Nearly 90% of in-house lawyers are dissatisfied with their jobs, survey finds

A staggering 89% of in-house counsel said they are experiencing dissatisfaction with their roles, according to a survey of 300 U.S. in-house lawyers.

Three in 10 said they were very unsatisfied with their position, which was a bump up from the 18% who expressed that view last year.

Meanwhile, 61% described themselves as extremely stressed and burned out, up from the 47% who reported feeling that way in 2022.

A lack of proper resources to support the growing demands placed on legal departments is driving these findings, according to the 2nd annual View from the Inside survey report produced by the legal talent provider Axiom.

Overall, 81% said their legal department is under-resourced, and 100% said they had seen an increase in both the volume and complexity of their work.

“If that weren’t enough, many teams are finding their efficacy hampered by excessive time spent on administrative tasks and a misalignment between their team’s expertise and real-time legal department needs,” the report said.

Hiring challenges

As for those in-house legal teams looking to bolster their ranks to keep up with increasing workloads, the Axiom report indicates they may face challenges.

Roughly 76% of respondents indicated a headcount freeze in their legal department was likely or already happening.

Additionally, almost all in-house counsel (97%) said their departments were having difficulty finding the right lawyers for their teams.

“This has become a particularly acute problem for small-to-medium-sized companies,” the report said.

Flight risks?

Given some of the survey findings around dissatisfaction and stress, legal departments may struggle to keep their current employees.

Rough two-thirds of in-house counsel said they were open to a new position, including 21% who were job searching and 17% likely to do so in the next year.

In last year’s survey, 14% of attorneys were seeking a new role.

Senior in-house lawyers at the deputy general counsel and assistant/associate general counsel levels expressed greater contentment with their roles than mid-level and junior lawyers, according to the Axiom report.

For example, 73% of junior lawyers said they were seeking or open to a new role compared to 51% of senior attorneys who expressed contentment in their current positions.

More than half of mid-level and junior lawyers expressed substantial dissatisfaction with their current roles, the report found.

“In-house counsel are not just dissatisfied; they are teetering on the edge of departure,” said Sara Morgan, Axiom’s chief legal talent officer. “They are asking for their leaders to evolve the way they manage and lead. Legal leaders must listen and take action to address and solve the issues raised in this survey before they lose valuable team members and face the consequences."