'Be Careful What You Wish For': Why Remote Work Might Not Be a Long-Term Solution | The American Lawyer - The American Lawyer

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I was recently a guest on the Modern Lawyer podcast hosted by Casetext vice president of business development Anand Upadhye, and we ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole imagining the possibility that Big Law goes remote even after the coronavirus crisis, something that seems more possible now than ever.

It seems hard to believe but, pre-pandemic, law firm offices functioned predominantly as a recruiting tool to attract the best attorneys. There was a time when law firms hosted clients regularly, but, as one law firm leader put it to me recently, “When do you ever see clients at law firms anymore?” That is not to say that a downtown skyscraper adds zero value. A firm’s office signals to clients that they are hiring an established business they can trust, not some fly-by-night mom-and-pop shop. But the diminishing value of a ritzy downtown office is significant enough that it could create a groundswell of support to keep flexible work policies in place moving forward.

But to those heralding the advent of a remote working Big Law, I say be careful what you wish for.

A recent report from Deutsche Bank estimated the cost to companies of properly equipping just a single remote employee at around $12,600. The report further stresses that for every study touting the efficiency of remote work and the harm of a long commute, there is a stack of studies showing that remote work succeeds only when very specific criteria are met, including dedicated workspace that has complete privacy (that’s where the $12,600 comes in), not to mention the evidence that many remote workers ultimately choose to return to the office within about nine months. To be sure, remote work before and after COVID-19 is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but remote work has not proven to be a long-term solution.

As a junior attorney, I was certain that my hour commute into the city was the foundation of my work/life imbalance. Some days in the office were literally spent sitting and waiting for work that would not come in until 6:30 p.m., coincidentally the very moment it became socially acceptable to leave. Had I been offered the option to work remotely, I would have gladly covered the $12,600 out of my own pocket.

So, when I left my firm to launch a startup, I looked forward to working at home and assumed it would improve my quality of life, but it turned out to be a mixed bag.

Sure, the first six months of working from a two-bedroom apartment (I had three kids at the time) were glorious and highly productive. I wore comfortable clothes, rotated between the sofa, the dining room table and an occasional cafe. I dropped my kids off at school in the morning and picked them up in the afternoons. In my naivete, I wondered why anyone would want to work in an office.

But it was the tail risk I had not considered. It turns out the reason home is so cozy and comfortable is not just because of the sofa and the ottoman—it is specifically because home is not your office. The problem is that once you mix office and home together, it becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle them. Work becomes more comfortable in the short run, but ultimately home becomes more stressful.

“Life was better before Blackberries,” a senior partner once told me. He explained that pre-Blackberry you might get an occasional call at home—and you might even have had to trek back into the office—but, in general, there were more boundaries and work stayed at work.

If the impact of the Blackberry is a cautionary tale, then remote work could be the next Trojan horse for lawyers.

I recently spoke with James Fisher and Kevin Broyles, founders of FisherBroyles, a firm that eschews the traditional law firm model. FisherBroyles has hired over 30 new lawyers since the pandemic began. While longtime proponents of remote work themselves—FisherBroyles attorneys work from home offices—neither one thought it would be easy for law firms to suddenly go remote. They described it as something of a square peg in a round hole. I tend to agree.

Law firms are not Twitter. Twitter, along with other tech companies, has cultivated remote work culture for years. Silicon Valley’s flexing is not a new initiative, as it would be for law firms. It is simply doubling down on currently successful policies. Twitter does not care if you figure out a way to get your job done better and quicker. That is what makes remote working so glorious: Once you get your work done, you are free. Unless law firms figure out an elegant solution to billing clients that does not involve the billable hour—FisherBroyles attorneys do not have billable hour targets—a “get the job done” mentality cannot exist, almost by design.

Plus, so much of the work that lawyers do is high-leverage, stressful and requires extraordinary attention to detail, so it’s not exactly conducive to working from home. It is one thing to manage a social media account from your dining room; it is quite another to engage in settlement discussions, prepare for a deposition or negotiate complicated agreements.

Firms are going to be under a lot of pressure to cut costs and adapt to the new realities, and I fully expect some firms to downsize their office space. I do hope, however, that firms take a holistic view of the situation and take into account the realities of working remotely and come up with an arrangement that does not simply save them on their bottom line, but improves the quality of life of their employees.

Zach Abramowitz is a law firm adviser and president of Killer Whale Strategies.

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'Be Careful What You Wish For': Why Remote Work Might Not Be a Long-Term Solution | The American Lawyer - The American Lawyer
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