Burnout in the legal profession does not affect everyone in the same way. We draw on gender-based research to see how structural norms, invisible labour, work–family conflict, and progression models shape distinct burnout pathways for men and women.
Burnout is a persistent risk in the legal profession, but the pathways leading to burnout are not the same for everyone. As each person’s perception of strain differs, it becomes more and more difficult to pinpoint when it’s taking hold.
Burnout affects all genders in the legal profession, but a growing body of research shows that how burnout emerges and what intensifies it vary by gender. These differences don’t imply that one group is more or less resilient, but that the conditions under which lawyers operate are shaped by structural norms, family roles, emotional expectations, and coping styles. All of these factors have differing effects on the experiences of work for men and women.
A central theme tying much of this research together is invisible labour: the emotional, relational, and organisational work that disproportionately falls to women and rarely appears in performance metrics or discussions of progression. However, burnout has an impact on both men and women. Across studies of lawyers, prosecutors, judges and helping professions, women tend to report higher emotional exhaustion, while men often report more depersonalisation, a form of emotional distancing used for protection. These patterns reflect not inherent differences, but different pressures, workloads, and expectations.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at this research and see how burnout affects men and women in the legal profession, as well as the ripples it creates in their lives.
Evidence consistently shows that gendered behaviour norms like structural inequality and expectations of availability influence burnout levels.
A major study of 2,800 US attorneys found that women reported higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress, and were significantly more likely to consider leaving the profession due to burnout or mental health concerns (25% of women vs 17% of men, specifically). The same research showed that work–family conflict was the strongest predictor of attrition for women, while overcommitment was the strongest predictor for men.
This aligns with findings from Russia, where a large study of 500+ lawyers reported that women were more prone to burnout due to the ‘double load’ of legal work combined with household and family responsibilities. These pressures accumulate over time, creating an emotional and logistical load that is simply not equivalent across genders.
What does this ‘double load’ look like? Common structural pressure points include:
Research on career crises among lawyers indicates that women show more burnout symptoms and greater emotional vulnerability, while some burnout symptoms become “dominant” among men and require targeted psychological interventions. This shows us how gendered expectations shape both performance and self-evaluation.
In practice, double standards often show up in subtle ways. Women, in particular, may notice that mistakes are judged more harshly or remembered for longer, while similar errors elsewhere are framed as part of normal learning. Success can also be interpreted differently, with women’s achievements sometimes attributed to context or support rather than competence. Communication and boundary-setting may be read through a narrower lens, too, where assertiveness or limits are more likely to be questioned. These patterns are rarely explicit, but over time, they reinforce uneven expectations and add to the emotional load of already demanding roles.
Invisible labour is one of the most significant yet least acknowledged drivers of burnout in the legal profession, and this can be gendered too. Research across legal settings shows that women often shoulder a substantial amount of work that is not formally recognised but is essential to team and client functioning. This includes managing team morale, supporting distressed or vulnerable clients, smoothing conflict, handling informal onboarding, and maintaining the relational glue that keeps cases and teams moving.
A study of US prosecutors illustrates this clearly: while men’s burnout correlated mainly with heavy workload, women’s burnout was strongly linked to emotional stressors and a tendency to internalise or avoid rather than externalise or problem-solve. This illustrates a more general difference between men and women in how they approach stressors. Women and men often respond differently to stress because of socialisation and role expectations. Women are generally encouraged to be emotionally attuned and relationally responsible, making them more likely to internalise pressure, whereas men are often conditioned to externalise stress or problem-solve quickly, distancing themselves from emotional impact.
In the instance of the US prosecutors study, this means women are carrying a parallel emotional caseload that sits alongside their legal responsibilities that men may not have.
These expectations also show up in the way women are positioned within teams. They are frequently regarded as the “safe pair of hands” for high-emotion clients, the de-escalators in tense interactions, and the colleagues who absorb the excess emotional pressure others offload. TCC’s therapeutic work with women lawyers reflects this pattern; many describe feeling relied upon for emotional stability in ways that exceed their formal role, creating relational strain and exhaustion. The impact of this invisible labour is substantial: it reduces the time available for strategic or billable work, elevates fatigue due to constant emotional vigilance, and limits visibility in the areas that matter most for progression. It’s this mismatch between effort and recognition that contributes directly to emotional exhaustion, and then the burnout dimension, where work-life starts to crumble.
Gendered barriers to progression in law significantly contribute to the development of burnout, particularly for women who balance professional and personal demands. Research consistently shows that women shoulder a disproportionate share of family and domestic responsibilities. This was a pattern strongly associated with increased burnout in the Russian lawyer study, where the “second shift” was identified as a major explanatory factor. The dual workload leaves women with less time for recovery outside of work, higher cumulative stress, even when their billable hours match those of their male peers, and greater strain during career stages involving parenting or elder care.
These pressures intersect with partnership norms that were designed around a traditionally masculine career model. Progression frameworks often assume uninterrupted career trajectories, visible commitment demonstrated through long hours, minimal external responsibilities, and constant availability. These conditions don’t align with anyone working a full-time job in the 2020s, where a single-income household is very often not an option. This work model reduces professionals’ agency in managing workload and intensifying the conditions that lead to burnout. This needs to change.
Alongside these systemic barriers, everyday microaggressions and gender bias further erode psychological safety. Reviews of judges and other helping professions show that women frequently report higher compassion fatigue and burnout, even when differences are modest. Small but persistent incidents such as being interrupted more often, seeing ideas gain traction only when repeated by male colleagues, facing assumptions about seniority or capability, or receiving comments about tone, confidence, or emotionality accumulate over time. These microaggressions create a constant low-level pressure that increases emotional fatigue and contributes meaningfully to gendered burnout patterns.
Research shows that burnout does not manifest uniformly across genders; instead, it reflects different emotional, behavioural and structural pressures encountered by men and women in the legal profession.
A major meta-analysis of 183 studies challenges the assumption that women experience more burnout overall. Instead, women show slightly higher emotional exhaustion, while men show slightly higher depersonalisation. Although these differences are statistically small, they are meaningful in practice because they point to distinct burnout pathways. Emotional exhaustion (more common in women) aligns with chronic overload, relational strain, and heightened self-criticism. Depersonalisation (more common in men) aligns with emotional distancing, cynicism, and coping strategies that suppress or detach from stress.
A large-scale study of 2,863 lawyers provides further insight into how these gendered patterns unfold in legal settings. Women reported significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, stress and hazardous drinking, and were substantially more likely to consider leaving the profession because of mental health or burnout. The same study shows that what drives burnout also differs by gender: for women, work–family conflict was the strongest predictor of contemplating leaving; for men, overcommitment was the primary factor. This suggests that women’s burnout is strongly shaped by cumulative load, both at work and at home, while men’s burnout is more likely to emerge from the internal pressure to persevere through excessive demands.
These studies also indicate differences in coping styles. Purvanova & Muros of the meta-analysis argue that emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation reflect broader gendered responses to stress, with women tending to internalise strain and men externalising or distancing. Anker & Krill of the large-scale study add that women’s higher levels of emotional distress and problematic drinking may reflect environments where effort–reward imbalance is greater and opportunities for progression are perceived as narrower, undermining psychological safety and future orientation.
Together, this research shows that burnout is not gender-neutral in either cause or expression. Lawyers may reach a similar endpoint, exhaustion, strain, and withdrawal, but through different pathways shaped by structural pressures, social expectations and coping patterns.
| Dimension | Women | Men |
| Primary burnout expression | Emotional exhaustion | Depersonalisation / emotional distancing |
| Key predictor of contemplating leaving | Work–family conflict | Overcommitment |
| Common emotional pattern | Internalisation, self-blame, heightened anxiety | Externalisation, problem-focused coping, distancing |
| Mental health prevalence | Higher depression, anxiety, stress, hazardous drinking | Lower overall distress but higher depersonalisation |
| Structural pressure | Greater effort–reward imbalance; limited progression pathways | Pressure to sustain overwork as identity |
This is something employers need to take responsibility for. Speaking up about perceived inequalities as an individual is intimidating and stressful, with much feeling ‘at stake’. Victims of inequality might not even be sure it’s not just a case of ‘not being resilient enough’. Burnout prevention requires changes at cultural, structural and leadership levels. The following actions are practical steps we suggest for legal employers to create a healthy firm.
Organisations can strengthen their response to gendered burnout by accessing specialist external support. TCC provides exactly this: expert training on how to spot bias and emotional labour, therapeutic supervision for teams, leadership coaching, and structured culture reviews that help firms redesign systems, redistribute load, and embed psychologically safe, sustainable working practices.
Talk to us today to find out exactly how we can help you create a safer, more comfortable place your staff will want to stay loyal to.
