VENABLE — MEMO — RETURNING TO THE OFFICE
In today’s firm update presentation, Stu outlined a gradual return to the office that reflects improving public health conditions, higher vaccination rates, and easing government restrictions. The firm will not set a single reopening date but is planning a range of activities to allow all of us to ramp up over the summer and to populate our offices in greater numbers beginning in September.
The firm will continue to provide flexibility for remote work for most roles for the foreseeable future, balancing the needs of practice groups, departments, and job responsibilities. As we go through the summer, we will provide more specific guidance regarding policies, practices, and expectations for post-Labor Day. As we repopulate our offices, we will maintain COVID protocols and office health and safety measures and evolve them as appropriate to reflect changes in guidance from public health authorities and state and local governments. We strongly urge those of you who are able to be vaccinated to do so.
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Shifting to remote work involved creating a new set of habits and work routines and aligning our technology and firm systems to support us. Returning to the office will involve a similar set of changes and readjustment for all of us. We encourage you to go to the office over the summer to rebuild your routines and habits. We are organizing a few events at our offices to provide opportunities to reconnect with others. We will host happy hours, team meals and get togethers, or other voluntary events for those who are interested. We will visit several of our offices this summer and hope to see some of you when we do.
We hope that you will use the summer months to take vacation and safely reconnect with family and friends. As further encouragement to do something fun and to reward you for all you have done to help the firm succeed during the pandemic, as was announced, the firm will provide a modest but heartfelt thank you stipend to all professional staff, counsel promoted in 2020 and 2021, and associates.
Professional staff, paralegals, staff attorneys, policy advisors, trademark counsel, patent agents, and nurse consultants with annual salaries less than $120,000 will receive a $1,000 payment. Individuals in those roles earning $120,000 or more will receive $2,500. Associates and eligible counsel will receive $5,000. These payments will be made on June 18 to those in good standing on the day of the payment to express the Partnership’s appreciation to you.
We look forward to seeing you with greater frequency in the months ahead.
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Stu, Larry, Dan and Bruce
Staci 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.