Eighty-two percent of senior lawyers believe their health is being damaged by the long hours they work. Half of these believe the problem is 'serious'.

Long hours are – and always have been – part and parcel of working in the City. The fact that the legal profession is a service industry compounds the problem. As does the increasingly blurred line between work and home life that smartphones and tablets are fostering. After all, if technology has effectively created a world where lawyers are always available and clients know they are always able to reach them, why shouldn't they try to do so?

But, as our lead feature this week highlights, the result of this 24/7 working culture is that lawyers are feeling the pressure now more than ever. And as the experts quoted explain, the potential effects on home and family life, in addition to health, are bad.

It is easy to find a handful of high-profile examples of associates or partners at leading firms who've suffered as a result of stress. Less visible are the numerous others – at all levels of experience – holding things together on the surface while underneath struggling to deal with billable hours targets and client expectations.

In their defence, law firms have woken up to the problem and have everything from resilience training to nutrition and exercise advice through to counselling services on hand for those in need. But there remains a challenge in promoting these services to staff and creating an environment where people feel able to use them and admit that they are finding it hard to cope.

Our recent survey found 57% of respondents believe their firms are not taking active steps to help lawyers deal with stress and long hours. Despite apparent growing awareness of the issue, this figure is marginally worse than a similar Legal Week survey two years ago, when almost half of respondents thought their firms were taking the matter seriously. Clearly more needs to be done. Assuming clients do not ease up their demands and that technology only perpetuates the 'always on' culture, firms need to take more action to protect staff.

The support on offer and efforts to help improve work/life balance by firms to date are no bad thing, but more important is monitoring working practices, training managers to recognise the signs of those under pressure and creating a less macho culture where admitting that you are finding things difficult is not seen as weakness. Perhaps another area where more women in law could only be a good thing.