Tell me if this sounds familiar: you wake up on a Saturday morning and you’re tired and irritable.
Your children, if you have any, run into the room and jump on your bed looking for some love and attention. But it’s not long before your short temper has broken, not just with your children, but your partner as well. Why? Because your five day working week feels like ten days. Every morning you left the house before the sun had risen and returned home after the sun had set. In the hours in between you dealt with more work stress than any decent man or woman deserves. In short, you spent a week in a traditional law firm.
The long hours, high stress culture of the law industry means too many lawyers spend too much time in the office and not enough time at home, or out socialising, with the people they cherish. And because they are so tired and stressed, even when they do spend time with their nearest and dearest the relationships they are meant to enjoy quickly deteriorate.
You might not be surprised to learn that in a workplace poll by the mental health charity Mind, one in six people surveyed said strain at work had affected their marriage or relationship. Excessive workload, not enough support and unrealistic targets were cited as the main causes of that strain. As I say, sound familiar?
But what if there was another way of living your life which meant you not only achieved career success, but relationship success as well? Well, you’ll be pleased to hear there is – you become a consultant lawyer at Setfords.
Our way of operating, where lawyers work for themselves under the umbrella of Setfords, with the indemnity insurance and market-leading support structure that brings, has a number of key benefits where relationships are concerned, starting with the ability to work from any location of your choice, be that your home, a private office, or even your villa in Spain.
Consultants are their own boss and have only one major concern, and that’s delivering the best service for their clients. But in the Setfords world that doesn’t mean being tied to a desk in an office. Thanks to our use of technology and our 65-strong support team you can access everything you need remotely. And that means, as the majority of our consultants do, you can work from home. The benefit of that is of course less commuting meaning shorter hours, and therefore more time spent with the people dearest to you.
Plus of course there is less stress. And less stress means you are in a better frame of mind and that means you have better relationships. It’s win-win. The only relationship you might need to worry about is your relationship with traditional thinking. If you are tied to that you might struggle to accept there is a more modern, better way of approaching a legal life. But my guess is you want to embrace this way of working. So what’s stopping you?
Chris Setford
CEO, Setfords Solicitors
Find out more about becoming a consultant lawyer at Setfords by getting in touch here.
