Stressed out

Almost every legal journal I pick up nowadays seems to have at least one piece about the effects on lawyers of stress and the vast amounts of overtime demanded by their firms, and the attempts of a well-publicised few to salvage some remnants of their health and private life from the depredations of their employers.

It makes Dickensian reading.How on earth has it come to be accepted as perfectly normal in the 21st century that to survive in this learned profession you must sell yourself into some form of more or less legalised slavery? Why do lawyers, of all people, surrender all rights to any sort of normal lifestyle by committing themselves to hours that wreck their families and stress levels that wreck their health? Why do firms allow themselves to be perceived as selfish, uncaring employers? Why do we advise clients about employment law and working time regulations, but fail to apply it all to ourselves? The answers are, of course, perfectly obvious, but this is not the way to a healthy, vibrant profession - it is the road to collapse.

When the Mammonites' excesses have pushed themselves and each other into premature oblivion, I wonder whether people like me who joined the profession for philanthropic reasons will still be around to carry on in a more civilised and moderate fashion?On the other hand, perhaps the new indemnity insurers, which surely will not fancy the odds against 90-hours-a-week zombies falling into serial negligence, will insist on a return to sanity.

Elizabeth Cowell, fellow of the institute of legal executives, Ludlow, Shropshire