Manager burnout is structural. So is the fix.

Burnout and conflict in professional-services firms as a structural problem Sarah Fearon | Working paper, August 2026 Sarah Fearon is a former barrister. She practised family law in England and Wales for 25 years, was ranked as a Leading Junior in The Legal 500 from 2020 to 2026, co-founded Crown Chambers, and served as an elected member of the Bar Council of England and Wales. She is the founder of Fearon Advisory and writes on the structure of professional practice. The arg

The rule is confirmed. These are the ten checks a board should be able to evidence before 1 September, what the evidence looks like for each, and why the checks that fail sit in the manager layer.

There is a load your partners carry that no system in your firm is measuring: the composure held over everyone else's conflict, indefinitely. It is the hidden driver of manager burnout, and no wellbeing budget can reach it.