The breaking point for former Singaporean lawyer Dominic Low was when he had just got home past midnight and his boss asked him to respond to an international client. This meant he had to return to the office and work till 2am.

He was into his second year of a corporate law career and decided that very night that the job was not for him.

“Everyone was under so much pressure and just expected to deliver at the cost of their personal life and mental health,” Low, 35, said.

Despite leaving the legal profession in 2019, Low’s experience was echoed by others in a four-year study on lawyer attrition released on Tuesday by the Law Society of Singapore and Anthro Insights.

The study conducted 31 in-depth interviews with former judges, legal academics and lawyers from diverse types of firms, and surveyed 855 practising and former lawyers to look into the decades-old problem of attrition in Singapore’s legal sector.

Low recalled being yelled at by his boss for errors despite being junior and regularly overhearing others being reprimanded, which often made for a tense office atmosphere. “There was a lot of expectation to perform, and there was very little margin for error. You also want to prove yourself because you want to be seen as being deserving of your place.”