A well-known characteristic of the legal profession is its long hours working culture. This is often presented as inevitable and non-negotiable and has contributed to complaints that the profession is family unfriendly and does not accommodate women. Intensive and unpredictable working schedules similarly disadvantage a high proportion of disabled people, particularly if pain or fatigue are regular experiences associated with impairment. The poor availability of flexible or part-time training and job share opportunities were issues frequently raised by interviewees. In some cases, despite developing a life-long expertise in an area of law, we found a reluctance to accommodate on behalf of an employer led either
to a move into self-employment and self-accommodation, early retirement, or feeling unable to continue in the profession, suggesting that talent is being unnecessarily lost.
‘Ian’ for example, had been a senior equity partner for 20 years in a firm of approximately 75 partners when he developed a degenerative sight impairment. This affected his ability to drive and he found it increasingly difficult to visit clients outside the office, to network, or work from the firm’s premises. He began to work regularly from home, which he admitted was only really possible because of his seniority. Despite having ‘permission’ to work remotely he, nonetheless, told us he experienced guilt when he did so. Reflecting on the long hours’ culture in his firm and the expectation that people would be present in the office, he now believed these were subtle ways of “policing’ staff, including partners:
“You had to be at your desk even if there was nothing to do… Who’s going to be there latest in the evening? Yes, loads of that… If you weren’t sat at your desk, you weren’t contributing, you weren’t working… If you weren’t there, people were suspicious of whether you were pulling your weight.”
This culture of ‘presenteeism’ influenced the way ‘Ian’ viewed and evaluated his own
performance. When probed about his decision to take early retirement, he admitted that he had effectively put pressure on himself to leave: “It was more my assessment and my
judgement… rather than anyone imposing it on me.” He did, nonetheless, admit that the way performance targets operated in the firm had made him feel “guilty” and had a negative psychological impact. Asked if the type of flexible working he had been granted would have been available to more junior disabled staff in the firm with similar
impairments, he was certain it would not have been and that his seniority had enabled him to continue:
“I can think of former colleagues who would have been very negative about one of their juniors saying they were going to work at home this afternoon.”
‘Ian’ thus believed had he experienced disability earlier in his career his progression would have undoubtedly been negatively affected. He also felt that having had a lived experience of disability had changed his own attitudes towards the employment of disabled people:
“There are some aspects of some jobs which are difficult to do if you can’t do them physically, but obviously you don’t need to close your mind and assume someone with physical problems can’t overcome that,”
“I think you’re going to be more motivated to prove it doesn’t affect you in work terms that you can compete with people who doesn’t have that ‘problem’… I think a firm would do very well from taking on someone who on the face of it may have a ‘problem’, which would make it difficult to do the job, but I suspect a lot of people don’t see it that way.”
“I think firms are missing out on a valuable resource because I know lots of people with disabilities of various sorts who could contribute probably more than… or would want to contribute more because they want to prove themselves…you have to get people to see that what they think might be a problem isn’t necessarily a problem and people can overcome it… it’s constantly amazing what people are able to overcome.”
Having now left his senior position ‘Ian’ admitted his potential to influence policy and practice on disability in his firm has been largely lost. This highlights why the presence of disabled people at a senior level is so important and how their absence reinforces and sustains disadvantage. With other interviewees we explored whether it would have been possible to redesign aspects of their role to accommodate and retain them and most agreed this could have been achieved. The reluctance in the profession to redesign jobs is a major obstacle to talented disabled people seeking a long term career in the profession. We found the sheer poverty of imagination in relation to job redesign to also be widespread with a few exceptions.
We earlier noted the experience of ‘Bryan’, one year PQE, who was repeatedly given work outside core hours and expected to turn it around by the following morning. He told us:
“I practised for a year as a commercial disputes resolution lawyer … and I left their
employment last Wednesday after about a month and a year, and I've actually now moved out of the legal sector entirely. That was... the motivation for that decision largely because of the experience that I had while I was at the law firm”.
He added:
“And I considered this for a long time before I left the legal sector, I've no idea what type of law firm I could work in where I could actually get the support that I need and be able to ask for that without there being real serious negative repercussions.”
‘Esther’s flexible and home working arrangements were unplanned and accidental as she returned home from a week in hospital:
“… it was either not working at all or working from home because there was an emergency. I had no idea at that point that it would become a permanent arrangement, and I think if I'd said at that point this needs to become permanent straightaway that all hell would have broken loose, but because it happened incrementally, it was easier….And by the time that it
became evident that it would need to be a long-term/permanent arrangement I think I'd already managed to prove, especially to my… line manager, that it did work, we had made it work…”
Expectations related to presenteeism may also unintentionally perpetuate in an
organisation. ‘George’ described one workplace where the status indicator dots on Outlook would be monitored and commented upon by colleagues until late at night.
“It wasn’t that the partners wanted to keep tabs on people so they introduced the system, I think it was literally just that was how they set the computers up. I don’t think there was any more forethought than that… Everyone was under tremendous pressure and stress and miserable and not seeing their other half and whatever it may be. There was a culture of resentment…With the best will in the world, I can’t do 2,000 hours a year really without risking my health in an unacceptable way.”