Law Firms Are Still Treating Workplace Misconduct as Isolated Incidents
.png)
The legal profession is well positioned to advise organisations on workplace culture, reporting systems and harassment prevention. But new commentary for Practical Law from our CEO and Co-founder, Gemma McCall, questions whether many firms are applying the same standards internally.
Despite increasingly sophisticated compliance frameworks, anonymous reporting systems and mandatory conduct training, underreporting and mistrust around workplace misconduct remain significant issues across the legal sector. Here is a taster of what we discuss:
"Where employees do find the strength to speak up, many law firms still treat reports as isolated incidents rather than grouping them to unearth cultural intelligence and trends."
The piece explores how many firms continue to handle complaints reactively, focusing on resolving individual cases without analysing the wider patterns that may point to deeper cultural problems. In high-pressure environments where hierarchy, workload and commercial performance dominate, this can allow harmful behaviour to persist unnoticed.
We also examine the long-term impact this approach can have on employee trust and psychological safety within firms.
"Staff learn that problems are managed privately rather than resolved systemically, which often leads to trust in internal processes eroding and the feeling that silence is safer than speaking up."
Alongside exploring underreporting within the legal profession, the article discusses how firms can begin using reporting data as cultural intelligence rather than administrative process. By analysing trends collectively, organisations are better able to identify hotspots, intervene earlier and prevent issues escalating into reputational, regulatory or legal crises.
Read the full article in Practical Law Magazine for deeper insight into workplace culture in the legal sector and why reporting systems should be treated as tools for prevention, not simply compliance.
.png)
What we're reading
Latest insights from the front lines of workplace culture.
The Junior-Senior Speak-Up Divide: What the Data Reveals About Hierarchy and Silence
Speaking up about workplace misconduct shouldn’t depend on where someone sits in the organisational chart. But as shown in The Culture Shifters Annual Report 26/27, it does. Junior employees are twice as likely as senior leaders to believe that speaking up is "pointless," with 54% holding this view compared to just 27% of senior leaders.
Why Collecting Misconduct Data Isn't Enough to Meet the New All Reasonable Steps Duty
Our co-founder and CEO, Gemma McCall, has written a piece for The HR Director exploring one of the most persistent gaps in workplace misconduct management: the space between collecting data and actually using it.
%20(1).png)
The NDA Ban Under the Employment Rights Act: What It Means for HR
When you can no longer buy silence, you have to invest in safety. That's the shift HR teams now need to plan for. Some organisations have historically leaned on settlement agreements and non-disclosure agreements to resolve harassment complaints quietly, keeping the details contained and the reputational risk low. The Employment Rights Act 2025 closes that option down. Once the NDA ban comes into force, a culture of silence stops being something the law will let you enforce.
Feeling inspired?
Take the first step toward preventative misconduct management with a demo of our Report + Support™ platform. We can show you how to breakdown reporting barriers with anonymous 2-way messaging, and how to act before things escalate with name-matching and pattern-spotting across our analytics dashboard.
