Hi all,
We hope you’ve all enjoyed the summer and found some time to relax and recharge. As we look to the fall and prepare to welcome about 95 fall associates to the office, we wanted to address post-Labor Day attendance expectations.
Each of our practices continues to be called upon by our clients to advise on the most sophisticated and challenging transactions, disputes, investigations, pro bono and myriad other matters—a testament to what we have built and what our clients expect. As we’ve said previously, our continued success in large part rests on training, developing, collaborating, and connecting with each other. We believe working and being together in person is essential, and so beginning January 1, we will expect our attorneys to work in the office at least four days per week when they are not away for business travel, vacation, or personal obligations. After Labor Day, we encourage our attorneys not yet meeting this standard to begin to adjust your in-office schedule to establish a routine of working from the office at least three days per week.
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This in-office standard is consistent with our vision for how we can and should work together to serve our clients, was crafted in consultation with various internal constituencies including department and practice leadership and firm committees, and is similar to the policies of many of our clients and peer firms. Our goal is to balance the real and changing demands each person faces on both the work and personal fronts, so there will be no mandatory attendance days. Rather, we defer to each of you to determine what works best. This approach requires that we all use our own professional judgment to determine when to work remotely, taking into consideration firm, client, practice, and personal demands.
We need everyone’s support and commitment to reap the tremendous benefits of in-person collaboration and we need everyone’s support and commitment to reap the tremendous benefits of in-person collaboration and connections. Let’s rethink taking zooms alone from your desk — invite team members to take a call together from your office or a conference room and use that occasion as a training opportunity. Take someone to lunch or coffee; and seek to create the spontaneous interactions that were the norm prior to 2020.
This expectation applies to all of our NY attorneys, regardless of the type of seat to which they are assigned or their enrollment in our Flex program, and we need everyone’s help to make the most efficient use of our office space. More information on seating will follow, but rest assured, we want to and can accommodate each attorney at 1271 under this plan. With that said, we will look at attendance patterns in the fall to determine whether revisions are needed to our seating strategy in the new year.
We believe our in-office expectation balances the firm’s commitment to flexibility, respects our colleagues’ professional judgment about their work and personal schedules, and maximizes the benefits of the time spent working from the office. As the firm and this office continue our amazing trajectory, it’s more important than ever to get to know our colleagues, understand the breadth and depth of this firm, train and be trained, and provide exceptional service to our clients, and we trust you’ll embrace the expectation.