Tag: lawyer humour

The Night Before: Returning to Word After Annual Leave
The Night Before: Returning to Work After Annual Leave as a Solicitor

There’s a special kind of Sunday Scaries that hits different when you’ve just had a week (or two, if you’re lucky) off. I find it hits hardest when you have been able to take the full two weeks off in one go. One minute you’re sipping cocktails, reading novels you’ll never admit to your colleagues, and pretending you’ve forgotten what an email is. The next… it’s 9pm, your suitcase is still on the floor, and your brain is running through all the horrors that Monday could bring.

Sound familiar? Let’s break this down and let me furnish you with a few tricks to make the transition back to the office a little less soul-crushing, whether you’re in the legal field or not – I think it is fair to say this will strike true for most!

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The Emotional Rollercoaster
1. The “Inbox Dread” Stage
You don’t even need to open Outlook to know. The unread count will be there, waiting. Like a digital monster crouched behind your login screen. And even though you had a perfectly lovely time away, you can’t help but wonder if half the profession has collapsed without you. Spoiler: it hasn’t. (Probably.)
1. The Sudden Productivity Panic
You’ve just remembered: that matter you swore you’d “pick up after holiday” is now after holiday. Cue lying awake at midnight, mentally drafting attendance notes, while your partner reminds you that whispering “land registry” in your sleep is not normal.
1. The Existential Reflection
Why am I even doing this? Maybe I should just move to a Greek island and open a beach bar? I was so much happier not checking emails for a week. (This phase usually lasts until about 11:30am Monday, when you remember you quite like getting paid.)

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How to Survive the Night Before
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1.	Set a Gentle Landing
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Don’t roll into Monday with back-to-back deadlines. If you can, block out the first hour to just read through your emails and get your bearings. You’ll thank yourself later.
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2.	Unpack More Than the Suitcase
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Empty the mental suitcase too. Write down the three biggest tasks you know are waiting. Getting them out of your head makes them far less intimidating.
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3.	Inbox Triage
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Yes, there will be emails. No, you don’t have to reply to all 274 of them before lunch. Skim, delete, delegate, and prioritise. Remember: not everything that says “URGENT” is actually urgent.
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4.	Keep the Holiday Spirit Alive
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Bring a little of the holiday back with you. Coffee in your favourite mug, lunch outside if it’s not raining (…so, not often), or even setting a holiday photo as your background. It’s a small reminder you’re more than your billable hours.
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5.	Plan Something to Look Forward To
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Whether it’s dinner with a friend mid-week, a swim before work, or simply a nap worthy of a toddler — give yourself a mini “holiday” moment to soften the crash landing.

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Final Thoughts

Returning from annual leave as a solicitor can feel like running into a tidal wave of tasks, deadlines, and client demands. But with a little preparation (and a sense of humour), you can keep the Sunday Scaries from taking over. Remember: the inbox will always be full, the diary will always be busy, but your sanity is worth protecting.

Besides, it’s only a few weeks until your next annual leave request, right?

⚖️ Solicitor by day | 🚢 Cruising the seas and navigating the law | Sharing legal tips & travel tales | 📲 Follow my journey on Instagram | Threads | TikTok | BlueSky |
16/08/2025
The Day Before Annual Leave: A Solicitor’s Survival Guide
The Day Before Annual Leave: A Solicitor’s Survival Guide

There are few feelings more glorious than that “last day before holiday” buzz. You can almost smell the sunscreen, hear the clink of ice in a glass, and feel the warm breeze — until reality smacks you in the face. Because you’re not just you… you’re you the solicitor, or in my case – a private client solicitor. And there are those few clients that still think you should be at their call any time including when you are on annual leave. This just adds got the stress of the 24 hours before annual leave which is less “relaxed packing” and more “triage unit in a war zone”.

Let’s go through the stages I experience in the 24 hours up to the big event!

Stage 1. The Inbox Clearance Mission

The mythical dream is to “get everything done” before you go. The reality? It’s 5:45pm, you’ve been replying to emails since 7am, and your inbox somehow now has more unread messages than it did this morning. You’ve just sent an “I’ll deal with this when I get back” holding reply… and instantly get an “URGENT – NEED THIS TODAY” email marked high importance.

And yes, it’s from the client who ghosted you for three weeks. Naturally.

At the end of the day, there is only so much you can do. So, I do what I can – send that holding email and leave it there. If it is something that cannot absolutely wait, then I will ask a colleague to keep things “ticking” over in my absence but I find that most of the time, these matters can wait for a week or two, especially during the summer months, when most other colleagues and court officials are also on leave.

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Stage 2. The Pre-Holiday Panic Call

Without fail, the day before you leave, someone will ring you at 4:59pm with:

“I know you’re going away, but can you just quickly…?”

No. No, I cannot just quickly. “Quickly” in legal time means anywhere between 45 minutes and a full working day. But instead, you’ll find yourself typing like a caffeinated court reporter, muttering under your breath about how “this will definitely be my last-minute task”. Spoiler: it won’t be.

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Stage 3. The Hand-Over Dance

Every solicitor knows the awkward joy of the handover note. It’s like passing on the baton in a relay race… except the baton is on fire, the track is made of Lego, and you’ve “just remembered” a crucial deadline halfway through writing it.

The trick? Make it detailed enough so your colleague knows what’s going on, but vague enough so if things go wrong, it’s technically a “grey area”.

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Stage 4. The Pre-Leave Guilt

Somehow, you’ll start feeling guilty for going away, as if you’re personally betraying the legal profession or that colleague who you have passed some cases over too by daring to spend a week somewhere that isn’t your office or the land registry portal. You’ll catch yourself saying things like:

“I’ll have my phone if you need me!”

Don’t do this. We both know you’ll be sipping something fruity on a balcony while pretending to read The Times app.

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Stage 5. The Final Office Sweep

You know you’re about to be gone for more than a weekend when you start doing “the sweep”:
```
•	Delete any mysterious sticky notes that might incriminate you.
•	Check your desk drawer for snacks that may evolve into new lifeforms.
•	Turn off your monitor like you’re locking the front door of Fort Knox.
```
And yes, double-check the out-of-office email. You can’t risk last year’s blunder where you accidentally left it saying:

“I’m on leave until 2019.”

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Stage 6. The Moment of Liberation

Finally… it’s time. Laptop shut. Lights off. One last “have a nice holiday!” from the team. You step outside, take a deep breath, and feel the sweet release. For the next week or two, your only deadlines involve SPF reapplication and booking dinner reservations.

Until you get that one email that says:

“Hope you’re having a great time — quick question…”

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Moral of the story: The day before annual leave as a solicitor is a high-stakes, high-speed marathon. But that first cocktail on arrival? Worth. Every. Second.

⚖️ Solicitor by day | 🚢 Cruising the seas and navigating the law | Sharing legal tips & travel tales | 📲 Follow my journey on Instagram | Threads | TikTok | BlueSky |
09/08/2025

Tag: lawyer humour

The Night Before: Returning to Word After Annual Leave

The Day Before Annual Leave: A Solicitor’s Survival Guide

Moral of the story: The day before annual leave as a solicitor is a high-stakes, high-speed marathon. But that first cocktail on arrival? Worth. Every. Second.