All you need to know about psychosocial risks for lawyers

All you need to know about psychosocial risks for lawyers


Legal professionals, especially lawyers, are not spared from psychosocial risks. These even seem to be taking on more and more importance in the legal sector. What are the psychosocial risks for lawyers? What preventive actions have been carried out and/or envisaged for this difficult profession in terms of responsibilities and requirements?
Psychosocial risks: what are we talking about?
Psychosocial risks (RPS) are precisely defined by the Ministry of Labour, as "occupational risks of various origins and natures, which involve the physical integrity and mental health of employees and therefore have an impact on the proper functioning of organizations. The National Institute for Research and Safety at Work (INRS) distinguishes between three types of psychosocial risks:
the stress;
internal violence within the company, in particular moral or sexual harassment, or major conflicts between teams;
external violence committed by third parties against company professionals, such as threats, insults or attacks.
PSR concern all trades and all workers, regardless of their hierarchical position. Exposure to these risks can have consequences on the organization (absenteeism, turnover, etc.) but also, and above all, on the health of the professionals themselves. Cardiovascular diseases, psychological problems or professional exhaustion syndromes (burn-out), for example, can indeed impact workers.
 
Good to know
The employer is subject to a general safety obligation vis-à-vis its teams. In particular, psychosocial risks should be assessed and appropriate measures taken to protect the physical and mental health of workers. Within this framework, national interprofessional agreements have been signed by the social partners. They relate to stress at work (2008), moral harassment and violence at work (2010).
Psychosocial risks among lawyers
Lawyers are also affected by PSR, which has been more since 2020, marked by the pension reform project and the health context.
 
Valérie Duez-Ruff carried out a survey on the quality of life of lawyers a few years ago, at the end of her term of office at the Council of the Order of Paris, with the union of corporate lawyers (ACE). Of the several thousand respondents spread across the national territory, 99% of the lawyers questioned said they were stressed. Stress deemed excessive by 50% of them. Stress is thus perceived as a real factor that worsens the quality of life for lawyers.
 
In addition, 41% complained of a poor work-life balance. The lack of recognition, the deterioration of working relations with clients, between colleagues and with magistrates were also mentioned during the investigation. Despite everything, 47% of them remain attached to their profession and want to remain lawyers, the rest wishing to expand their activity or reorient themselves.
 
These trends are confirmed by another study "Décideurs Juridiques" on happiness at work, carried out among legal professionals in 2021. Stress is indeed always omnipresent: the people questioned evaluate it on average at 3.6/5, and between 4 and 5 for 53% of them. However, 55% of respondents believe that their work environment preserves their privacy.
 Psychosocial risks among lawyers: what preventive actions?
Legal professionals are sensitive to the prevention of PSR. According to the “Legal Decision Makers” survey, 35% of professionals questioned rated between 4 and 5 (out of 5) the importance they attach to the prevention of these risks. Professionals who hold strategic positions in law firms or legal departments have also awarded the highest marks on this point.
 
Within the legal profession, the Paris Bar's Labor Law Commission presented a report in 2020 on psychosocial risks and moral harassment. The subject is therefore taken very seriously by the representative bodies of the profession.
 
Valérie Duez-Ruff, now a lawyer and coach, insists on the importance of setting up privileged listening times within the legal profession, with social workers in particular, so that the latter can possibly establish indicators prevention, detection and alert on PSR. It also recommends the implementation of training actions for lawyers. As an individual, the expert insists on the importance, for lawyers, of knowing how to listen to their own limits, of imposing periods of rest and of daring to ask for help.