Lawyers work ‘extreme’ overtime, study reveals
Lawyers are among the most likely workers to do ‘extreme’ unpaid overtime, figures have revealed.
Research by the Trades Union Congress found that 18% of legal professionals did more than 10 hours of unpaid overtime a week.
The study found that 22,717 legal professionals were working an average of 16 hours a week for no extra pay.
The TUC noted that while teachers worked a higher number of unpaid hours than solicitors, lawyers did not receive the same ‘lavish holiday arrangements’ to compensate. Corporate managers also performed high levels of overtime.
The research found that nearly half of all legal professionals worked unpaid overtime, with 18% working ‘extreme’ unpaid hours.
A TUC spokesman said: ‘Lawyers will not be surprised by the fact that they work more unpaid hours than virtually every other profession.
‘It’s concerning that more than one in six are putting in an average of 16 hours of free work every week, on top of the hours they already do.
‘This long-hours culture can lead to stress and poor health, as well as less time to spend away from the office with friends and family.’
The research was based on the Office of National Statistics’ Labour Force survey of 40,000 people. It found that the number of people working more than 10 hours of unpaid overtime per week increased by 14,000 to nearly 900,000 last year.
Comments
Overtime
One of the Partner's in my firm criticised me for wasted unbilled time in respect of one client, saying the firm had lost money. I responded by saying that it wasn’t the firm's time as it was overtime – my time. She didn't appear to understand my point!
It is astounding that this
It is astounding that this culture of extreme overtime is allowed to continue without any recompense. Those in the Corporate field will tell you that 16 hours per week overtime is small fry we often work much longer hours for prolonged periods.
Always suprises me that this problem has not been tackled.
You can't fight market forces
The bottom line is too many people want to be lawyers and as such exploitation is widespread.
The market for legal services is irrational because it is so over supplied.
Only when the supply demand imbalance is rectified will the exploitation cease but there's no sign of that happening anytime soon. Quite the contrary.
Unpaid overtime
The government insist upon unpaid overtime for criminal defence lawyers. We are required to be on standby for eight hours at a time for duty solicitor police station work. The rota period from 23,00 hours until 0700 hours often does not produce any attendances at the police station but we are required to be alert for those eight hours without reward. The standby fee used to be below the national average wage but at least £4.25 per hour was some recompense for the loss of a night's sleep. How many other professions accept this level of on call duty without pay?
government should abolish "voluntary" opt out from 48 hrs week..
to start with. everyone knows that one has to "voluntarily" opt out if one wants a job.. it is a joke. that would certainly make things more normal since, as noted above, the demand for lawyers is far from exceeding supply... lawyers are too esily replaced by another "hungry" soul to stand any chance in having their rights respected and there will never be 48 hours week for them..