Statistics show that within current and future generations, many people are being given ‘extra time’ in their professional lives as life expectancy increases. In-House Perspective investigates how lawyers can and should rethink the new ‘Q3’ and their journeys into retirement.

It is a truism universally acknowledged that we are living longer than previous generations. In 2022, life expectancy in England stood at 79.3 years for men and 83.1 years for women, according to The King’s Fund, following increases of six to nine years in every generation. Even though the rate is flattening – with the Covid-19 pandemic having a very negative impact on this trend during that time – and while we haven’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, we live in a world in which we all need to expect long lives.

Not only that but healthy life expectancy, the number of years during which we are free of chronic conditions, is broadly increasing – though it should be noted that this is heavily dependent on income and geography. What this means is that many of us will experience these extra years as an extended ‘middle life’.         

There’s something else at play that’s relevant to our working lives. Psychologists have observed that the traditional ‘three-stage life’ is being disrupted. In the twentieth century, societal structures supported a pattern of full-time education through to full-time work to full-time retirement. For many reasons, including technology, what we’re seeing now is a ‘multi-stage’ life whereby learning, working and free time are in a constant state of flux, argue Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton in their work The New Long Life.

The net effect of these factors is profound. For many of us, our now-extended third quarter – broadly speaking, the period from 50 to 75 years of age, or ‘Q3’ – has taken on new meaning. It’s no longer just about ‘retirement’ in the traditional sense of leaving full-time employment, as our relationship with work will probably be much more fluid than that. We may choose to and, indeed, we may need to, work and earn for longer, albeit in a different way. 

Preparation, preparation, preparation

As many lawyers approach their Q3, however, they’re often not very well-prepared. This is in part a common problem. Our societies haven’t been properly reconsidered in light of the longer lives we’re leading. For instance, in his most recent book, The Longevity Imperative, Scott argues we need an ‘evergreen’ agenda. This means an individual state – and a policy for society – whereby we’re fully prepared for longevity. We must, he urges us, keep ‘universally and continually relevant […] [and] […] make sure our health and all the other aspects of our life that matter to us extend to match our longer lifespan’.

There are also elements of this problem that are specific to lawyers and the firms, industries and sectors they operate in. By the time lawyers enter their forties, they will have trained a long time and are only finally reaping the rewards of all that exam-taking and ladder-climbing, so it’s hard at that point to then address the longer-term future. Nick Holt is a founding partner at Punter Southall Law and a career coach with Milestones. ‘Every step of the lawyer’s journey feels like a battle: to get to law school, to traineeship, to get a decent promotion,’ he says. ‘It’s one boxing round after another. No wonder lawyers are reluctant to think about Q3, retirement or any of that. Another hurdle, another challenge.’

A lawyer’s focus is often on today’s to-do list and tomorrow’s meeting agenda, perhaps rather than what they might do in five or ten years’ time. Charlotte Neser and Victoria Barker co-founded Beyond Your Career, a programme that supports individuals who are thinking about the next stage of their careers and lives. ‘Thinking about your future plans is such a monumental task so you put it aside,’ says Neser. ‘We are so overwhelmed, it’s much easier to put your head in the sand and carry on with work.’

‘It’s like changing the wheel whilst you are still driving the car,’ says Ivor Adair, a partner at Fox & Partners who advises individuals and firms on partnership and employment. ‘However, making space for thinking time pays huge dividends.’ Alison Hood, General Counsel at Mestag Therapeutics, observes that lawyers aren’t always particularly good at moving on. ‘They like certainty and they are not comfortable with not knowing what is going to happen,’ she says. Many in-house lawyers have, however, already made one significant transition when they left private practice to enter the corporate world, so they have a precedent when it comes to making changes. Hood says that in general, however, ‘it’s part of a lawyer’s make up to prefer the status quo even if they are not particularly happy’.

It's also because retirement as a subject may feel off-limits. Murray Mathieson runs Positively Legal, a consultancy that advises lawyers and partnerships about retirement, and is also an accredited coach. ‘Retirement, and even semi-retirement, are often considered weaknesses. It’s rarely talked about, like the menopause wasn’t a decade ago. This leads to uncertainty and lack of clarity,’ he says. Neser agrees that there is a significant amount of anxiety around the subject. ‘People don’t feel in control of it, and their actual experiences are quite different from common perceptions,’ she says.

In order to successfully transition through Q3 to retirement – whatever that might mean for someone – lawyers need to be able to talk about and plan for it. Elisabeth Sullivan is General Counsel at Efficio, a multinational procurement consulting business. Sullivan is already well into planning her Q3. ‘It’s a process, and you need to start thinking hard, make some choices, sketch out what you can afford, how you want to live, what your priorities are,’ she says. ‘But all of that takes planning.’

Organisational omissions

Though awareness is growing, few organisations have strategies in place to help people think about or prepare for Q3 and the next phase in their lives. There might be some information around financial planning and products on the market for that, but not necessarily much more. In fact, the in-house experience can be the opposite – anecdotally, many in-house lawyers in their forties and fifties report that they can find themselves at the sharp edge of a business restructure.

Ivana Kollarova, a legal director based in the Netherlands who’s currently working towards her coaching accreditation, says that in the last few years, companies have been streamlining operations. ‘The first jobs they cut are highly positioned managerial jobs,’ she says, noting that businesses want more juniors, with the experience of more senior staff becoming unaffordable for them. Indeed, one senior in-house lawyer –who wished to remain anonymous – highlighted that in-house lawyers are expected to ‘climb the ladder of elaborate hierarchies and acquire management responsibilities, not deeper or broader legal skills’. They noted that in-house lawyers who haven’t made general counsel by the age of forty may then struggle to find permanent positions after this.

Organisations are however moving towards more imaginative, flexible designs. Unilever, for example, made headlines with its U-Work programme. Within it, senior staff enter into a new contract whereby they are still employed, receiving a guaranteed minimum in terms of benefits and a percentage of their salary, but then contract only to do certain specific projects lasting a certain number of days a month or for a specific stint.

Law firms these days may design a staged exit, a soft landing where partners gradually transition their work and equity to their peers, perhaps eventually taking on an ‘Emeritus’ role. Harold Paisner, Co-Chair of the IBA Senior Lawyers Committee, took on such a role when he stepped aside as Senior Partner at UK firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, as it was then. ‘[The Emeritus role] was an interesting, quasi-ambassadorial position,’ he explains. ‘This and similar roles are happening more often at firms.’ And consulting work in various guises, of course, is additionally a tried and tested model for senior in-house lawyers who are exploring different ways of working.

A reckoning

Generally, however, it’s up to individuals to drive their own thinking about Q3 and retirement – if they can only find the time. Apart from the challenge of stressful schedules, thinking about Q3 and our future raises unsettling questions about our lives, whether we enjoy what we do and if we’re comfortable with what we have achieved. It’s nothing less than a reckoning. ‘In order to work towards a plan for how you might spend the next few decades of your life, there’s a lot of thinking that’s got to be done. And honestly too,’ says Mathieson.

For instance, Neser observes that some professionals took the path they did through parental pressure, that it wasn’t something they wanted. In fact, Ronnie Fox, who founded the practice of Fox & Partners and edited the book Partner Retirement in Law Firms, believes it’s more fundamental than that. ‘Many people never ask themselves what truly makes them happy’, he says.

The psychology of the professional is well understood – that they tend to closely identify their worth, their self, with their work. ‘Professionals can feel not only a loss of status but a more fundamental loss of their own identity when they stop working,’ Neser says. ‘They have not had the opportunity to explore who they really are beyond what they do.’

And yet, researchers  in Michigan have shown that there’s a positive correlation between better health and having a sense of what’s referred to as ‘purpose’, or the ‘why’ in our lives. So, if work is not the end in itself, then this reckoning – the planning for Q3 and retirement – is about working out what each person feels their life is really ‘for’. Not surprisingly, many of us find this hugely challenging.

Luckily, there’s now plenty of expertise to help us. For instance, there are a number of books and podcasts available that delve into this subject (see Box out: References and further reading). And for those who’d like more interactive support, there are specialist career or life coaches who will work with professionals. Holt says there may be resistance from lawyers to seek support or expertise because some ‘are wary of anything that smacks of “emotional puff”. But there is plenty of science behind it, and there are psychometric tools that are tried and tested that can help.’ That said, it’s ultimately up to each individual to work out their Q3 for themselves. Coaching will not come up with answers but supports us to reach our own conclusions.

The age of consulting

As Unilever’s U-Work programme attests to, one of the most common threads in Q3 and planning for retirement is working on a more flexible, consulting basis. It ticks multiple boxes, allowing lawyers to develop other interests and factor in caring obligations, yet also maintain a level of financial security. Ed Simpson founded and runs The Legal Director, which matches in-house lawyers with ‘fractional work’ available at client organisations. ‘We found there was a real appetite among experienced, senior lawyers who wanted to continue to work, and still had financial imperatives to do so, but had reached a point where they wanted to do things differently, grow in other ways,’ he says. ‘Perhaps they had reached as far as they could go in an organisation or their attitude to work had changed.’

Consulting work can be arranged through organisations such as The Legal Director or on an individual’s own account. Emma Sharpe was a divisional general counsel at Unilever before deciding to set up her own consultancy. ‘It was the one thing I hadn’t yet tried, after private practice and in-house,’ she says. Her business, consultancy Sagesse, is thriving. ‘I really appreciate having greater autonomy over the pace that I work at. Sometimes, it is just as pressured as when I worked in private practice or in-house,’ she says. ‘But I have chosen that pace at a time that suits me with everything else going on in my life.’

But it’s all about the individual’s own circumstances. As Hood began her ‘Q3’, she decided to go in the opposite direction, moving from consultancy work to return to an employed position. ‘I’m a poster girl for women going back into the workplace in [their] 50s!’ she says.

More with the law

Sharpe observes that for lawyers, practising law is an intellectual pursuit as much as a financial one. ‘You have this relationship with [the law] that goes beyond a day job,’ she says, which is the case with most trained professionals. In Q3, therefore, one may choose to stay engaged with the law but in a different form. ‘You may not want the same “output” and, instead, might think about [practising the law] pro bono or in terms of public service, or engage in a broader sense with delivery and ops,’ she says.

Indeed, a lawyer is particularly well-placed because their professional training is valued in many fields. Lawyers can advise charities or become trustees, or retrain in a different area of law, for instance. They can become advocates in court, such as with the Free Representation Unit in the UK, or apply to be judges or mediators. They can work in law centres or teach law to students.

Then again, a lawyer doesn’t have to use their existing skills if they don’t want to. ‘You are no longer at that stage where you worry about what people think,’ says Sullivan. ‘You don’t have anything to prove to anyone, and you are more mature. You can finally choose what you want, not what you think you should want.’

There are, of course, constraints that everyone has to work within, such as financial obligations, caring responsibilities or health challenges. To live according to an ‘evergreen’ agenda does involve being grounded in the realities of circumstance. But that’s where the planning comes in. The first step is to look the future straight in the eye and work out how to make the most of the time you’ve been given.

References and further reading Andrew Scott, The Longevity Imperative Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton, The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton, The 100 Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity Camilla Cavendish, Extra Time: 10 Lessons for Living Longer Better Ronnie Fox (editor), Partner Retirement in Law Firms Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, 4-Quarter Lives (podcast) Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks Jan Hall and Jon Stokes, Changing Gear Jonathan Fields, The Good Life Project (podcast and books) ‘Association Between Life Purpose and Mortality Among US Adults Older Than 50 Years’, Aliya Alimujiang, MPH; Ashley Wiensch, MPH; Jonathan Boss, MS; et al, JAMA Network, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2734064    Teresa M Amabile, ‘Why People Resist Retirement’, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2024/07/why-people-resist-retirement www.Beyondyourcareer.co.uk https://careermilestones.com/