Sullivan & Cromwell are going back to a five-day office work week, bucking the post-pandemic trend among Biglaw firms opting for three or four days of forced commuting. During the lockdown, law firms saw profits soar and many took it as a sign that the most efficient way to run a firm would be heavy on associate flexibility and lighter on office overhead. But as the last pandemic fades into memory and we await the next one, many firms have ordered lawyers back to their desks so they can pass along the rent of their oversized luxury offices to clients.
Someone has to pay for that view.
There are, to be sure, advantages to office attendance. It builds esprit de corps and provides needed soft learning opportunities for rookie lawyers. But these policies are also, in no small part, the product of old lawyers demanding a permanent audience of young attorneys to stroke their egos and laugh at their jokes. When considering the marginal benefit of adding another day in the office, firms need to really look in the mirror and decide which of these motives are driving the decision.
In the meantime, S&C is going to five days and the American Lawyer wrote it up with a perfectly placed typo:
what are “normal business hours” at S&C:https://t.co/05yu9FVfWR pic.twitter.com/2PKd6uZ28D
— Sujeet Indap (@sindap) January 9, 2025
The article has corrected the line to “5:30 p.m.” — an even less believable number than the 5:30 a.m. option. Who are these people leaving S&C at 5:30 p.m.? Whoever it is won’t likely be in “good standing” come bonus time. Yes, the staff works closer to a normal business hours schedule and there could be an advantage to lawyers being in the office at the same time, except firms have round-the-clock word processing teams and keep assistants staying late all the time. There are few if any administrative support tasks that a lawyer can’t get at any hour of the day. Branding 5:30 p.m. “normal business hours” is an all-timer “pee on my leg and say it’s raining” moment.
Which is what makes this slip so telling. Biglaw doesn’t actually expect lawyers to be working until 5:30 a.m. every day — though they absolutely expect at least some lawyers to be working at that time — but they don’t expect anyone to leaving before 8 or 9 either. There’s a truthiness to a Biglaw firm saying the business day ends at 5:30 a.m.
And this all underscores the ridiculousness of a five-day office week. It’s about mimicking a “normal business” routine that has no basis in the reality of Biglaw lawyering. What do “normal business hours” mean to people working at 9 p.m. on a Saturday? There’s an insulting artificiality to thinking that Biglaw adheres to a factory timetable. There might be an advantage to having attorneys in the office more, but it’s not grounded in the idea that there’s something sacrosanct about 2 p.m. on a Friday.
Sullivan & Cromwell Signals 5-Day RTO Expectation as Law Firms Remain Split on Optimal Attendance [American Lawyer]
Earlier: Biglaw Firm Breaks With Trend, Requires Associates To Be In Office 5 Days A Week
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.