The billable hour is a cancer that will slowly eat away at you if you don’t get away from it quickly enough.
— a Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath midlevel associate’s comments on the billable hour in the American Lawyer’s 2022 Midlevel Associate Survey. Over three-quarters of survey respondents said their jobs had “significantly” affected their mental health, and more than half said they’d turn in their resignations to get more work-life balance.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
