Biglaw

Biglaw Firm Announces Phased Transition Back To Work That's Sure To Please Associates

This plan will be a hit because employees are being gently eased back into office life.

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Spring has officially sprung across the country, and plans for safe office reopenings at Biglaw firms are slowly but surely budding up and coming to life. Today, we have news from an Am Law firm whose return-to-work plan will gently ease attorneys and staff back to work through various transition phases leading up to a full return after Labor Day.

According to our sources, Lowenstein Sandler — a firm that brought in gross revenue of $350.1 million in 2020 — has announced a reopening plan that will help all employees reacquaint themselves with office life before a full September return. The firm launched a soft reopening on July 22, 2020, and has been providing free lunches for anyone working from any of their offices since then, and will continue to do so this summer. These are the three return phases that will be occurring at Lowenstein, as detailed in an email sent on April 30 (available on the next page):

  • Between now and July 4, we welcome you to try out the office to get reacquainted with working in person again and to test out some of our new technology. In June, we’ll have some scheduled open house days to see your colleagues and, of course, offer food and prizes. Our offices (other than Palo Alto) remain open and you can continue to work from the office as often as you prefer.
  • July and August will be a transition period. Beginning July 6, we welcome and encourage you to return to the office on a voluntary basis a day or two each week, or more if you prefer. Many of our practice groups and BSG [Business Service Group] teams will be scheduling regular days when people on those teams who are comfortable doing so will be in the office and can collaborate in person. You should not feel obligated to work from the office during this transition period, but we believe it is beneficial to give everyone the opportunity to transition back in a coordinated way before September. Lunch will continue to be “on the firm” through the summer.
  • After Labor Day and through the end of the year, our general expectation is that you are going to be regularly working in one of our offices most of the time – which means typically around 3 or more days per week, unless you obtain approval from your Practice Group Leader or Senior BSG Manager for some other schedule. This expectation might be modified based on client, practice group, or BSG team requirements or if you have job responsibilities or career development opportunities that require you to be in the office more often. As we get closer to September, we’ll provide further guidance on how this will work.

Note that employees are expected to be in the office “most of the time” (i.e., three or more days each week), meaning that some work-from-home flexibility is on the table. Lowenstein is “strongly encourag[ing]” employees to get vaccinated, but will not require vaccination for anyone to return to the office (although this policy may change). The firm will be limiting the number of people in its offices to no more than 50 percent of capacity, until the CDC revises its guidelines for indoor gatherings. All employees who come to the office must complete an online health questionnaire each day, and safety protocols like social distancing and mask wearing must be adhered to at all times.

Congratulations to Lowenstein Sandler on creating what looks like a well-planned and safe reopening plan for all employees. We suspect that this may be one that other firms may wish to model due to its flexibility.

What has your firm announced as far as a reopening plan is concerned? The more information is out there, the more likely it is that firms will be able to establish a market standard for a return to work.

As soon as you find out about reopening plans at your firm, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Office Reopening”) or text us at (646) 820-8477. We always keep our sources on stories anonymous. There’s no need to send a memo (if one exists) using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure to include it as proof; we like to post complete memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. Thanks.

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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