Just Because Associates Are Working From Home Doesn't Mean They Should Always Be On Call

For the sake of their mental health, give associates a break for once.

‘Let me have a life!’

I am expected to be on 24/7. I get calls and emails all night and over the weekend, and late night and weekend deadlines have become the norm. It is starting to ruin my personal relationships. Pre-COVID, similar concerns applied, but it wasn’t as bad. The root of it is client expectations.

— a respondent to ALM’s 2021 Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey, commenting on the unrealistic expectation that associates constantly be on call while working from home due to COVID-19. “My firm is generally a good place to work. COVID really threw things off, and I’ve felt pretty isolated working from home,” another respondent said. “If anything, I’d describe the experience of the past year as total isolation with no boundaries between work and personal life. No amount of Zoom ‘happy hours’ or ‘coffee chats’ can overcome that.”


Staci ZaretskyStaci 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.

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