Biglaw

World's Wealthiest Law Firm Announces Reopening Plan, Says 'Office-Centric Work Environment Is Necessary'

Associates don't seem to be too thrilled about this.

By  
on

Less then a business week has passed since we celebrated Independence Day, and it looks like the most financially successful law firm in the world was inspired to declare its independence from the remote working environment that was brought about by the COVID crisis. Kirkland & Ellis — the #1 firm in the country, having brought in $4,830,000,000 gross revenue during the pandemic in 2020 — announced yesterday that an “office-centric work environment is necessary” for the firm’s continued successes.

Citing difficulties with training, building collegial relationships, and coming up with creative legal strategies (not to mention lawyers’ “heightened personal stress, strain and isolation” while working remotely), Kirkland will be throwing open its office doors at the end of the summer. Here’s an excerpt from a memo that was sent yesterday by Jon Ballis, the firm’s chair:

For all these reasons, we believe an office-centric work environment is necessary to deliver the world-class legal services that our clients expect, and the world-class culture, training and camaraderie that we all deserve. Therefore, our base-line perspective will be to return to an in-office presence. That said, Kirkland was never a face-time kind of place, and we have always provided great flexibility for our attorneys to work remotely when they believed it was appropriate to do so. That will not change. And as we transition back to the office, we understand that many may require more flexibility at the start.

While our offices are already open in all locations, and it’s terrific to see more and more attorneys coming to the office every day, we will continue our office-optional mode until U.S. Labor Day. However, beginning on Tuesday, September 7, please plan on being in the office as your routine baseline, then use your judgment as to when it is appropriate to work remotely.

Insiders at the firm have referred to the memo as “disheartening,” saying they thought the remote work environment they’ve endured for more than a year would have been given a little more appreciation considering how successful the firm was while everyone was working from home. Here’s what one associate had to say:

When recruiting, Kirkland made it sound as if it’s this avant-garde workplace where associates are empowered to work from home as often as they’d like (assuming it doesn’t negatively affect their work). In reality though, it wasn’t that way, at least not before COVID.

To be fair, many partners never seemed to mind, but it only takes one partner (and there were/are many more than one) with a bad attitude to make your life miserable if you don’t show up to the office as much as they’d like. We all thought this issue would be fixed with COVID—didn’t we just show we could be the most profitable and highest grossing firm in the world or something like that? And, all while working from home? Now they want to come at us talking about “in-between moments” where “so much of our culture is forged?” What does that even mean? What about the incredible opportunity to cultivate and forge a family the entire firm just experimented with for over a year? It was an opportunity to show the world that a new work paradigm is available and productive, and we rose to the occasion. I’ll worry about my own “personal stress, strain and isolation” issues, since I don’t recall Kirkland being very good about taking care of that for me.

A truly avant-garde law firm would have the foresight and courage to shepherd a new paradigm even without the necessity COVID brought. So, what does it say about a firm that lacks the courage and fails even with the benefit of hindsight? That’s the opposite of avant-garde—that’s “old school” and not in a good way.

Hopefully Kirkland & Ellis will stay true to its word and allow those who wish to work remotely to do so, without interference from partners.

(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Kirkland & Ellis.)

Sponsored

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 work.

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.

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.

Sponsored

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , ,