Loading...
Each week, the Law.com Barometer newsletter, powered by the ALM Global Newsroom and Legalweek(year) 2021, brings you the trends, disruptions and shifts our reporters and editors are tracking through coverage spanning every beat and region across the ALM Global Newsroom. The micro-topic coverage will not only help you navigate the changing legal landscape, but also prepare you to discuss these shifts with thousands of legal leaders at our next virtual Legalweek(year) conference, happening on July 13-14. The upcoming sessions will cover a host of topics, including contracts and document automation, legal business strategies, e-discovery, litigation and data science and more. Click here to learn more and register for the most important virtual legal event of the year!
The Shift: For Office Returns, Law Firms Will Adapt to Client Expectations
Many law firms have said they’ve surveyed their attorneys and staff on preferences for returning to offices. They’re asking questions such as: how many days would they like to be in the office? When would they like to return?
That law firms are carefully listening to their employees' concerns sounds very magnanimous on their part.
But what’s often left unsaid in many of these return announcements is that firms are eyeing their clients’ preferences and leaving in some room for changes later on. In reality, client expectations are setting a tone, even if a law firm professes to be accommodating to attorney and employee wishes for remote flexibility.
Take a closer look at some law firm return announcements, even those that have zeroed in on a specific number of days in the office, and they leave plenty of room for adjustments later on.
“Most firms don’t want to get out in front of the issue like that for fear of having to reverse course,” said George Wolf, a law firm management consultant at Aon, said about law firm office return policies. “Law firms pay very, very close attention to where their clients come out on these issues, and I don’t think that is known or understood right now.”
The Conversation
To be sure, many law firms have given broad outlines of remote-work flexibility after returning to the office. For instance, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom said attorneys should be in the office “at least three days per work week,” even when some secretaries will have to return full time in September.
At Loeb & Loeb, after Labor Day, the firm expects “many will strive toward an average of two or three days per week in the office.” For “assistants and other staff,” the firm’s leader said its administration is developing “models that will afford flexibility where possible, while also ensuring for “appropriate” in-office coverage.
At Baker McKenzie, the firm expects to set a minimum of three days in the office, as of Sept. 1, while at Arent Fox, the firm isn’t even planning to define for staff and lawyers how many days they must spend in the office.
These policies seem pretty liberal compared with pre-pandemic times, when working just one day outside the office was considered flexible. But law firms are also issuing some caveats and leaving room for updates.
Loeb & Loeb said its third office-return phase, starting in 2022, is an evaluation of a “new hybrid way of working” longer term. But the firm hasn’t committed to a permanent approach.
Skadden’s memo on its return-to-office plans said the three days “is a guidepost” and there will be periods when client and practice needs require more, or when personal circumstances require less. The firm’s memo added, “As we gain experience with the new arrangement, we will likely make adjustments, although we expect remote work flexibility will be part of our work routine going forward.”
Baker McKenzie isn’t setting in stone any specific in-office mandates either, with Colin Murray, CEO of the North America region of the global firm, saying. “We are prepared for the idea that we would have some form of working from home, across the organization, indefinitely.”
The Significance
Baker McKenzie’s Murray said the return policy is “really about striking the right balance between individual needs and the interests of clients and the business.”
A look at some of Big Law’s biggest banking clients show they are being more aggressive in returning the office sooner. For instance, Goldman Sachs reportedly asked a majority of its workers in the United States and Britain to return to the office this month. JPMorgan has said it fully expects that by early July, all U.S.-based employees will be in the office on a consistent rotational schedule, subject to a 50% occupancy cap.
“We want people back at work, and my view is that sometime in September, October it will look just like it did before,” JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon has been quoted as saying. “And yes, the commute, you know, yes, people don’t like commuting, but so what.”
The pressure from corporate clients for office returns will undoubtedly influence the final “phase” of law firm office returns and where they ultimately land. If a corporate client or banker is already working in a downtown office, will it be acceptable to continue those conversations over Zoom? Are the pet dog cameos on Zoom going to be just as cute as they were before?
When push comes to shove, law firms will ultimately veer toward client expectations. The built-in wiggle room in law firms’ office-return policies is a nod to law firms’ need to adapt to any change in client business pressures.
The Information
Want to know more? Here's what we've discovered in the ALM Global Newsroom: Dechert Unveils Flexible Work Policy With Half-Remote Option A Trial-And-Error Approach to Office Returns Yields Some Lessons Learned 'Staff Are People Too': All Stroock Employees Can Work Hybrid, Including Secretaries Do Big Law Staff Have to Return to the Office? It Depends More Law Firms Reveal Office Return Timelines and Flexible Working Policies Arent Fox and Baker McKenzie Emphasize Individual Responsibility in Return to Office Policies Weil Now Lets Associates Work From Home Weekly In-House Counsel Are Returning to Offices Soon. It's Only One Factor in Their Career Decisions 'Unsustainable': Unprecedented Workloads Are Taking a Toll on Corporate Teams Special Bonuses Can Help to Retain Associates, But Not for the Long Run Kirkland Emerges as Top Competitor in Associate Talent Battle Associates Split on Generational Lines Over Office Returns
For more information on the Legalweek(year) virtual experience, visit legalweekshow.com or follow @Legalweekshow and engage with #Legalweek21 and #Legalweekyear for updates. The Forecast
The return-to-office pressure is mounting just as law firms’ associate talent are seeing record-levels of workload and burnout. The wave of deals landing at law firms’ feet, particularly those from private equity clients, is becoming too much for junior lawyers to handle. “I’m seriously worried about the mental health of my team going forward—the rate we’re going at is unsustainable,” a senior corporate partner at a U.K. law firm recently told Law.com.
The glut of corporate work is driving one of the most competitive periods for associate talent, with firms offering special bonuses, signing bonuses and even retention bonuses.
Law firms will ultimately have to balance the pressure to return to the office—and the commute —with the pressure to maintain a healthy and productive workforce that is eyeing office flexibility as key. That will result in different measures across firms, from record compensation incentives to maintaining some level of remote work flexibility, even if it's not as promising as it initially sounded.
Christine Simmons is an editor for business of law news and also writes about the New York legal community. Email her at csimmons@alm.com and find her on Twitter @chlsimmons
|
Loading...
Loading...