Firms struggle with calling employees back to the office as pandemic subsides

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Call it the great divide: Even as many legal professionals have grown accustomed to the conveniences of working remotely, more and more law firms are starting to expect them back in the office for at least a few days a week.

As a result, many partners and firm managers are under pressure to come up with hybrid-work arrangements that provide some of the accommodations of the pandemic but still reap some of the temporarily lost benefits of in-person work. The cost of failing to do so could be a loss of valuable personnel.

The so-called Great Resignation rocked industries throughout the U.S. in 2021. A sample conducted by Pew Research in February 2022 found that the No. 5 reason for leaving a job was a desire to have some leeway with set hours. Now as many companies return to in-person work, they are having to decide if they’ll allow offer hybrid schedules of some sort.

Geoff Scollard, managing director of the legal recruiting agency The Foster Group, said he has seen a shift in hiring practices and operations at many of the firms where he and his colleagues have been placing job candidates.

“In the height of the pandemic, we saw many law firms prioritize hiring senior associates with the consensus being that seasoned attorneys required less training and thus would be easier to integrate on a remote basis,” he said. “As offices reopen, we’re seeing firms refocus their efforts on hiring associates who are at the junior or mid-level.”

With many attorneys and legal professionals making career jumps, the lateral-hiring market showed record increases from 2020 to 2021. In an analysis done by the National Association for Law Placement, the lateral associate market increased by nearly 149% last year.

“Lateral lawyer hiring at this level is likely unsustainable over time…but for now it remains a volatile and fast-moving market. Coupled with rising associate salaries, it’s a bit of a battlefield out there for a mid-level associate talent right now,” said James Leipold, NALP executive director.

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Erin Strohbehn, a partner at Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown, said her firm has adopted a hybrid schedule that has firm employees spending three days in the office while allowing for two days of remote work. Before March 2020, all associates had been expected to be in the office every day.

“Some of the problem here is balancing expectations between the people who want to demand everyone here and some people who are more pragmatic and recognize it’s going to be hard to recruit,” Strohbehn said. “It’s going to be hard to keep people and it’s going to be hard moving forward to be more judicious with the kind of space we rent or buy, depending on the circumstances, if we don’t embrace remote work.”

She said that even though remote work was an option at the firm throughout 2020 and 2021, some people nonetheless chose to come in every day. Any decision to return offices will also be influenced by factors such as whether courts decide to continue offering proceedings in a virtual format.

Strohbehn said many job candidates nowadays seem to expect to be given the option to work remotely.

“I do know that a significant amount of applicants for the roles that we have been hiring for—which is paralegals, lawyers, staff—a lot of those applicants have the expectation that there’s going to be if not 100% remote work, then a significant amount of flexibility and ability to work from home,” Strohbehn said. “The problem that raises, I think, is the idea of fairness because it feels great to have flexibility and it feels great to pick your time and pick your days. But if the people you work with and for aren’t comfortable with that and want to be in collaborative spaces as we get back to being safe in collaborative spaces, it puts some stress on our staff and lawyers. If one lawyer really feels they need their people here and one doesn’t really care, that creates some internal strife.”

And if the privilege of remote work is taken away, some firm members may be tempted look for jobs elsewhere.

“We struggle right now as a mid-size firm because salaries are shooting up—and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” Strohbehn said. “But it’s hard for us to compete with some of the large firms who continue to raise billable rates and continue to raise salaries. Now, on top of that, you’ve got firms that are willing to be more flexible than we can be. That’s very attractive.”

One of them is Quarles & Brady, a nationally recognized firm with approximately 475 attorneys practicing in 10 offices throughout the U.S., including in Madison and Milwaukee. Quarles recently vacated one of the eight floors it had previously occupied in the 411 East Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee.

Mike Aldana, a national managing partner for the firm, said law firms throughout the U.S. have been taking a second look at how much office space they occupy and wondering if they could get by with less.

“We expect this trend will continue as firms adopt hybrid work schedules,” Adana said. “We’re no different. We began adjusting our real estate footprint before the pandemic and in the past two years alone, we’ve reduced our office space across all 10 offices by more than 20%. We continue to see strong growth as a firm, across practice groups and offices, but by adjusting our real estate commitments, we’ll not only drive greater space efficiency, but also create a more vibrant office culture as we bring everyone closer together.”

Aldana said Quarles adopted a hybrid work system last month.

“Generally speaking, attorneys and business professionals are coming to the office 2-3 days per week, depending upon the specific needs of their respective practice groups, departments and offices, with some groups and people opting to come in as often as 4-5 days per week,” Aldana said.