through £166 million of remuneration data when producing their 2015 Salary and Benefits Benchmarker, which is available to download here.
