In 2020, law firms scrambled to enable remote working during Covid-19. Five years on and firm leaders' would rather have staff back in the office full-time, but by and large junior partners and associates don’t want to be there. This is a problem for firms, but not one caused by remote working per se, but that the issues really stem from firms not knowing how to manage remote working well.
It seems that the legal sector is currently struggling with the fact that leadership teams want people back in the office full time; but equally they know that trying to wean people off hybrid can cause lots of friction. They’re not alone.
The other morning, I read yet another piece of research underscoring the irrevocable nature of the shift to hybrid. According to Randstad’s 2025 global review of 26,000 workers, flexibility and work-life balance are – for the first time – more important to employees than salary.[1] Also in January 2025, a Pew Research Center survey showed that nearly half of workers would consider changing jobs if required to return to the office full time.[2]
Simultaneously, many corporations are pushing back. From January 2025, Amazon required all corporate employees on site five days a week. Barclays, Citigroup, PwC, Santander, and HSBC are already there. Law firm leaders wish they could follow suit.
Last year a fifth of UK legal professionals reported being asked (not compelled) to spend more time in the office.[3] In North America, Latham & Watkins requested that attorneys in NYC be in the office at least four days a week from January 2025. It joins Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Ropes & Gray, and Vinson & Elkins in the slow trudge back to base. Latham & Watkins made a point of saying that its new “in-office standard” was “crafted in consultation with various internal constituencies.”[4] Reportedly, some US firms are linking partner bonuses to in-office attendance – a sign that even partners are dragging their feet.[5]
Firm leaders clearly recognize it’s a tricky balancing act. They still want to attract and retain talent but know that many legal professionals have become attached to the work-life balance afforded by hybrid working. Anecdotally, UK firms are said to be even more nervous than North American ones about alienating top lawyers just to make them come in on Fridays.
The overall picture is of a growing dissonance between firm leaders, who want to rescind hybrid working; and junior partners and associates who don’t. There also seems to be some inter-generational tension, with Boomers, Gen X and Millennials the ‘office natives’ who only went remote because of Covid-19; while Gen Z have qualified and begun their working lives as ‘hybrid natives’ who know and understand nothing else. As the associate population increasingly comprises Zoomers, this divergence in thinking could well become a bigger problem.
What’s the beef?
But what exactly is the problem with hybrid working? Firm leaders typically cite concerns around the training and development of young lawyers, a lack of collaboration and team building, depleted firm culture, and faltering client service. Leaders also feel, quite strongly, that people who aren’t in front of them, in the office, are working less hard.
Conversely, junior partners and associates argue that without the distractions of the office they’re able to be more productive. Plus, they can also take back the time they’d otherwise spend on commuting and use it to bank more billable hours.
It feels like an impasse, and that both sides can’t be right. But perhaps we’re looking at the issue through the wrong lens. Maybe the problem isn’t hybrid working at all. Maybe it’s that hybrid is here to stay, so park that to one side, and instead think about the fact that leaders simply don’t know how to manage remote workers effectively.
And when you think about it, how could they know? What’s widely under-acknowledged is the colossal change that management has undergone since in-person people management has been disrupted.
A lack of physical proximity erodes the ability of managers to manage. It impairs the ability to foster strong relationships, or maintain a cohesive team culture, or react quickly to issues. And firm leaders really feel that loss. It’s not that they want to force people back into the office full time against their will. It’s just that they don’t know how to manage a firm any other way.
“Two-minute management” has gone missing. There are no quick face to face conversations, nor immediate feedback as issues emerge. Managers no longer get the non-verbal cues, body language, and facial expressions, that gave them context.
There are no spontaneous encounters in the elevator that build relationships and can solve problems fast. Managers now struggle to assess team morale and build the rapport that nurtures trust and loyalty. They can’t observe work habits as they used to to identify bottlenecks and tackle inefficiencies quickly, and to make real-time adjustments. They can’t jump in to mitigate tensions that can arise from toneless email communications. They can’t quickly brainstorm, experiment and innovate new processes with the team.
There’s also no opportunity to model a work ethic (and there’s some talk that Gen Z don’t understand what “busy” looks like) or to model collaboration and communication standards. There’s no chance to reinforce organizational culture and mission with a light, in-person touch, or to informally mentor. It’s much harder to offer emotional support. The lack of two-minute management is depleting communication, collaboration, and overall team performance.
Loss of visibility
In addition, remote managers lose all-important visibility. They can’t see people to monitor their performance. Nor can they straightforwardly understand how busy remote associates are. Are they busy enough? Or overwhelmed? Do they have the right type of work, and the right variety? Are they under- or over-committed? It’s hard to tell.
Firms have mechanisms for finding these things out, of course. But eager young lawyers are notorious for saying they can take on more work. And the less-keen don’t generally advertise their under-employment.
It’s worth adding that as much as correctly balanced workloads matter to the firm from a fiscal point of view, it’s also central to lawyers’ emotional well-being. It matters that remote junior lawyers’ and associates’ feel that work is being assigned equitably. Also that their efforts are “seen” by their managers, to avoid feelings of alienation and isolation. Burnout is a huge factor.
Indeed, legal’s nightmare is that most associates leave within the first five years. Given the cost of training and the conversion of those people, that’s a problem. Firms need to get the workload piece right. And this is not least because there’s also no hiding your firm’s culture these days – just ask Glassdoor, or Legal Cheek, or Chambers Associates, or Legal 500 or Indeed. A reputation for poor management and excessive workloads will have a very chilling effect on recruitment. So, what’s the solution? How can law firms get the balance between remote working and effective person management back?
Overcompensating overcommunication
One answer, so far, is that remote managers have been driven to overcompensate for the loss of physical proximity with over-management. But this isn’t working. It leads managers to produce too many emails and IMs and texts and chats and e-newsletters and update communications; and to set too many status meetings in the name of keeping in touch. Unfortunately, these are quite blunt tools. They interrupt the concentration of people who’re trying to get things done and waste lots of their time. One daily half-hour standup across a team of five will eat up 600 firm-hours over the course of a year. Multiply that by the number of teams holding standups, and it starts to look expensive.
Another real drawback with this style of remote management is the time delays. In the office, two-minute managers can get an instant response – “You got the file?” “Yep.” In a world of messaging, Teams and Slack, that doesn’t happen. You can wait 24 hours for a response. It clogs the wheels.
In addition, and further exacerbating the challenges of remote people management, is a marked trend to reduce the number of middle managers.[6] This is with the aim of achieving cost savings through “rightsizing” – enabled by technology – that is reshaping the legal sector too. One result is that the managers who remain have more people to manage than ever, compounding the difficulties of conducting effective remote oversight.
Where does it leave us? The bottom line is that firms haven’t found a new way to manage people in a hybrid world. Yet hybrid is here to stay, and firms must find a way to make it work.
What they need is a next wave solution that gives managers visibility and control in much defter and more nuanced ways, and which far outperforms the current reliance on overcommunication and traditional work management software. What that looks like, the thinking behind it, and the role of AI, will be covered in our next article on how to fix remote work management.
Sources:
[1]workmonitor . Note that Gen Z workers (the oldest of whom are now 27 and who comprise, along with Millennials, 60% of the workforce) are the most likely to rate work-life balance far above pay.
[2] Many remote workers say they’d be likely to leave their job if they could no longer work from home
[3] Firms “asking staff to spend more days in the office”
[4] Latham & Watkins Will Require Four Days in Office for New York
[5] The Back to Office Shift: What Will Law Firms Do Next? - Sonder Consultants
[6] See Business Insider, 24 May 2024, Corporate American is going through a middle-management meltdown; Wall Street Journal, 29 December 2024, Where Have All the Managers Gone?