The legal profession is usually extremely slow when it comes to the adoption of new technologies — or new anything, for that matter — but the coronavirus crisis has forced everyone to accept the way of the future much more quickly than expected. Remote work has been going smashingly well, prompting some firms to give up real estate and encourage office sharing between partners and associates. Other firms are rolling out new remote work policies for all employees that would allow them to work from home up to 50 percent of the time.
Remember when working remotely was frowned upon in Biglaw? Not any more. Linklaters has announced a global “agile working policy” that will allow all of its employees to work remotely 20 to 50 percent of the time, as long as their team members know their plans in advance.
“The COVID-19 pandemic and our enforced remote working experiment has given us an opportunity to take stock and revisit how we approach agile and remote working,” Andrea Arosio, managing partner of Linklaters in Italy and member of Linklaters’ Global People Committee, said in a statement. “Our recent experience has demonstrated that, whilst we are a people-focused business and collaboration is key, remote working has worked remarkably well and we can deliver high-quality work whilst working remotely.”
Perhaps you’re tired of your COVID quarantine. Under the new Linklaters policy, no one will be forced to work from home if they don’t want to. The firm is also open to exploring other options, like flexible start and end times and otherwise modified hours. “Being agile is essential to our business, meeting the needs of our people and our clients,” Arosio said. “We are committed to fostering our agile culture which encourages our people to develop working arrangements which suit their needs along with those of the firm and our clients.”
Is something like this going on at your firm? Please get in touch with us via email or text — tips@abovethelaw.com or (646) 820-8477) — and let us know. This could be a brand new Biglaw trend in the making.
Linklaters Rolls Out Permanent 50% Remote Work Option [Law360]
Staci 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.