A quick summary:
The legal profession is in crisis. In 2025, 16% of junior associates and 17% of senior associates quit private practice, with 27% of lawyers firm-wide walking out the door. Each departure costs roughly £790,000 in lost billable hours, recruitment, and training - not to mention disrupted clients and lost knowledge.
This isn’t normal turnover. It’s a talent crisis, happening right now. Firms that don’t understand why associates are leaving, where they’re going, and what they truly need risk losing the people who keep their business running.
Where are they going?
- In-house roles - same pay, better work-life balance
- Legal tech, compliance, consulting - still using their skills, but less brutal working conditions
- Leaving law entirely - burnout-driven career changes
- Your competitors - firms offering better culture and benefits
What’s making them look elsewhere?
BigHand surveyed 800+ law firm leaders and the reasons are clear:
- Work-life balance is non-negotiable - the billable hour model feels unsustainable
- Partnership isn’t appealing - associates have watched partners burn out and don’t want that life
- Mental health support is inadequate - standard EAPs aren’t cutting it
- Flexibility is lacking - hybrid policies lag behind other sectors
- Work allocation is broken - 43% of assignments are based on partner preference, not skills or capacity
- Better options exist elsewhere - other industries offer purpose flexibility, and creativity
Only 23% of law firms use structured, data-driven work allocation. The rest rely on “gut feeling” and partner preferences.
And we see the consequences clearly:
- High performers burn out
- Others feel overlooked and resentful
- Profitability suffers - 57% of firms don’t even consider profitability when staffing
- Associates feel undervalued… and leave
What’s the financial impact of associates leaving?
For a 250-lawyer firm with 27% attrition:
- You lose 65 - 70 lawyers every year
- That’s over £50 million in replacement costs
- Thousands of lost billable hours during transitions
- Client relationships disrupted
- Institutional knowledge walking out the door
Your workforce is changing fast
The people walking in the door today don’t look like the ones walking out. Your team is now demographically:
- Millennials: 53% (and they change firms every 3 years)
- Gen Z: 21.9%
- Gen X: 21.8%
- Boomers: 3.3%
Importantly, 72% of Gen Z entering law firms are female.
Your benefits were designed for a very different workforce - mostly male, with traditional family structures and linear career paths. They rarely accounted for fertility support, flexible working, or mental health needs.
The reality in 2026 is very different. People demand flexibility, mental health resources, fertility support, financial wellbeing, and career paths that accommodate breaks and non-linear growth.
The impact of supporting these needs is clear: 93% of working parents choose jobs based on company support, only 84% of women return to the same employer after maternity leave, and companies with women in leadership are 25% more likely to exceed profitability targets.
Stop stereotyping. Start personalising.
Most firms think:
“Our team is mostly millennials, so we’ll focus on L&D and mental health.”
“Our partners are Gen X, so pensions and PMI make sense.”
Logical? Sure. Accurate? Not at all.
At Heka, we look at real usage data, not assumptions. What people actually use and engage with is dramatically different from what firms think they want.
From 49,314 benefits interactions across law firms, the patterns are clear:
- People are more similar than you think, regardless of demographics
- Top priorities across generations: movement, preventative treatment, diet, self-care, stress management
- 94% of Heka usage is for benefits not found in standard packages
When you make decisions based on demographics alone, you:
- Leave people out with prescriptive benefits
- Waste budget on one-size-fits-all benefits no one uses
- Risk attrition when associates find better support elsewhere
What do junior lawyers really want?
Junior lawyers really want work-life balance, flexibility, meaningful support for mental health, fair work allocation, and opportunities to grow without burning out. Ignore these needs, and they’ll leave - choosing in-house roles, legal tech, or leaving law entirely.
Benefits engagement = Healthier, higher-performing teams
You can have all the benefits in the world, but if no one’s using them, what’s the point?
Heka makes benefits relevant, accessible, and engaging:
- AI recommends the right benefits at the right time
- Dashboards measure ROI and engagement
- Data evolves with the employee lifecycle
- Supports remote, hybrid, or office-based teams equally
Engaged employees are healthier, more productive, and more loyal. That’s how firms retain talent in 2026.
A new era
The legal profession is at a crossroads. Your people are leaving because they’re burned out, undervalued, or unsupported.
Firms that win in 2026 will stop assuming and start personalising. They’ll provide the right benefits, at the right time, backed by real data, not gut feeling.
Fix your benefits. Fix work allocation. Fix mental health support. Start retaining your talent before it’s too late. See how Heka can help today.
