Managing Burnout in Legal Operations: Prioritizing Tasks and Well-being

Being a legal professional is no easy task. Workloads pile up, stress increases and before you know it, burnout looms around the corner.

As the end of a quarter approaches, increased work demands can significantly heighten the risk of burnout. The intensified workload and pressure during this period can lead to exhaustion and stress, making it critical to manage tasks effectively to avoid burnout. However, legal professionals need to prioritize themselves, even during these high-stress periods.

In-house legal teams are under pressure as workloads continue to rise and resources dwindle, leading to significant burnout and mounting obstacles. GCs and legal operations professionals are grappling with a perfect storm, where overworked and under-resourced teams struggle to keep up with demands, exacerbating daily stress and difficulties.

According to Axiom, in-house legal budgets are being squeezed to the breaking point. at the beginning of 2024, 96% of General counsels (GCs) faced budget cuts, with 54% experiencing reductions of over 10%. Meanwhile, standard law firm rates are expected to rise by 6% to 8%, taking an increasingly larger portion of the already shrinking budgets of GCs.

To combat burnout and its knock-on effects of exhaustion, cynicism, and sloppy work, legal teams must focus on doing the work that truly matters and ditch tasks that drain energy without yielding positive results.

One step towards overcoming burnout is reflecting on past work sprints, such as end-of-quarter rushes. Perform a post-mortem and ask pertinent questions like, 'Could we have better anticipated needs or clarified processes?' or 'Did we provide information to stakeholders early enough to avoid logjams?'

Another crucial step is prioritizing. By definition, a priority list is short. Legal professionals must thoughtfully allocate time to support pre-defined goals. As legal professionals, strategically allocating your limited time and energy is essential. This includes clearly defining where effort should not be spent, and focusing on impactful projects instead of getting bogged down with mundane tasks.

Legal professionals must understand that not every contract requires a thorough review. LinkSquares’ Vice President of Legal, Jonathan Greenblatt, advises legal departments to establish a threshold for review, thus saving time for other critical tasks.

Furthermore, reconsider the need for every meeting. As per a recent estimate, 71% of professionals lose time every week due to canceled or unnecessary meetings. Instead, find value in saying 'no' to non-essential meetings or propose compromises to save time.

Prioritizing yourself also means prioritizing mental health. Nearly half of lawyers are experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety due to stress. Legal professionals must grasp the uniquely stressful nature of their work and rely on each other for support. A recent study showed that when law students were taught how to practice mindfulness, their levels of stress, anxiety, and depression all decreased. Notably, the control group of students saw all three measures rise — which makes sense, given that the “before” assessment was performed in January 2020 and the “after” was conducted remotely in April 2020.

Lastly, using technology for tedious tasks can free up time for strategic work. Contract lifecycle management (CLM) technology can help with this. For instance, LinkSquares enables contract creation in minutes with stored clause and template capabilities.

Prioritizing yourself is critical, especially in high-stress situations like the end of a quarter. Ditching manual processes, focusing on the work that matters, and supporting your team will not only extinguish burnout but also amplify productivity and job satisfaction.

Learn more about Prioritize, LinkSquares' legal task management tool.