Sabbaticals: Break with tradition

In a profession known for its gruelling hours and unforgiving billing culture, one might expect that the demand for sabbaticals would be surging. Certainly, an extended break from work, with a guarantee of employment on return, sounds good. Traditionally, employers also benefited: they could retain talent over the longer term and, if the sabbatical was unpaid, enjoy temporarily lower overheads. But the legal sabbatical in its traditional form is dying.

'Firms are advancing parental leave, but this is not the same thing as a sabbatical where your time is your own. Having more time out could stop people making career changes'

Will Cairns, Okapi Legal Recruitment

‘Over the last few years candidates have never asked me, or any of the team, about sabbatical policies,’ says Duane Cormell, managing director of north-west legal recruiters Realm Recruit. ‘Never once.’ Pre-pandemic, sabbaticals were more popular but ‘now they seem like a perk from another age’, says Cormell. ‘Times have changed.’

Why has the sabbatical fallen out of favour? More flexible working may have eased the need for a break, but other pressurised work environments which offer flexibility such as the public sector, education and the engineering industry have retained it.

The NHS still promotes sabbaticals offering staff career breaks for study or personal development. Anyone with 12 months’ service can apply for a sabbatical of between three months and five years. If the sabbatical is under a year, the employee returns to the same job, or to a similar role if the sabbatical is more than a year.

But law is a competitive and ‘time-is-money’ profession, with a fear factor for lawyers of losing contact with clients and returning to the office less relevant than when they left. ‘If you are taking more than a few weeks off unpaid a year, there is a clear gap in missed opportunities to progress, get promotions and earn bonuses,’ says Will Cairns, director at Bristol-based Okapi Legal Recruitment.

Law firms are also now more receptive to part-time and compressed hours, rather than the idea of working continuously for years to earn a chunk of time back. And with the cost-of-living crisis, unless your sabbatical is paid the cost is a huge hit. ‘Not many lawyers except really senior ones are in the financial position to take a long unpaid sabbatical,’ says Cormell, ‘as most will still have mortgages and bills to pay.’

What is a sabbatical?

To untangle what is happening with sabbaticals, it is necessary to define what they are. The traditional sabbatical entailed a substantial amount of time off – three to six months, maybe even a year. The concept originated in academia, where lecturers and professors were paid to undertake extra-curricular activities that would enhance their expertise and make them more embedded in their field. The sabbatical must be distinguished from parental leave or sickness absence. While maternity or paternity leave certainly tests new skills, it is hardly an opportunity to recharge batteries.

Instead of the mere absence of work, the traditional sabbatical is an opportunity to do something entirely different, sending people back to work refreshed with new perspectives. This might be learning a language, travelling, or mastering a musical instrument. When the Gazette last covered the topic of the sabbatical pre-pandemic, interviewees provided examples of sabbaticals well-spent: teaching History at Eton College, trekking in New Zealand and preserving historical sites.

'Over the last few years candidates have never asked me, or any of the team, about sabbatical policies… they seem like a perk from another age'

Duane Cormell, Realm Recruit

Sabbaticals after Covid

The sabbatical has undergone a post-Covid rebrand, however. Traditionally a privilege earned by partners for their long service to the firm, with the rise of flexible working and more options for work/life balance in the burgeoning alternative legal service provider market, the notion of loyalty to one firm is waning. A growing number of lawyers are no longer prepared to work for years in the same place, even for the prospect of a sabbatical when they hit the senior level. Lawyers are more likely to move firms than ever, with many junior lawyers making the leap at around three years’ qualified.

‘My view is that short employment terms for lawyers mean that they rarely accumulate the right to a sabbatical,’ says Cairns. ‘Lawyers are not at any one place long enough to earn a sabbatical, or perhaps even need one.’ Instead, many candidates choose to take an extended break between jobs by pushing the start date back, he adds.

To reflect the changing market, a four-to-six-week sabbatical offered at an earlier career stage is becoming more popular. On the one hand, this is a clever way of giving lawyers an extended break to stop them from burning out and leaving the profession. On the other, framing this provision as ‘a sabbatical’ in the traditional sense of the word is misleading. It is a long holiday, rather than a voyage of self-discovery or reinvention.

What is available?

There is a mixed approach to sabbaticals in the legal market. Leeds-based Walker Morris launched a sabbatical scheme in 2021. Aimed at its lawyers, but not business service professionals, solicitors at all levels with more than two years of service were eligible for up to four weeks of paid leave in addition to annual holiday entitlement. Its press release stated that the aim was ‘to promote a healthy work-life balance… acknowledging the industry-wide pressures of consistent, long and anti-social hours’. The firm also referred to ‘broader industry concerns about lawyer wellbeing and retention rates’, although no one at Walker Morris was available to provide an update on the scheme’s success.

Clifford Chance launched a pilot sabbatical programme of sorts in 2019, although this was restricted to its Spain, Italy and Istanbul offices, as well as three groups in London: finance, capital markets and TMT. This scheme is no longer promoted by Clifford Chance, although other City firms do still promote their sabbaticals, flagging up the advantages. Norton Rose Fulbright offers a sabbatical for up to six weeks for people who have worked at the firm for more than four years. The firm also offers six weeks’ qualification leave once a training contract has been completed.

Linklaters offers employees the opportunity to take a sabbatical once every three years, within a 12-month window. Laurie Ollivent, a senior associate in the firm’s employment and incentives group, took a one-month sabbatical for a wedding and honeymoon. She blogged about the benefits: ‘Normally on holiday, it takes me a while to detach myself from my work phone, even though I will have handed over my matters and there is often no need for me to check my emails,’ she says. ‘Because of this, one week is usually never enough time to truly switch off and by the time I am two-thirds of the way into a two-week holiday, I am already itching to catch up on emails in the hope that it will make my first day back at work easier.’ The advantages she points to include how sabbaticals help ‘to retain a healthy workforce and reduce the risk of employees feeling burnt out’.

Cripps offers six-week paid sabbaticals to partners every five years. An opportunity to allow junior staff to take on more responsibility and develop their leadership skills, the policy is also designed to allow partners to recharge and ‘spend quality time with family or friends or perhaps tick something off the holiday bucket list’.

Sally Ashworth, a property partner at Cripps’ Tunbridge Wells office, took six weeks off in 2024 for a long holiday and general recharge. ‘With three children and a full-time job, this was a great opportunity to switch off from work and go back to work refreshed,’ she says.

While sabbaticals are shorter, the opportunities to take them are more frequent, allowing for a professional breather. Although it is encouraging that junior lawyers are benefiting more, business service professionals are often left out of the equation.

Parenting premium

A policy based on the sabbatical has the potential to address a key issue facing law firms as they accelerate their drive towards promoting equity for women lawyers: the impossibility of reconciling high-performance cultures with being a present parent. While maternity leave can last up to a year, young children require constant care. Could the concept of the sabbatical be adapted to address this social dilemma? After all, much evidence points to child-rearing as a crucial factor holding women back in their careers that also widens the gender pay gap.

Perhaps there are lessons here for law firms in how to attract and retain female talent. ‘Semantics and how you frame breaks from work may have an impact on how they are perceived and used,’ says one law firm HR leader. The word ‘sabbatical’ is problematic in this context and would need careful framing – taking six months off to care for children is hardly the same as walking the Via Francigena to Rome, as one managing partner did pre-Covid.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the guiding body for HR professionals, points out that sabbaticals are sometimes referred to interchangeably with ‘career breaks’ or ‘unpaid leave’. Whether sabbaticals are paid or not is at the employer’s discretion. During a career break – a long period of unpaid leave – the employment contract is usually discontinued (and a return within a specified period agreed), but for a sabbatical, it is usual for the contract to continue.

The idea of the sabbatical has also been used by firms to delay the arrival of trainees or newly qualified associates when work slows, giving them a percentage of their salary to defer for a year. This tactic was employed during lockdown to manage overheads and utilisation. In summer 2020, Baker McKenzie implemented an optional reduced-hours programme, which saw some lawyers and support staff work a four-day week for 85% of pay. Whether this constituted a ‘sabbatical’ is a moot point – but shows the versatility of the concept.

What if they don’t come back?

There is no statutory right to a sabbatical in the UK. Instead, it is a contractual matter between the firm and the employee. Firms must ensure that those contractual arrangements are carefully considered.

Penny Morrison, an associate at boutique employment law firm Osborne & Wise, says: ‘An obvious starting point would be whether benefits such as health insurance and pension contributions continue during a sabbatical and whether the leave is paid or unpaid.’ Firms also need to consider whether any statutory requirements ought to be taken into account, for example around holiday entitlement, she adds.

Careful documentation is important. Firms must record whether the same role is guaranteed for the employee’s return, as well as ensure clarity around the activities the employee is allowed to undertake during the period of leave, such as their ability to work elsewhere and whether the firm can require them to work during their absence.   

What if the employee does not come back? ‘The sabbatical documentation should be clear that the contract of employment remains in place so that the firm retains the benefit of provisions such as post-termination restrictive covenants should the employee not return to work,’ says Morrison. ‘It is also vital that any sabbatical policies and procedures are applied consistently to avoid any allegations of discrimination.’

Time for a revival?

So should more law firms resurrect the concept of the sabbatical? ‘This is a missed opportunity,’ argues Cairns. ‘Lawyers have intense jobs, pressure on time, the billable hour and so on. Firms are advancing parental leave, but this is not the same thing as a sabbatical where your time is your own. Having more time out could stop people making career changes.’ He also points out that sabbaticals could play a greater role in an overall wellbeing package, a top priority for firms to attract and retain talent.

Sabbaticals are also beneficial to firms, not just in terms of wellbeing but as an aid to retention. The run-up to time off requires a reappraisal of how work is managed in the team, with files and documents updated for handover. Other lawyers in the team have an opportunity to take over the reins and shine.

The sabbatical is very much a moveable feast, with a lack of coherent policy across the legal market. With technology fuelling the need to be ever-present, the shorter version certainly provides the opportunity to relax and recharge. It does not, however, fully shake off the work shackles in the same way as extended global travel or participating in a lengthy reforesting project in the Amazon.

It may be that as Gen Z infiltrate the workplace with new ideas on flexibility and work/life balance, the sabbatical is rebranded yet again and given a new lease of life. After all, is that not the whole point?

 

Katharine Freeland is a freelance journalist