Occupational risk prevention at the firm: assessment, plan and arrangements under Law 31/1995
A law firm is a business and its workers have the right to effective health and safety protection. The Occupational Risk Prevention Act requires prevention to be integrated into management, risks to be assessed and prevention to be organised in a way that depends on headcount.
Law firms often advise their clients on occupational health and safety. But when they hire staff, whether lawyers with an employment relationship or support staff, they are also businesses subject to Law 31/1995 of 8 November on Occupational Risk Prevention. The consolidated text published by the BOE is shown as updated to 9 April 2026.
This guide reviews the basic obligations of that law from a firm's point of view, with reference to its articles.
The starting point: effective protection
Article 14.1 says it bluntly: workers have the right to effective protection in occupational health and safety. That right corresponds to a duty of the employer, which at a firm is the company or the holder who hires.
That the work is office work does not exempt from the obligation. The risks to be assessed change, not the duty to assess them.
Integrating prevention into management
Under Article 16.1, occupational risk prevention must be integrated into the company's general management system, through the implementation and application of an occupational risk prevention plan.
For a firm, integrating means prevention cannot be a document that is filed away: it must be present when workstations are organised, equipment is bought or it is decided how to work.
Risk assessment
Article 16.2.a) obliges the employer to carry out an initial assessment of the risks to workers' health and safety. The assessment is the basis of everything else: it identifies the risks of each post and allows measures to be planned.
At a firm, the assessment will take into account the characteristics of office posts and the conditions in which people work. The law does not give a closed list of risks for each sector: it is for the assessment to identify them.
Who handles prevention
The law offers several ways to organise preventive activity, and the choice depends in part on the size of the firm.
| Arrangement | What the law says |
|---|---|
| Designated workers (Article 30.1) | The employer designates one or more workers to handle prevention |
| Prevention service (Articles 30.1 and 31.1) | If designation is insufficient, the employer must use one or more prevention services, in-house or external |
| The employer personally (Article 30.5) | Possible in companies of up to ten workers, and in those of up to twenty-five with a single workplace, under conditions |
When the holder takes on prevention
Article 30.5 allows the employer to take on preventive activity personally:
- In companies of up to ten workers.
- In those of up to twenty-five workers, provided they have a single workplace.
In both cases, the employer must habitually carry out their activity at the workplace and have the necessary capacity for the preventive functions they take on. For a small firm with a single office, this option can be viable, but it requires real training and dedication.
When the firm grows
As headcount increases or the firm opens more offices, the Article 30.5 option stops being available and workers will have to be designated or a prevention service used. Article 31.1 covers both in-house and external services.
Connection with other obligations
Prevention relates to other internal organisation obligations we have already reviewed:
- Equality, through the diagnosis of equality plans, which includes prevention of sexual and sex-based harassment.
- The whistleblowing channel, which allows certain infringements to be reported, as we explain in the guide to the whistleblowing channel at law firms.
- The regime for employed lawyers, governed by the special employment relationship of lawyers.
Checklist
- Check the number of workers and workplaces to know which arrangements are possible.
- Carry out or update the risk assessment for all posts.
- Draw up the prevention plan and integrate it into the firm's management.
- Choose and document the preventive arrangement: holder, designated workers or prevention service.
- Review the assessment when posts, premises or ways of working change.
More analysis in Big law firms and lateral moves.
Fuentes
- Ley 31/1995, de 8 de noviembre, de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales (BOE-A-1995-24292, texto consolidado). Accessed 18 October 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
