In our previous article, The Efficiency Trade-Off, we explored how productivity gains often carry hidden costs for the people doing the work. The challenge for legal leaders now is clear: how do we drive efficiency without accelerating burnout or attrition? For in-house teams already under pressure, finding this balance is essential.
Efficiency vs Sustainability
When efficiency is pushed too far, the immediate gains in output come at the expense of resilience. The hidden cost is human fatigue — and across the legal profession, high rates of stress, exhaustion and disillusionment tell the story.
For in-house teams, the strain is amplified. Budgets are shrinking, expectations are rising, and external support is harder to secure. The team itself becomes the shock absorber, carrying pressures that are neither sustainable nor healthy.
This is where efficiency crosses into burnout. Defined by the World Health Organisation as a syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress that is not successfully managed, burnout presents as:
- Energy depletion or exhaustion
- Increased mental distance or cynicism toward work
- Reduced professional efficacy
Burnout is not a personal failing; it is a sign that the system itself is under strain.
Why Legal Teams Are Especially Vulnerable
Legal teams face unique pressures, including time-critical deadlines, shifting regulations, reputational risk, and high stakes, with little margin for error.
A few factors exacerbate the strain:
- Always-on culture: the expectation of constant availability.
- Low autonomy: limited control over workload or schedule intensifies stress.
- Lack of recognition: heavy effort without acknowledgment drives disengagement.
- Change fatigue: repeated technology or process rollouts without pause undermine trust.
When already lean teams are expected to deliver more with less, the risk of burnout escalates.
Strategies for Balancing Efficiency and Human Capacity
Efficiency should be viewed as a tool to enable sustainable performance, not an end in itself.
Legal leaders can shift the equation by focusing on the following levers:
1. Clarify and Ruthlessly Prioritise
It’s common to feel overwhelmed by the constant need to do everything urgently. To manage this, adopt a discipline of prioritisation. Map your work against its strategic impact and explicitly decline tasks that drain your team’s capacity.
After action reviews are valuable; hold a post-matter review to identify potential bottlenecks and ask whether something could have been anticipated or streamlined better. Reflection helps prevent these issues from recurring.
2. Build Autonomy and Agency
Giving your people a choice over task order, scheduling, or matter allocation, where possible, is a strong buffer against burnout. This autonomy can be achieved by rotating complex tasks, empowering junior staff, and tailoring workflows to individuals’ strengths.
3. Change with Care
Transformation should be paced and participatory. Change fatigue risk is real. If your team is already stretched, layering new systems may backfire. Involve the team in the design, review tools with small groups, communicate the “why,” and sequence change projects.
4. Lean on Technology Intelligently
Yes, technology can boost throughput, but only if adoption is sensible. Invest in tools that reduce repetitive work (e.g. filing, document automation, reporting). Avoid technology for its own sake as without alignment, it creates more noise than benefit.
5. Foster a Culture of Psychological Safety and Recognition
Psychological safety and genuine recognition underpin resilience. A study of 1,900 Australian lawyers by the Australian National University showed that poor workplace culture strongly correlates with distress and turnover. Simple, “TNTs” (Tiny Noticeable Things), such as saying thank you, spotlighting a win, and checking in individually, cost nothing and have a direct effect on restoring morale.
6. Manage Capacity Deliberately
Avoid overcommitment by building buffers into workloads. Rotate high-intensity matters, allow recovery periods after peak cycles, and challenge the outdated narrative that long hours equal value. Flexible arrangements and leave must be normalised, not stigmatised.
Metrics and Signals to Monitor
Balance needs to be visible.
Leaders should track:
- Overtime and after-hours work
- Absenteeism and turnover
- Wellbeing survey results
- Uptake of flexible work options
Quality of project outcomes (not just speed)
Negative trends in these areas are early warnings that efficiency is slipping into dysfunction.
Conclusion
In The Efficiency Trade-Off, we asked whether productivity gains were sustainable. Burnout and attrition represent a hidden cost many teams ignore until it becomes a crisis.
Sustainable legal operations must strike a balance between speed and resilience. Efficiency initiatives are not wrong; they need to be tempered by humanity, foresight, and constant recalibration.