The Legal Profession Sustainability Study released by the Law Society of Singapore has reignited debate over the so‑called “legal exodus.” Much of the public reaction has converged on a single, convenient explanation: toxic work culture. While compelling—and illustrated through striking anecdotes—this narrative is incomplete.

There is no question that poor workplace practices must be addressed. Bullying, unreasonable demands, and harassing behaviour have no place in a modern profession. A brutally honest period of self-reflection is needed, and we must have the appetite to have tough conversations and make deep changes.

But not every lawyer who leaves practice is running from a hostile working environment.

Why Do Lawyers Leave?

The outflow of lawyers from practice is driven by structural factors – cultural, economic and personal. Some are intrinsic to the nature of legal work.

First Singapore’s legal market has transformed rapidly. In a relatively short span of time, Singapore has evolved from a legal backwater into a major international legal hub. The Singapore International Arbitration Centre ranks second only to the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) in terms of the number of cases handled in 2025.

This transformation has brought an influx of international law firms and employment opportunities for local lawyers.

Local firms competing to retain talent have had to offer higher salaries. Starting pay in a large local firm is 25% higher than for a fresh accounting graduate. But pay is a function of economics and these well-paid associates must deal with more complex work, compressed learning curves, tighter timelines, and longer hours. This is not a matter of firm culture, it is simply how law is practised in Big Law firms. It is interesting that the dissatisfaction reported from lawyers in international firms is higher than from local outfits.

And then there is Singapore’s system. For better or worse, a legal degree carries prestige. Many entering law school do so not from a desire to make this their profession, but because they could get in and their parents strongly encouraged them. The confluence of pay, prestige and parental pressure is what is churning out reluctant lawyers, who enter the profession with a “wait and see” attitude towards practice. Many of these burn out because they didn’t have a genuine vocational interest in the first place.

Singapore is today significantly more affluent than a generation ago. Younger lawyers are more likely to have the financial and emotional support needed to step away from demanding roles. Concepts like burnout are more openly discussed and parents who are not financially reliant on their children will be more inclined to support decisions to take a break or pursue alternative paths.

More fundamentally, there is the irreducible stress inherent in the profession.

In the early years of my career, my greatest source of stress was not my supervisors, nor even difficult clients. It was the work. The law, by its nature, demands precision and accuracy. It is not enough to try your best; you are required to be right. The consequences of error – business, financial and reputational – are severe.

That weight of responsibility is what kept me awake at night. But it is also what defines my profession. The rigour and accountability that make the law demanding are also what give it its value.

For those who entered the profession without a strong intrinsic interest in the work, the decision to leave is often a rational recalibration, not a failure of resilience.

How to Make Lawyers Stay?

The report itself recognises that addressing the ‘push factors” will not necessarily exert a countervailing force for lawyers to stay. By reducing the problem to one of a toxic workplace, we would be misdiagnosing the issue.

If law firms were uniformly more supportive, more flexible, and more humane, would all the lawyers leaving practice today change their minds? I don’t think so. I encourage my ex-colleagues wanting to scale different peaks at an international organisation, see more of the business world in an in-house capacity, or chase non-legal dreams, to do so. It is those who can, and want to, be committed to a legal craft, that the system should not chase away.

For them, two things are needed.

First, the system needs to create an environment more hospitable to their long-term sustainability. Friction points like toxic cultures must be eradicated.

More importantly, lawyers must have positive reasons to stay, not merely a reason not to leave.

This will differ for everyone. For some, the intellectual rigour and love of advocacy is an abiding challenge and reward. For others, the ability to provide justice and recourse to the underprivileged. For me, the law has given a credibility platform to advocate for causes I believe in.

This is an important issue for society, and not just a problem for a well-qualified cohort of graduates from a prestigious course. A robust legal profession underpins public access to justice, commercial certainty, and Singapore’s continued development as a global hub. Addressing attrition, therefore, requires more than incremental cultural reform—it demands a clear-eyed understanding of what the profession is, and what it should offer to those who choose to remain within it.