Without an Office, Can a Law Firm Keep Its Culture?

One question continues to keep law firm leaders up at night: Would we lose our culture, and with it, our success, with a partially or fully remote workforce?

Leaders at large and midsize firms seem to think so, and that’s why they are encouraging firm lawyers to return to their offices as safely as possible. In interviews, most pushed back against the notion that post-pandemic law firms can operate remotely indefinitely.

Bill Perry, CEO of 190-attorney Gunster, said the firm is still figuring out how to share collective wisdom among the firm’s lawyers when everyone is virtual. ”It’s more difficult than talking to someone at the coffee pot, so getting people back together is going to be important when it’s safe to do so,” Perry said.

“A lot of people who really enjoyed the continuity of connectivity that existed when we were all working in one place don’t want to artificially move to a work-from-home environment that could negatively impact the culture that has made us successful,” said Al Dotson of 100-lawyer Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod. ”These are the things we’ll consider.”

Bowman Brown, co-chair of Shutts & Bowen’s financial services industry practice group at the Am Law 200 firm, echoed Dotson’s sentiment. ”It’s harder to collaborate over the phone than to walk down the hall and ask somebody a question. It’s harder to access people when they’re not in the office; it does have an impact on collaboration,” he said.

After the pandemic, Brown said he’d like to have as many people come back to the office as possible, but that he expects some people will work from home at least partially.

Etan Mark, a partner at the Miami litigation boutique Mark Migdal & Hayden, said that despite his firm’s focus on technology and ability to work remotely, he thinks in-person collaboration is irreplaceable.

“I don’t think technology is an adequate replacement to in-person collaboration,” he said. “I wish it were, but I don’t think it’s there.”

Associate preferences

Associates also share remote working concerns, particularly for mentoring, some firm leaders said.

“I was surprised that as I interviewed candidates, most of them asked to come in,” said Genovese Joblove & Battista partner John Arrastia in an October interview regarding his outlook for 2021. ”Many young lawyers who haven’t had that experience of working in a firm and collaborating want that.”

Partner John H. Genovese added that the firm is still evaluating its remote work plans, and will weigh the firm’s ability to collaborate as a major factor in the ultimate decision.

Brown, of Shutts & Bowen, said he worried about the ability to mentor associates remotely.

“If an objective of an associate is to find an environment where they can be mentored, I think they’re better served being in the office than expecting a call at home for an assignment or project,” Brown said. “It’s easier for an associate to walk into a partner’s office and discuss the problem. There’s more reticence to call a partner up at home and say, ‘let’s chat about this.’”

Associates looking for mentorship may gravitate toward in-office firms because of the stigma that persists over the ability to develop in a remote environment.

“Firms are concerned about the ability to develop associates in this environment. [They think] it makes it harder to work down the hall and assign somebody a piece of work if they’re working remotely—that belief is invalid,” said legal consultant and Tilt Institute President Marcie Borgal Shunk in an interview. ”It does require changes in habits, but it’s not necessarily impossible.”

She said it’s imperative that law firms make a concerted effort to increase communication and engagement during remote work. ”We’re seeing law firms get creative and do all sorts of virtual happy hours, connecting people in a way that’s more socially oriented,” Shunk said.

Associates in this year’s recruiting class may feel short-changed by the remote office environment, but Shunk said she thinks expectations may shift with time. “Moving forward, if associates and income laterals are given the opportunity of one situation or another, over time that will become normal,” she said.

Kluger Kaplan partner Alan Kluger said the Miami boutique’s attorneys have used time previously spent commuting or driving to depositions to increase communication among each other. “What’s interesting is there’s more mentoring going on, not less,” Kluger said.

Remote culture

In the absence of in-office contact, firm leaders look for safe ways to engage attorneys and staff with each other. At Bilzin Sumberg, Dotson said that the firm got its attorneys and staff together for a drive-in movie night at the Hard Rock Stadium, which is owned by a client.

Gunster is planning a virtual retreat, Perry said, which includes a virtual social gathering program including virtual cooking nights, painting and wine tasting, for which attorneys will be mailed supplies for activities they’ll share via videoconference.

Not all firm leaders share the belief that culture is crucial to recruiting or maintaining firm success. At the Am Law 200 personal injury firm Morgan & Morgan, as many as 30% of the firm’s 600 attorneys may never return to the office. Keeping attorneys happy, Morgan said, may be more important than culture.

“I do worry about the culture, but then you have to ask: Does the culture really matter?” Morgan said. “I always thought that it does, that being happy where you work and being happy in the workplace retained employees. Maybe they’ve been so happy working from home, maybe that whole line of thought was wrong.”

The move to a partially remote office coincided with unprecedented attorney productivity monitoring at the personal injury firm. Morgan & Morgan now collects data on keystrokes, emails answered and time spent on the computer and compiles them into a daily productivity report, showing attorneys how they compare to colleagues in their practice group.

Morgan said he hasn’t received any complaints about the new, data-centric method of tracking remote and in-office attorney work. Hard workers like to be acknowledged, Morgan says, a statement that seems to align with the culture upon which he built the firm.

“You can’t have a great circus unless you have lions and tigers and people on a high wire, because people come to the circus to see people get eaten or fall off a high wire,” Morgan said. “I fill my firm with lions and tigers. There’s only one way to keep them from eating you, and that is to love them and pay them. That’s the bottom line.”