For law firms
Registered psychologists helping NZ law firms reduce turnover, prevent burnout, and manage psychosocial hazards.
Trusted by the NZ Judiciary, UniMed and Kāinga Ora.
What we’re seeing
People you invested years in are walking out, recruitment takes months, and you’ve turned down work because you couldn’t staff it. They’re not leaving for more money. They’re leaving because the demands of the work have outpaced the support around it, and that’s a pattern across the profession, not a fault in your firm.
The evidence
23%
Average annual turnover in law firms
ALPMA, 2025
74%
of NZ lawyers say their work has harmed their mental health
Aotearoa Legal Workers’ Union, 2021
Our approach
We measure what’s driving harm in your firm and what’s keeping people well, then put the right support in place. Take one, two, or all three. Built for legal practices in Aotearoa, by psychologists, not consultants.
An evidence-based online assessment. Ten minutes per person, results interpreted by a registered psychologist, aligned to ISO 45003 and the Health and Safety at Work Act. It measures 24 psychosocial factors across the three WorkSafe themes, each benchmarked against sector norms.
Most EAPs give your people a phone number and a queue. Ours gives them direct access to a registered psychologist who understands partnership dynamics, vicarious trauma, and high-stakes decision-making. Every session is completely confidential — no names, no session content, nothing identifiable goes back to the firm.
Confidential, proactive support for partners managing teams and pressure, and for associates building sustainable careers. Not therapy. Practical tools with clinical depth behind them.
The payoff
Supporting your people is not a wellbeing nice-to-have. It is how you keep who you’ve trained, build the leaders you’ll need next, and protect the firm from harm that ends up in front of a regulator.
Senior lawyers stop leaving in their fifth year, and the knowledge you’ve built stays in the firm.
Supported lawyers think more clearly under pressure and bring better judgement to complex matters.
Partners and team leaders get private, practical support before pressure becomes burnout.
If a grievance, ERA matter or WorkSafe inquiry lands, you have evidence of proactive management.
Investment
Compare your firm’s turnover cost against the cost of acting. Enter your staff numbers, turnover rate and cost per departure, or use the pre-filled industry averages.
Cost of turnover (annual)
$600,000
6.0 departures × $100,000
Investment with 3 Big Things
$—
Assessment + EAP + Coaching
How we calculate your investment:
• Psychosocial hazard assessment: $30 per person + $10,000 consultation (first 100 people), $5,000 per additional 100
• Enhanced EAP: 5% of staff access per year × 3 sessions × $300 per session
• Executive coaching: 10% of staff × 10 sessions × $300 per session
Pre-filled averages: 23% turnover (ALPMA, 2025), $100,000 replacement cost (salary + recruitment + lost billing). Indicative only — every firm is different.
All figures are indicative only. Every organisation is different — get in touch to discuss yours.
Your duty under HSWA
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, psychosocial hazards must be managed with the same rigour as physical ones. WorkSafe’s 2025 Good Practice Guidelines make this explicit. An engagement survey doesn’t meet the threshold.
The courts are acting. In December 2024, Australia delivered its first conviction of a Commonwealth employer for failing to manage psychosocial risk — under a framework New Zealand’s law is modelled on.
Free resources, from our psychologists
Short, practical articles and webinars for anyone working in law. No cost, no pitch.
Webinar · Replay
Why good lawyers burn out and leave: the early warning signs, the three needs that protect against it, and what firms can do upstream to keep their best people.
Tuesday 16 June · 50 min · Chris Scott and Sean Versteegh
Watch the replayArticle · NZ Lawyer
Three practical moves for law firms, from billable-hours norms to confidential clinical support.
There’s more in our Insights library, with new pieces for the legal sector added regularly.
Common questions
Burnout is common in law because of how legal work is designed: billable-hour pressure, long hours, an adversarial culture, high stakes, and a "harden up" norm that discourages asking for help. These are psychosocial hazards, and under New Zealand law a firm has a duty to manage them. The encouraging part is that they respond to changes a firm can actually make.
You have a duty to identify, assess and actively manage psychosocial hazards, grouped by WorkSafe into work design, social factors, and work environment. This is the standard a regulator or court will use to judge whether you met your obligations. The expectation is proactive management, not a response after harm has occurred.
We keep a small, dedicated team of registered psychologists who work specifically with legal professionals. Your people don’t spend half a session explaining what their job is. The result is a service people actually use.
Yes, and most firms do. The common entry point is the assessment, or coaching for the senior leadership team. The three services complement each other but none require the others.
Every engagement includes structured reporting at three levels: what we delivered, what changed, and what it’s worth to the firm. Quarterly reports and an annual board-ready summary. If it’s working, the data will show it. If it’s not, we’ll tell you that too.
For coaching and EAP, everything between the individual and their psychologist stays between them. Firm-level reporting is always aggregated and de-identified. The assessment is an organisational diagnostic by design, intended to be shared with the partnership, with individual responses kept anonymous.
Related services
For Organisations
Identify and manage the workplace factors that drive harm — before they become claims or crises.
For Organisations
Space to think and tools to act for partners and senior lawyers.
For Organisations
Confidential, psychologist-led support for your people.
