'Stress is a time bomb ticking away under many law firms, [it] will hit them in the pocket,' says Richard Moorhead, chairman of the Young Solicitors Group (YSG).

As part of its battle to keep the issue of stress in the profession at the top of the group's agenda, the YSG will be running a 'lifestyle showcase', entitled 'Design for Life', at this October's Solicitors Law Festival, at Disneyland, Paris.Mr Moorhead says the format of the showcase will be a mixture of 'Kilroy and Newsnight'.

He says the YSG hopes the event will benefit the individuals taking part, but also open up issues and debate for those attending from all levels of the profession.In 1998 research by ZMB recruitment consultants showed 42% of solicitors wanted to leave the profession.

SolCare - a helpline for solicitors with addictions - reports that calls relating to stress have risen from five in 1997 to 32 in 1998.

And the Law Society of Scotland, with a membership of just 8,500, reported four suicides last year.

So does the YSG have a point? Is the profession becoming more stressed?Barry Pritchard, co-ordinator of SolCare, says that alcoholism is one way in which people attempt to deal with stress, and it is of growing concern that 80% of calls to SolCare come from solicitors who have been qualified for five years or less.

Mr Pritchard warns: 'The stressed 25 year-olds of today are the 40 year-old alcoholics of tomorrow'.Mr Pritchard says the majority of calls to SolCare come from solicitors in small- and medium-sized firms whose main area of complaint is lack of support.

Mr Moorhead says that in smaller firms there are added pressures from mergers, Solicitors Indemnity Fund premium increases and constant changes in the legal aid arena that cause difficulty to solicitors at all levels.In a report published last year, in association with the YSG and the Law Society, lawyers emerged as the most stressed profession in comparison with doctors and dentists (see [1998] Gazette, 11 November,1).

Dr Stephen Williams, an organisational psychologist and managing director of Resource Systems who prepared the report, says the research shows solicitors have low levels of job satisfaction, are the least committed to their employers and have the worst levels of physical and mental health.

Dr Williams says he was surprised by the results as he had expected doctors would have come out worse.Dr Williams accepts that solicitors do a demanding job and says: 'Management practices in the legal profession are worse than they ought to be'.

However, he says that to some extent people buy into the culture of law firms and suffer from what he calls 'urgency addiction'.

He comments: 'Many of the people attracted to the profession are high flyers with a predisposition to push themselves too hard - they love the adrenaline rush'.Dr Ann Fingret, a consultant in occupational medicine and a stress consultant for about 20 law firms, including some of the largest, says she is concerned that many people attracted to the profession are often 'risk averse' personality types who are not able to cope with the pressures it brings.

She says solicitors often want things to be perfect but, with a large volume of work, it is impossible to 'dot all the is and cross all the ts'.

She says they will often work longer and harder to reach a level of perfection and try to 'get it right', just not possible with a heavy workload and time pressures.

Learning to prioritise work and decide when things need to be perfect is vital to managing stress and many young solicitors, who Dr Fingret describes as the most vulnerable, are not able to do that as they lack the experience.

'It takes a lot of courage to "wing it" and most young solicitors don't have that courage,' she says.

However, she adds that the environment of a law firm is not generally one which builds confidence.Dr Fingret says she sees many lawyers for stress counselling and, after looking at the particular problems in their lives, it is often a case o f putting responsibility back to the individual to manage themselves and make decisions.

Those decisions, she says, could include whether they are suited to their particular field, to the firm, or even whether they wish to stay in the profession at all.Many larger firms are now trying to tackle the issue of stress.

Some are employing the assistance of stress specialists, like Dr Fingret, while others offer confidential 'helplines' through their private health care packages.

Leeds and London firm Hammond Suddards recently implemented a flexible benefits scheme which, it says, allows staff more individual freedom.

The head of personnel at the firm, Patricia Walsh, says that by providing the tailored benefits package and accommodating the need for part-time and flexible working hours, the firm has reduced many stress points, in and out of work.Tim Cole, director of personnel for City firm Freshfields, says that in a profession which attracts 'high achievers' who thrive on pressure, there is a responsibility on the individual to say when they are working too hard or need a break.

Firms have to offer a structure which can accommodate such requests and most are now aware of the need to help people come to terms with the job and its pressures, he says.One London solicitor says that learning to deal with the constant and sometimes conflicting demands in the profession is part of the job.

'If I'm given a job by a partner, he wants to know if I can do it; if I can't, I tell him,' says the solicitor.

'It's no use to him to have someone in his team who takes the job and says nothing because they want to please but then can't do it.' He cited the example of a contemporary at another firm who was consistently working long hours and was obviously exhausted and stressed to such an extent that he wondered how long the person would be able to cope, commenting that there is a point where you have to learn to let go and leave work behind.Mr Moorhead says: 'Of course people have to take responsibility but, if you look at the surveys and the causes of stress, it is almost always how the solicitors are managed that causes stress.

To blame the individual is to turn a blind eye to the major failings in law firm management which are known to exist and which are now accepted in the profession'.