Top 20 Biglaw Firm To Offer Associates 2 Remote Days Each Week

But perhaps thanks to Morgan Stanley, partners are expected to have a strong in-office presence.

August is nearly upon is, and that means we’re getting closer and closer not just to the end of the summer, but the date when lawyers at many firms are expected to return to the office in person. Some firms are going forward with a hybrid model, meaning that employee time will be split between the office and their homes (or the remote location of their choice).

Weil Gotshal is one of those firms. As noted in a memo sent to all employees in May, the firm’s New York, Boston, D.C., Miami, Dallas, and Houston offices opened at 100 percent capacity in June (with the Silicon Valley office opening at 100 percent capacity on June 15th), the firm will be fully back to business on September 7.

Last week, in an email sent to all US partners by Mindy Spector, the firm’s GC, Weil’s remote policy was fleshed out in a little more detail.  Here’s a relevant excerpt from that memo:

The US Work From Home Policy permits all lawyers and staff to work remotely on Fridays, and for attorneys to work remotely one additional day per week. Of course, client needs may interfere from time to time. The designation of Friday as a remote work day was to provide some degree of certainty and planning.

Spector also notes that “every attorney – including partners – is expected to be working from their Weil pre-pandemic home office.” It looks like it’s time to head on back to the home you knew before COVID-19 took over the world and sent lawyers to remote work environments for more than a year.

Further down in the memo is a rather curious sentence in the wake of Morgan Stanley chief legal officer Eric Grossman’s veiled return-to-office ultimatum for outside counsel (“I strongly believe that firms that return to the office will have a significant performance advantage over those that do not.”), followed by a firm suggestion for partners.

Clients are indicating that law firms with significant in person presence will have an advantage over those that are permitting extensive remote working. The Management Committee expects Partners to have a significant in office presence.

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It looks like at least one firm has taken Morgan Stanley’s message to heart.

(Flip to the next page to see the memo from Weil Gotshal.)

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 the office.

As soon as you find out about the reopening plan 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.