What constitutes bullying? Harassment or discrimination because of age, race, gender or sexuality? Verbal abuse or public criticism? Denying someone equal opportunities for career progression?

The answer is clearly any or all of the above. However, identifying tangible examples of bullying at work is much more of a grey area as so much comes down to subjective feelings.

Outside the most blatant examples, what makes one individual feel ground down by daily victimisation at a relatively low level could be dismissed by someone else as light-hearted banter.

Perhaps that is why law firms, and many of their partners, maintain that they do not have a problem with workplace bullying. This is demonstrated by our lead feature this week, in which a handful of firms brave enough to talk about the controversial subject (and there were far more who refused to speak) discuss the measures they have taken to deal with the problem.

The numbers, however, speak for themselves. Our anonymous survey found that 91% of respondents believe law firms have at least some bullying problems, with more than a quarter of those arguing it is a very big issue.

A hefty 55% admit that they have personally suffered bullying while working at a law firm, and 78% have witnessed others being victimised. Granted only 10% say they have either suffered or witnessed bullying behaviour on a frequent basis, but that still leaves a lot of lawyers enduring working conditions that are more stressful than they need to be, in an already pressurised profession.

As some of the victims interviewed for the article point out, the ramifications can be huge, both in terms of career progression and their personal lives. Tellingly, none of those who spoke to Legal Week saw their problems dealt with by their firms – instead, they felt the only solution was to leave their team or the firm as a whole.

In fairness to law firms, the situation is certainly far better than it used to be, but policies alone cannot resolve a problem caused by human behaviour. If firms want to get the most out of their staff, an environment needs to be created in which people are willing to come forward without fear of repercussions – and there must be real consequences for those crossing the boundaries of what is acceptable behaviour.