'The Vibe Is Changing': Flexible Firms Struggle to Get Attorneys on the Same Page

Law.com, August 24, 2023

By Jessie Yount

While several West Coast firms have pledged to resist mandates, firms with more disparate preferences within their ranks may be the most challenged to foster some meaningful person-to-person time.

What You Need to Know

A flexible, three-day in-office schedule remains popular on the West Coast, but some firms are struggling to get their attorneys on the same page about in-person interactions.

Core days is emerging as a common strategy for flexible firms that want to help their attorneys build bonds and get trained up.

Some young associates are job jumping in an attempt to find a partial in-person work culture that works for them.

Large firms are increasingly plotting a more fulsome return to the office in the fall. But hybrid work is sticking around at many West Coast firms by popular choice.

While several West Coast firms have pledged to resist mandates, firms with more disparate preferences within their ranks may be the most challenged to foster some meaningful person-to-person time.

“Firms with a strong in-office culture aren’t experiencing tremendous backlash on updated policies, because culturally, it was already there in many ways,” said Kristin Stark, a principal at Fairfax Associates.

By contrast, “if, before COVID, there was flexibility around remote work or it wasn’t totally countercultural, that’s where you could see some pain if firms roll out in-person policies,” Stark said. “If it feels inconsistent with the culture of the firm, that’s where people will leave.”

That’s part of the reason observers don’t expect West Coast firms to change their tune. A four-day in-office work week “is simply not West Coast work culture,” said Summer Eberhard, a recruiter at Major, Lindsey & Africa. “Even pre-pandemic there was no expectation that attorneys were in the office five days a week, whereas on the East Coast, there was.”

There continues to be pushback on return to the office from attorneys at almost every level in California, according to Suzanne Kane, a recruiter at Empire Search Partners. Part of that has to do with transportation and commuting challenges that evaporated during the pandemic, giving attorneys some of their time back. And some attorneys moved further away from firm offices during the pandemic.

In addition, the Bay Area is navigating its own sort of evolution. “No one is feeling the momentary tech squeeze like we are,” Kane said. “Things are hard right now, and there have been a ton of layoffs. There is this thought that, ‘On top of everything else, don’t make me come into the office.’”

Another dynamic at play is tied to the industry. New York’s heavy concentration in financial services and banking may be fueling firms’ office return, but the pressures aren’t quite the same in Northern California. Some tech companies have ditched their space, while others like Apple and Amazon have continued to struggle to increase attendance. Just last week, Zoom told employees within a 50-mile radius of an office to return in-person on a part-time basis.

“Tech runs this town,” Kane said. “As long as tech keeps wavering, we won’t see any other industries settle here.”

Despite the continued preference for some flexibility, differing opinions are rising to the surface. Among them, some associates are seeking out training and mentoring in an in-person environment. And some are finding that they’re returning to empty offices.

“What is not effective is telling people to be in a few days a week, but there’s no one else there,” said Major, Lindsey & Africa recruiter Kate Reder Sheikh. “The experience people are having, anecdotally, is they are going into the office because it’s required or expected, and all of their meetings are on Zoom anyway.”

Sheikh said the most effective approach she’s seen is core days—where attorneys are able to settle on two or three days for an entire practice group or team to be together in the office.

“Ultimately, where the majority of associates have landed is they want to be trusted to do their work where they are, and they want community and mentoring from their team when they come in,” she said.

Eberhard agreed, noting there are challenges to both ends of the extremes, whether it’s four days a week or fully remote. With the latter, “there is a danger for junior attorneys because they are feeling behind in training,” she said.

As a result, Sheikh and Lorraine Connally, a recruiter at Swan Legal Search, said they’ve worked with candidates who’ve been motivated to move to find a firm with a more in-person culture.

Junior and midlevel associates especially “want to be in the thick of things, getting exposure to as much as possible in different specialties within their practice group,” Connally said. “They tend to be sponges at this level, and want to learn as much as possible.”

For her part, Sheikh attributed the shift to something of a “metamorphosis” that’s emerged as the youngest generation of attorneys enter the workforce.

“When COVID was ‘over’ it felt like most associates were resistant to going to the office at all,” she said. “But now you have people that had a distinctively isolating law school experience and started work remotely. The vibe is changing because they have different needs.”

https://www.law.com/therecorder/2023/08/24/the-vibe-is-changing-flexible-firms-struggle-to-get-attorneys-on-the-same-page/