ABA Proposal Would Encourage Law Firms To Give Attorneys One Week Of Email | Zoom-Free Vacation Each Year, Credited As 40 Billable Hours

Reuters, Law Firms Should Let Attorneys Unplug With Billable Hour Credit, ABA Proposal Says:

Legal employers should encourage their employees to fully unplug from work for a minimum of one week a year to reduce burnout and improve well-being, according to an American Bar Association proposal.

Law firms should also issue lawyers 40 billable hour credits to incentivize them to log off email and step away from all work duties for a consecutive week each year, under a resolution submitted by the ABA’s Young Lawyers Division[:

Urges all legal employers to adopt policies and practices that encourage all of their lawyers to unplug at least one consecutive week per year without the need to reply to emails/calls or attend virtual meetings; and urges all private law firms to provide 40 hours of billable hour credit for employees who take the one week of unplug time.]

“Attorneys work long hours and often do not take time to truly unplug from work,” read a report on the resolution, which is scheduled to be considered by the ABA’s policymaking policy body when it meets on Monday and Tuesday [:

[I]t may be a long time before American lawyers follow the lead of French workers who are allowed by law to “ignore work-related emails after hours,” or even to a recent trend in which companies and entire teams are taking vacations during the same week, which allows employees to truly unplug. However, more legal employers can start by adopting an unplug policy which provides physical and mental health benefits to its employees “and by extension, their employers."]

The ABA has no direct authority over law firms, but as the largest voluntary bar association in the country with about 150,000 paying members, its resolutions send a strong message to the legal industry. The resolution comes at a time of increasing concern over lawyer mental health.

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