One in four lawyers and legal professionals does online shopping at work, while one in eight confesses to doing something at an office party that they later regretted, a recent survey of 500 members of the profession has revealed.

Research by twosteps online job board also found that 50% of legal professionals said they would be ‘helpless’ without their iPhone or Blackberry.

Half of those who participated in the survey of ‘saints and sinners in the legal industry’ said they had checked work emails on Christmas Day.

Twosteps global marketing manager Hannah Baker said: ‘Some 70% of the people who owned up to doing something embarrassing at the office party were male… It comes as no surprise to learn that over 50% of survey participants said they would be helpless without their iPhones and Blackberrys. People have lost the art of remembering telephone numbers, or what they have to do that day or where they have to be. We now live vicariously through these mini life-organising computers.’