Impatient clients are subjecting their advisers to unnecessary levels of stress and most are totally unconcerned about the number of hours they work, new research suggests.

The latest Legal Week/EJ Legal Big Question survey, which comes as the debate regarding quality of life at top City firms intensifies, found that 56% of respondents felt under undue pressure from clients either 'all the time' or 'often'.

The poll also found that no respondents felt clients 'never' set unreasonable deadlines for work, while 39% said such expectations occurred either 'often' or 'all the time'. A further 59% said clients 'sometimes' set unrealistic deadlines.

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom tax partner Tim Sanders said: "It is a fiercely competitive market. People agree to deadlines that are not realistically achievable and the person who says honestly that a job cannot be done in the timeframe risks being regarded as the cause of the delay rather than the person who points out the issue. Shooting the messenger has a long tradition."

Linklaters corporate partner Clodagh Hayes (above) said: "Junior lawyers probably find long hours more frustrating as they are not always as close to the heart of a transaction, or a client, as more senior lawyers may be. The more senior you are the more you can understand and push back on requests that you might find unreasonable and you can also understand why such requests, at times, may in fact be reasonable."

Rupert Casey, corporate and commercial partner at Macfarlanes, argued that the onus lay on partners rather than clients to ensure lawyers are not working ridiculous hours. "The way a job becomes stressful is not driven by the client."

While recent coverage of long-hours culture and stressful conditions for junior lawyers has provoked concern from the in-house community, the findings of the Big Question survey suggests that clients' sensitivity to adviser welfare is often nowhere to be seen come the big deal. Notably, the poll found the majority of partners (59%) said that their clients 'never' expressed any concern at the number of hours their advisers worked.

Asked how often clients seek to impose limits on the number of hours their advisers are expected to work, 82% of the panel of more than 100 leading business lawyers said they had never experienced such interest from clients. Hayes said: "Welfare of solicitors is a matter for the partners of a firm. With the rates they are paying, clients should not have to shoulder the responsibility for lawyers' welfare."

Financial Times Group head of legal Tim Bratton said: "I am surprised it is not a higher figure. When clients who do not have in-house counsel instruct lawyers, they are often unrealistic in their demands."

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