Think Ropes & Gray earned its own thread (3 day work week) Forum

[Excellent117]

LOL @butthurt junior. Not every junior associate is a trooper like you, buddy.

What? He/she is correct. Just because someone more senior isn't good at managing people or navigating remote work doesn't mean all the juniors should be forced back into the office 3/4/5 days a week from now on. Adapt or get left behind.

[thisismytlsuername]

Man, I hope all of you juniors have a plan when every single firm starts "suggesting" that people return to the office full time, and start soft-requiring it in the fall or 2022 at the latest.

[Anonymous User]

There's an easy answer to the "it's rude to call"/"just call them if they're not responding to email" discussion, which is to just put a time on their calendar, even if it's just a 15 minute block, and then call then (or set up a Zoom, and call if they don't log in to the Zoom). If they get you what you need before then, great, cancel the calendar invite. If not, it's not rude to call/Zoom during a scheduled time.

I'll say that almost nobody used to do this at my old firm, but at both places I subsequently went to in-house, everyone does this, because that's how normal businesses work. Maybe other firms have more of a culture for sending calendar invites, but from the discussion here, it doesn't sound like it.

[Excellent117]

Man, I hope all of you juniors have a plan when every single firm starts "suggesting" that people return to the office full time, and start soft-requiring it in the fall or 2022 at the latest.

Who said everyone in this thread is a junior?

[Anonymous User]

Is it mostly midlevels chiming in here happy with WFH? As someone more senior, WFH has been an extremely mixed bag in terms of junior accessibility (people ghosting for hours) and walking through markups, etc., is just more awkward via phone (don't get me started on zoom).

100% love the extra time due to a lack of a commute but it's made managing people a chore. Good midlevels I don't worry about but feels like I'm sending more emails to chase juniors on minor stuff because they're not in office, and calling people's cellphones after they don't respond to an email for 2 days still seems rude.

Maybe it's because I was always pretty lax about leaving whenever work was done (I personally liked to leave at ~5) and having the same attitude for my team -- if markups, etc., are out by 3 or 4 pm, there is no reason to stay -- but WFH seems to have contributed to a lot of communication issues.

This is bullshit.

I'm a junior. If a senior tells me to do something, I do it. No if, ands, or buts. You letting a junior blow you off is a YOU problem, not a junior-wide problem. We should not be forced to come into the office any more than other associates, which is an idea that I've seen a lot in other threads, because some of you suck at flexing your seniority.

LOL @butthurt junior. Not every junior associate is a trooper like you, buddy.

Sure but that doesn't mean some boomeresque senior's desire to "organically" meet up because they can't figure out how to zoom should rule the day

I'm the original guy who noted that WFH has been a "mixed bag" (my words, and my emphasis on them). Thought my note was inoffensive -- pre-WFH, my management style was pretty successful (consistent note in my reviews past few years that I was popular among associates), but it's been noticeable that there has been a degree of fall-off in communication, especially with brand new 1st years.

Notice how I didn't say I didn't know how to zoom, or I've only been doing handmarkups, or whatever, just that zoom meetings are more awkward (they are) and people haven't been as responsive (anecdotal, but I've talked to friends at other shops and they've noticed the same). I'm not looking for a "return to normal" -- R&G's system doesn't sound that bad to me, maybe 2 days a week would work, I'm not Steven Levitt.

It's bizarre that my lukewarm note received pathologically defensive responses (especially given how fucking outraged people on this board are in other threads when seniors call to follow-up on shit) but guess that's just the crowd. I'll figure something out.

[Anonymous User]

Conversations over Zoom are definitely more awkward and in some ways less productive than in-person meetings, though it heavily depends on who's involved (i.e. were they already ineffective at having meetings pre-COVID). I think it's less of an issue for people who know each other well and have an existing working relationship. It's also task-dependent. Some meetings should really have just been an email. Some emails chains would be resolved way quicker with a call.

As for what steps firms will take, I think it's key to recognize the REAL reason why firms are willing to consider some form of remote: it lets them cut down on office spending. Real estate is one of the three costs that dominates firm expenses (along with staffing and T&E), so if they smell any opportunity to cut back on those costs while keeping employees happy/productive, they'll take it. If they had to continue renting pre-COVID offices and stocking/staffing them indefinitely, I think they'd be less eager to allow remote. I expect correlation between WFH and office-sharing, bull pens, cutting floors, etc. TBD.

[thisismytlsuername]

It's bizarre that my lukewarm note received pathologically defensive responses (especially given how fucking outraged people on this board are in other threads when seniors call to follow-up on shit) but guess that's just the crowd. I'll figure something out.

The proliferation of anonymous posting with no justification on this board really allows the assholes to shine.

[sms18]

LOL @butthurt junior. Not every junior associate is a trooper like you, buddy.

What? He/she is correct. Just because someone more senior isn't good at managing people or navigating remote work doesn't mean all the juniors should be forced back into the office 3/4/5 days a week from now on. Adapt or get left behind.

If you read the junior's original post, he's basically saying that a junior blowing off a senior is basically the senior's own fault. Things are not as simplistic as that at a workplace (unless you also believe that to be the case), and that was what I was attempting to point out in a good-humored fashion.

[TLSReturntoWork]

It's bizarre that my lukewarm note received pathologically defensive responses (especially given how fucking outraged people on this board are in other threads when seniors call to follow-up on shit) but guess that's just the crowd. I'll figure something out.

The proliferation of anonymous posting with no justification on this board really allows the assholes to shine.

re-read the thread. My post wasn't anonymous. I'm one of the only people on TLS who never uses anon unless I'm discussing my firm.

LOL @butthurt junior. Not every junior associate is a trooper like you, buddy.

What? He/she is correct. Just because someone more senior isn't good at managing people or navigating remote work doesn't mean all the juniors should be forced back into the office 3/4/5 days a week from now on. Adapt or get left behind.

If you read the junior's original post, he's basically saying that a junior blowing off a senior is basically the senior's own fault. Things are not as simplistic as that at a workplace (unless you also believe that to be the case), and that was what I was attempting to point out in a good-humored fashion.

I wasn't blaming the senior (although this might sound like semantics). I'm saying some seniors suck at managing people and have been arguing that this is a basis for making juniors have to show up in person. Fuck that. Get good at your job. If a junior disrespects you or blows you off, that's not your fault. If you let it happen without consequence, and especially repeatedly, that is your fault. You can start with something as simple as a talk about expectations working in biglaw v. working a part time cashier job. The idea that 1st years are paid for their time, not expertise. If it continues you can subtly remind them that you enjoying leaving good performance reviews for good associates (let the inverse be known to them by implication, without saying it). If the behavior doesn't improve, raise it to someone (need not be a busy partner) and maybe even lightly throw them under the bus for others to see ("Blow-offer-3001, in the future, please let us know if you're not going to [be available to] do an assignment when asked.").

[parkslope]

I have to say I am skeptical that biglaw will ever be less than five days a week in the office. I see the three days a week thing as a mechanism to ease people back into the office, but I don't think it will last for the vast majority of associates. There are a few reasons why:

(1) So much of biglaw is built on crisis/urgency that it doesn't lend itself well to scheduling meetings in advance and coordinating between who is in the office on a given day and who isn't. People want to have meetings impromptu (even if I think it's personally inconsiderate to not schedule meetings in advance).

(2) Biglaw is generally up-or-out, and I think there will be real costs to the associates who get less facetime with partners. People will not want to miss out on impromptu lunches and stuff later in the week. It's different than like, a software engineer job.

(3) Partners determine how offices work and they were associates back in the times when people were in the office until 2 am. That has thankfully eroded and I think most people don't stay late in the office past dinnertime (old-school NYC excepted). But that's still very different than not coming into the office at all. Even if there's associate demand for three days a week, if there demand for that from partners? I don't think so.

[Anonymous User]

Who cares what partners want? If you don’t want to make partner then just continue to work from home a couple of days a week. That’s what I plan to do.

[soft blue]

Conversations over Zoom are definitely more awkward and in some ways less productive than in-person meetings, though it heavily depends on who's involved (i.e. were they already ineffective at having meetings pre-COVID). I think it's less of an issue for people who know each other well and have an existing working relationship. It's also task-dependent. Some meetings should really have just been an email. Some emails chains would be resolved way quicker with a call.

As for what steps firms will take, I think it's key to recognize the REAL reason why firms are willing to consider some form of remote: it lets them cut down on office spending. Real estate is one of the three costs that dominates firm expenses (along with staffing and T&E), so if they smell any opportunity to cut back on those costs while keeping employees happy/productive, they'll take it. If they had to continue renting pre-COVID offices and stocking/staffing them indefinitely, I think they'd be less eager to allow remote. I expect correlation between WFH and office-sharing, bull pens, cutting floors, etc. TBD.

Is hot-desking practical when you have client confidential information? I mean, I left printouts and stuff in my (locked) office. I also routinely had client calls behind closed doors. All the real estate savings stuff seems to be based on some kind of hot-desk, open-office model that seems hard to do for lawyers. (Don't firms also have long, locked-in leases?)

Ropes people: is the sense that partners will respect this, or? At my shop there are some partners who could not care less about WFH as long as you're there for major events and others who are far more stringent than the WFH policy, so I tend to think that policies kinda don't matter.

[Auxilio]

...
(2) Biglaw is generally up-or-out, and I think there will be real costs to the associates who get less facetime with partners. People will not want to miss out on impromptu lunches and stuff later in the week. It's different than like, a software engineer job.
...

I mean I agree if you are gunning for partner you should probably still aim for higher face time, most of us aren't. I also have never had an impromptu lunch with a partner so I don't know what to say about that.

Is hot-desking practical when you have client confidential information? I mean, I left printouts and stuff in my (locked) office. I also routinely had client calls behind closed doors. All the real estate savings stuff seems to be based on some kind of hot-desk, open-office model that seems hard to do for lawyers. (Don't firms also have long, locked-in leases?)

Hot desking doesn't necessitate open space, you can still have closed door offices, just less of them.

As to the printout etc. I can't speak for others but I never locked up my documents in the office, a lot of the time they were pinned to the wall, I don't think individual offices even had locks in our building. I think you kind of have to be able to trust the security on the office as a whole instead of each individual's. In terms of logistics for people who like to print out a lot of stuff, that would get more difficult, you could have a shared space to leave things at night I suppose.

There's also probably a correlation between people who like to deal with a lot of hard copies left in the office and those who want to be in the office almost every day, they can probably just grab a desk long term. I think most firms will go with more of a hoteling system than a hot desk one.

[Anonymous User]

My old college roommate works in an industry with confidential information and a WFH culture and they have storage drawers for their documents that are outside of the first-come, first-serve office spaces. So when he goes in, he goes to the drawer/locker thing to take whatever docs he needs and then finds an office. And no one leaves any personal effects in any of the offices; you clean it out when you leave that evening.

I could see this working for associates, or maybe just the most junior ones, but at a certain point partners/senior associates are going to want their own offices 24/7.

[TLSReturntoWork]

(1) So much of biglaw is built on crisis/urgency that it doesn't lend itself well to scheduling meetings in advance and coordinating between who is in the office on a given day and who isn't. People want to have meetings impromptu (even if I think it's personally inconsiderate to not schedule meetings in advance).

Spoiler alert: This is a bad reason to return to the office.
We've been able to handle crises and urgent meetings from home.

(2) Biglaw is generally up-or-out, and I think there will be real costs to the associates who get less facetime with partners. People will not want to miss out on impromptu lunches and stuff later in the week. It's different than like, a software engineer job.

Partners can tell which associates are doing work for them and which are not. I say this as a FIRST Year, which is to say the layers of associate above me who sometimes send off my work hasn't stopped partners from being well-aware of who does the bulk of the work and sometimes reaching out to juniors (me and others directly). So not buying this idea that I need to have lunch with them in person for them to see my value. Also at a V5 that doesn't need to cut people as often or readily as other firms (before anyone critiques the significance of being at a V5, the V5 and even V10 are overwhelmingly well-represented at the top of the AM100 for PPP, RPL, etc.).

(3) Partners determine how offices work and they were associates back in the times when people were in the office until 2 am. That has thankfully eroded and I think most people don't stay late in the office past dinnertime (old-school NYC excepted). But that's still very different than not coming into the office at all. Even if there's associate demand for three days a week, if there demand for that from partners? I don't think so.

I want to say who cares what partners think, like the other poster above, but that's just gut-posting. This is your one solid point. What partners think generally wins the day, even if it's not what's best for the firm, associates, or clients.

[parkslope]

(1) So much of biglaw is built on crisis/urgency that it doesn't lend itself well to scheduling meetings in advance and coordinating between who is in the office on a given day and who isn't. People want to have meetings impromptu (even if I think it's personally inconsiderate to not schedule meetings in advance).

Spoiler alert: This is a bad reason to return to the office.
We've been able to handle crises and urgent meetings from home.

(2) Biglaw is generally up-or-out, and I think there will be real costs to the associates who get less facetime with partners. People will not want to miss out on impromptu lunches and stuff later in the week. It's different than like, a software engineer job.

Partners can tell which associates are doing work for them and which are not. I say this as a FIRST Year, which is to say the layers of associate above me who sometimes send off my work hasn't stopped partners from being well-aware of who does the bulk of the work and sometimes reaching out to juniors (me and others directly). So not buying this idea that I need to have lunch with them in person for them to see my value. Also at a V5 that doesn't need to cut people as often or readily as other firms (before anyone critiques the significance of being at a V5, the V5 and even V10 are overwhelmingly well-represented at the top of the AM100 for PPP, RPL, etc.).

(3) Partners determine how offices work and they were associates back in the times when people were in the office until 2 am. That has thankfully eroded and I think most people don't stay late in the office past dinnertime (old-school NYC excepted). But that's still very different than not coming into the office at all. Even if there's associate demand for three days a week, if there demand for that from partners? I don't think so.

I want to say who cares what partners think, like the other poster above, but that's just gut-posting. This is your one solid point. What partners think generally wins the day, even if it's not what's best for the firm, associates, or clients.

Responding to your first point, I agree that it's easy to handle crises and urgent meetings from home. It's more difficult when some people are home and some people are not (i.e., arranging Zoom for some people in the conference room). In the pre-Covid era, cross-staffing across offices wasn't perfect and sometimes the one person in a different office wouldn't be informed of all meetings. That will be worse in the post-Covid era.

And on the second point, I think older partners value facetime and a year of working from home isn't going to change that. One associate who is there 100% of the time will have more facetime than someone who is there 40% or 60% of the time. Associates are often just treated as interchangeable drones, and it's much easier to do that without facetime.

For the record, I strongly support more WFH. But I'm very skeptical that it'll stick long-term.

[Voxius]

A potentially under appreciated point in the short / medium term is associate retention. Based on the farewell e-mails over the last few months (and having talked to some of the departing associates), many (most, from what I’ve seen) of these recent exits are in connection with geographic relocation.

Calling associates back to the office (or even setting a deadline for return in the next few months), could cause associates that have relocated and decided to stay where they are to leave for local opportunities. I assume firms would like to avoid that outcome, at least for the time being.

[Anonymous User]

People aren't pushing hard enough for WFH. My firm has indicated a 3-day a week in the office, workweek, but I'm not going back in. A few other associates in my group as well. The logic is entirely stupid. For over a year now, it has been proven that everybody can work from home. This whole "here, have a few days at home extra" is nonsense. Give us a reason why. Either say that everybody sucked for over a year now (which is a lie) or just admit it worked and let people work from wherever they want. None of this reward that is just a masked punishment.

[TLSReturntoWork]

People aren't pushing hard enough for WFH. My firm has indicated a 3-day a week in the office, workweek, but I'm not going back in. A few other associates in my group as well. The logic is entirely stupid. For over a year now, it has been proven that everybody can work from home. This whole "here, have a few days at home extra" is nonsense. Give us a reason why. Either say that everybody sucked for over a year now (which is a lie) or just admit it worked and let people work from wherever they want. None of this reward that is just a masked punishment.

Also, not to be a dick but if there are actually associates who aren't productive at all then cut them from the firm or make them go in the office if for some magical reason that will boost their productivity. But do not make most of us return for a few bad apples, especially not if we can show we've been billing a typical or even higher than typical amount while receiving satisfactory or greater reviews.

The only thing I can't do from home that I can do in the office is touch, taste, and smell people.

[TLSReturntoWork]

Second post because Goodwin is following R&G. Thank you, Goodwin, for answering my prayers. I hope enough firms folllow that mine reverses course from saying five days a week.

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/05/goodwin ... ice-space/

[Anonymous User]

I don't think anyone disagrees that WFH worked for the past year or so, but was it equally good on all fronts (not just billing) or better than working from office pre-covid?

The partial in/out of office doesn't work for me since my WFH setup is shit plus I am set up in a corner of kitchen, which is the only space in my studio so it's not a permanent option really and was just done out of necessity.

I have already seen some friction at my firm with our group who does biweekly calls where some of the attorneys are in the office and others are not. The tension has been that those in the office don't care to go through the administrative hurdles of getting a conference room with audio video set up for a Zoom call when they can just pop into any nice room and start and end naturally at the group's discretion and the ones at home feel that they're being ostracized when the in office group doesn't care to get a camera set up so that these out of office attorneys can also have face time with the ones in the office. There is a mix between partners and associates and of counsel on both sides of this camp. I have gone in and been there for these meetings but this is one example that I think is evident of the argument that WFH attorneys will be viewed and treated as second class although not intentionally nor consciously.

[Jyeatbvg]

I don't think anyone disagrees that WFH worked for the past year or so, but was it equally good on all fronts (not just billing) or better than working from office pre-covid?

The partial in/out of office doesn't work for me since my WFH setup is shit plus I am set up in a corner of kitchen, which is the only space in my studio so it's not a permanent option really and was just done out of necessity.

I have already seen some friction at my firm with our group who does biweekly calls where some of the attorneys are in the office and others are not. The tension has been that those in the office don't care to go through the administrative hurdles of getting a conference room with audio video set up for a Zoom call when they can just pop into any nice room and start and end naturally at the group's discretion and the ones at home feel that they're being ostracized when the in office group doesn't care to get a camera set up so that these out of office attorneys can also have face time with the ones in the office. There is a mix between partners and associates and of counsel on both sides of this camp. I have gone in and been there for these meetings but this is one example that I think is evident of the argument that WFH attorneys will be viewed and treated as second class although not intentionally nor consciously.

It’s been a year and a half since the pandemic started. I don’t think anyone can honestly use “my wfh setup is shit” as an excuse anymore. Fair point if your studio isn’t big enough though.

[Anonymous User]

Yes to clarify, it is shit because of the cramped space so I cant get the setup I want like bigger sized dual monitors and I have the loudest gd refrigerator on this planet which is annoying, so obviously I prefer my office. But agreed that shitty setup otherwise isn't an excuse.

[TLSReturntoWork]

I don't think anyone disagrees that WFH worked for the past year or so, but was it equally good on all fronts (not just billing) or better than working from office pre-covid?

The partial in/out of office doesn't work for me since my WFH setup is shit plus I am set up in a corner of kitchen, which is the only space in my studio so it's not a permanent option really and was just done out of necessity.

I have already seen some friction at my firm with our group who does biweekly calls where some of the attorneys are in the office and others are not. The tension has been that those in the office don't care to go through the administrative hurdles of getting a conference room with audio video set up for a Zoom call when they can just pop into any nice room and start and end naturally at the group's discretion and the ones at home feel that they're being ostracized when the in office group doesn't care to get a camera set up so that these out of office attorneys can also have face time with the ones in the office. There is a mix between partners and associates and of counsel on both sides of this camp. I have gone in and been there for these meetings but this is one example that I think is evident of the argument that WFH attorneys will be viewed and treated as second class although not intentionally nor consciously.

For any competent employee, sending a Zoom meeting LITERALLY takes less than 30 seconds. Walking up stairs or taking the elevator to the partner's office or conference room takes a lot more than that. The in-person/at home meeting issues are the result of incompetence or resistance to continuing WFH, not some technical barrier to hybrid meetings.

If anything, people at home can easily start up 20 zooms in the time it takes for people in the office to gather their supplies, come from their various corners in the firm, and meet in an office.

[Anonymous User]

“the administrative hurdles of getting a conference room with audio video set up for a Zoom call when they can just pop into any nice room”

It’s not an issue of sending a Zoom INVITE, it’s the finding the conference room that fits everyone in office but also has audio and visual set up, which doesn’t always work and 1/3 of the time needs IT assistance for whatever non-Zoom related reason, and such a/v capability isn’t available in every conference room on our floor, etc. they brought a laptop once and it was a very poor experience so there’s that too. Nobody is complaining about the email invite, obviously that’s easy.