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For many law firms, improving retention and wellbeing has meant expanding flexible working. Flexibility remains important, but it is not enough. A persistent and unresolved barrier to sustaining legal careers is access to reliable care support.
Legal professionals operate under intense client and court deadlines, leaving little margin for error when childcare falls through, a school closes unexpectedly or an older relative needs urgent support. These disruptions are frequent pressure points driving stress, absence and lost focus, even among highly committed employees.
Latest data is a red flag for employers
The 2026 Modern Families Index legal sector report highlights how care pressures are affecting legal professionals:
- 35 percent report very high stress at work
- Only 11 percent describe their stress levels as low
- Legal employees are nearly twice as likely to report high stress as those in tech
- Four in ten legal professionals say having children has negatively impacted their career
- Just 53 percent believe their organisation cares about their work and home life balance
This is no longer just a wellbeing issue. It is becoming a retention and workforce sustainability risk for legal employers.
When care breaks down, legal professionals absorb the impact
One of the most telling themes in this year’s data is how often employees are forced to manage care disruption alongside work deadlines.
Thomas Butcher, VP Strategic Growth & Key Accounts from Work + Family Solutions at Bright Horizons commented:
“When childcare or adult care arrangements collapse at short notice, whether that involves disabled children, teenagers, partners, school refusers or elderly relatives, legal professionals often face difficult trade-offs between meeting professional obligations and responding to responsibilities at home. In a sector shaped by client service, time-sensitive work and billable hours, where statutory timelines are non-negotiable and missing them can amount to professional negligence, these moments can feel particularly high stakes. The result is rising stress and a growing sense that career progression and family life are in tension. This is especially true for women, who are often the primary carers and on whom the legal sector depends for continuity of service.”*
Among legal professionals with adult or eldercare responsibilities, concern about career limitation rises to 62 percent, indicating that pressure can intensify rather than ease as caring responsibilities evolve.
Why flexibility on its own is not solving the problem
Hybrid working and flexible hours remain important, but they do not solve care breakdowns. When a child is sent home or an elderly parent needs urgent support, the issue is not location. It is access to immediate alternatives. Without that, flexibility simply shifts pressure rather than removes it.
Confidence is also fragile. With only around half of legal employees believing their organisation genuinely cares about work and home life balance, trust can erode, affecting engagement, loyalty and long-term career decisions.
Building practical support into legal reward strategies
The implication for the sector is clear. Flexible policies and cultural support must be matched with practical solutions that help employees manage real life disruption.
Back-up care is one-way organisations can close this gap. By providing access to reliable childcare and eldercare at short notice, employers can reduce the stress and uncertainty of unexpected care breakdowns, enabling employees to stay focused on their work.
In a sector where talent attraction, retention and reputation are closely linked, practical care support is increasingly high value as part of any reward strategy.
Bright Horizons supports organisations to help their people perform at their best at work and at home. Find out more here.
*According to Solicitors Regulation Authority diversity data, women represent 62% of UK solicitors.
Thomas Butcher, VP Strategic Growth & Key Accounts from Work + Family Solutions at Bright Horizons
Bright Horizons Family Solutions Support Office
Britannia House,
3-5 Rushmills,
Northampton
NN4 7YB
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