The Remote Work Conundrum Redux

The big remote debate. It’s mostly over, right? Most big firms think they have solved the conundrum by summoning lawyers back to the office three, four, or even five days a week. End of discussion.

But small-to-midsize firms still struggle with the issue of whether to allow or not to allow it at all. For them, it’s still a big issue and one that divides partners and associates. And it’s compounded by the fact that these firms are constantly struggling to get and retain talent.

Most older lawyers in these firms are adamant that younger lawyers need to have their butts in the seats to become the kind of lawyers they need to be. To get the training they have to have. They don’t understand and resent the perceived desire of younger lawyers to work from home. They take it as a personal insult that younger lawyers don’t want to come to the office six days a week like they had to. And, frankly, they don’t like younger workers’ attitudes in general. It’s a palpable anger I hear every time I talk to partners in these firms.

Why Do Haters Hate?

This anger is especially acute because many smaller firms simply don’t have, can’t find, and can’t keep enough associates to do all the work that needs to get done. The result is that the older lawyers have to work longer and harder at a stage in their careers when they didn’t think they would.

And this resentment leads to throwing around labels about their younger brethren. Labels like lazy, they have to be coddled, they can’t think for themselves, and they don’t want to work. That they look at practicing law as a job instead of a profession.

Please. Let’s take a deep breath here before we stereotype and engage in name-calling that leads to a toxic work environment. An environment where nobody is happy, compounding the retention problem. Those kinds of labels, by the way, even if not spoken out loud, are nevertheless palpable to younger lawyers. Don’t think they don’t know what you are thinking.

Take it from someone who fought the work from home battle as a mid-level partner before it was a thing. I knew what my partners were thinking. And I know what I felt when they questioned what I was doing. The only difference is that I had enough business that they couldn’t do much but grumble. But grumbling is still toxic.

How Did We Get Here?

First things first. Some of us went to the office every day when we were younger lawyers because we had to to get the work done. That’s where the books were. That is where the files were. If I had work that had to get done and it was a Saturday, I had to go to the office, not because I wanted to, but because that was the only way to get it done.

How things have changed. But the sad fact is that many older partners fail to see or understand what these changes mean. Not only in terms of opportunity but also in terms of attitude. Younger lawyers see all these tools that seamlessly enable work to be done from anywhere at any time. They see huge numbers of people in other fields working from home without incident. My brother-in-law, for example, spent his entire career in sales working from his house. And even back then, I had trouble figuring out why I couldn’t. And that was a number of years ago.

Younger lawyers wonder why they can’t use these tools to work at a location of their choosing. They suspect the only reason they have to be in the office is that the old guys had to do it, so young guys should too. That’s like saying you need to travel by horse and buggy instead of the new car you just bought. As if you should know how to drive a buggy and care for the horse.

And, of course, there are ample studies showing working from home can be just as productive, if not more so, than being in the office. Especially when you consider you have to spend an hour commuting to be in the office an arbitrary number of hours. Young lawyers see Covid as living proof of how this could work. Older lawyers see Covid as a workplace disaster.

Why do younger lawyers want to work at home? It’s because they can. And because it’s just better in so many ways.

Older lawyers also fail to recognize exactly what younger lawyers want. It’s not that they want to stay home and work in their pajamas all the time. It’s that they want the flexibility and ability to work when they need to, instead of following some arbitrary formula. They want the ability to be at their kid’s teacher conference at 3 p.m. and catch their work up later that evening from home if need be. Technology gives that flexibility, and we are wrong for trying to wholesale take it from them.

But What About Training?

Ah yes. What about the training? Certainly, there’s some truth to the idea that younger lawyers need to interact with experienced lawyers. That’s how they get better at practicing law. And that means they need to be in the office to get that kind of training from senior lawyers. That’s where the senior lawyers by choice are.

But smaller firms simply do not have the capacity or the know-how to train younger lawyers in a formalized sense. Instead, they rely on random interactions and assignments and a feedback loop that’s just as random.

But that type of “water cooler” training was never all it was cracked up to be. For one thing, it was pure happenstance. If you happened to work for a good mentor, you got lots of good training. If you worked for a bad one, you didn’t. And you didn’t advance, even though with the right training, you might have.

Not to mention the fact that many of those older partners often subconsciously liked to work with people who looked like them. People to whom they gave them better assignments and better feedback. All too often that meant white males. People of color and women were saddled with poor performance reviews because they did not have the same interactions and training.

So, when older lawyers today say we need to train as we did in the old days, younger lawyers may roll their eyes and wonder what was so good about that.

Here is what typically happens with today’s return to the office requirements. Partners say they want associates in the office every day so they can be adequately trained. But the associate gets to the office only to find the partners are not there, or if they are, they are hunkered down in their offices working. And firms demand billable hour quotas of younger lawyers that are insurmountable. Unless they fill their days and time in the office with billable matters. That interactive training older lawyers hang their hat on? Younger lawyers wonder when it’s going to happen.

Despite what they say, older lawyers don’t appear all that interested in going out of their way to train anyone. They aren’t willing to try to meet younger lawyers where they are.

The result is that the associates resent the fact that they are made to come to the office for training that doesn’t happen. It smacks of a lack of trust: we can’t trust that you are really working unless we see you in the office, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I know. I used to have a partner who every day around 6 p.m. would walk the office just to see who was there. But when you can do the same amount of work anytime from anywhere, that kind of attitude doesn’t breed respect, build teams, or encourage camaraderie. And older lawyers wonder why associates are leaving their firms.

What’s To Be Done?

Let’s talk about some realities. First, hands-on training and working closely with older partners is important to development. Older lawyers need to explain why that’s the case, and younger lawyers need to learn to expect it.

But the quid pro quo is that older lawyers and firms need to commit to that training. They have to take the time to provide robust feedback even if that time is not billable. When they demand people come to the office, they need to make it meaningful and ensure that people aren’t there just for the sake of being there. They need to understand that there is technology that can give younger lawyers, many of whom are raising families, the flexibility they want and need. That’s not coddling. That’s reality.

And they need to take the time to discuss the stress they are under from all sides. They need to talk about economics. That too takes time and a certain degree of transparency. But where attracting and retaining talent is such a challenge, an us versus them mentality isn’t going to create the kind of environment where people want to stay. Especially when there are ample opportunities elsewhere.

I was able to work from home because I had the leverage of a book of business. Today’s younger lawyers also have leverage. They can leave firms that desperately want them to stay for greener pastures whenever they want. That’s also reality.

It’s Just a Job, Right?

One final note. For all those lawyers who are left to wonder why younger lawyers view the practice of law as just a job and not a profession: ask yourself who made it that way? Who determined that your entire worth was based on how many hours you billed? Who said the highest value to the firm was how many days your time sheet showed double digit totals? Who made it all about hours and revenue? Who talked training but walked billable hours at all costs?

Want to know how we got here and why young lawyers feel the way they do? Look in the mirror.

Want to change things? Look in that same mirror.

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Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.