The Slow Burn: Why Lawyers Don’t Recognize Toxic Work Environments Until It’s Too Late

“I would know if I was truly miserable at my job.”
Would you, though?

I spoke with two attorneys this week — both successful, both respected, both completely unaware of how much damage their jobs were doing to them.

It only became clear in hindsight.

That’s the thing about toxic legal environments. They rarely announce themselves. There’s no dramatic moment where everything falls apart.

Instead, it’s a slow, almost imperceptible erosion. A little more dread on Sunday nights. A little less energy for the people you love. A little more cynicism where curiosity used to live.

You don’t notice because you’re in it. Like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water — by the time you feel it, you’ve been cooking for years.

The “I’d know” assumption is one of the most dangerous myths in legal careers. Because your brain is extraordinarily good at adapting, rationalizing, and normalizing. That’s what got you through law school. That same coping mechanism can keep you stuck.

So here’s what I want you to do instead of relying on how you feel in any given moment:

Check in with yourself. Monthly. Honestly.
Ask yourself these three questions and actually write down your answer:

💭On a scale of 1-10, how much do I dread going to work right now?
💭Am I becoming more or less like the person I want to be?
💭If a close friend described how I seemed lately, what would they say?

One bad month doesn’t mean much. But if you track this over 3-6 months and the numbers stay low, or they’re wildly volatile. Spiking and crashing with no stability is not normal stress. That’s a signal.

You deserve to work somewhere that doesn’t require you to recover from it.