Research reveals legal profession to be out of the top-10 groups addicted to the caffeine rush, suggesting all this talk of hard work is exaggerated
Despite the image of highly-stressed law firm associates and trainees toiling under whip-cracking pressure from departmental partners in the rarefied air of global legal practice, lawyers don’t seem to be under that much stress at all — at least according to their coffee-drinking habits.
Recent research of those professions and endeavours most requiring the famous energy-enhancer puts lawyers nowhere. Indeed, they do not even factor in the top 10.
In fact, the Judge — in his capacity as His Honour, the Right Honourable Lord Justice of Hackery (apologies to Lord Harley) — should, according to the research, be drowning in coffee (see full list below).
Journalists and other media “professionals” are the biggest coffee guzzlers in the UK, according to a survey conducted by Pressat, a Manchester-based press notice distribution service.
Following the hacks are police officers (presumably washing down countless sticky buns), teachers (whiling away hours in the staff common room), plumbers and other tradesmen (aren’t they meant to be cheerleaders for tea?) and nurses and other medical staff (one suspects they are ironically fairly keen on the odd fag as well).
But those stressed lawyers — supposedly pulling all-night stints on crucial, multi-billion-pound cross-border M&A deals, or kicking their heels endlessly in Crown Court canteens — don’t get a look in.
This shocking research result comes despite evidence unearthed by Legal Cheek recently illustrating that City lawyers fancy themselves in the coffee-quaffing stakes.
Staff at the London office of Los Angeles-based global practice Latham & Watkins have gone hi-tech with an iPad coffee dispenser that makes traditional bulky vending machines look like something from the arc.
According to the research, some 85% of the survey respondents said they knocked back at least three cups of coffee a day, but only 38% said they had any clue about the potential health risks of drinking too much of the stuff.
Men are marginally bigger coffee-drinkers than women, according to the bods in the white coats and clipboards hanging about outside Starbucks and Costa – but only by 5%.
Previously:
Students show coffee house knowledge of leading cases [Legal Cheek]
Barrister quits bar to become a barista [Legal Cheek]