{"id":100629,"date":"2025-01-16T11:02:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/16\/law-firm-partners-offer-an-emphatic-hell-no-to-office-attendance-mandates\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T11:02:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:02:38","slug":"law-firm-partners-offer-an-emphatic-hell-no-to-office-attendance-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/16\/law-firm-partners-offer-an-emphatic-hell-no-to-office-attendance-mandates\/","title":{"rendered":"Law Firm Partners Offer An Emphatic \u2018Hell No\u2019 To Office Attendance Mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No one wants to be forced to go to the office &#8212; especially not law firm partners.<br \/>\nThe post Law Firm Partners Offer An Emphatic \u2018Hell No\u2019 To Office Attendance Mandates appeared first on Above the Law.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-508615\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Hate-Mail-300x189.jpg?resize=300%2C189&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"man angry frustrated at computer\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" title=\"\">With the recent news of Sullivan &amp; Cromwell\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/01\/biglaw-firm-breaks-with-trend-requires-associates-to-be-in-office-5-days-a-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">five-day office attendance edict<\/a>, law firms continually find themselves balancing their in-office needs against associates\u2019 and partners\u2019 hybrid schedules \u2014 and it\u2019s no surprise that the flexibility that remote work offers makes in-person facetime seem rather unappealing. If associates don\u2019t like it, they\u2019ll of course just have to deal with it, but as it turns out, the partners don\u2019t like it either.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bticonsulting.com\/themadclientist\/hell-no-we-wont-go-partners-respond-to-rto-mandates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">BTI Consulting Group<\/a> recently surveyed more than 1,000 partners from law firms of all sizes, ranging from Biglaw to boutique, on their opinions of RTO mandates. As it turns out, a majority of partners (50.2%) offered a resounding \u201chell no\u201d to the prospect of forced office attendance. They list the following reasons they\u2019re against the prospect of full-time office attendance like what\u2019s being enforced at SullCrom:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>No one else will be there<\/li>\n<li>I am more productive working remotely<\/li>\n<li>Remote options keep the edge off<\/li>\n<li>I go in when I need to<\/li>\n<li>I am an adult and can manage my schedule<\/li>\n<li>I collaborate more when remote \u2014 it is easier to reach out by text and Zoom \u2014 \u201cand can you believe I get better response when my colleagues are remote\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Wow, that must be refreshing for the associates who are dealing with congestion pricing and toiling away in the office to hear. A comparatively smaller number of partners (24.3%) say they would \u201cquietly resist any mandate\u201d because \u201cthe benefits of flexibility outweigh the drawbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, you may be an adult who can manage their own schedule, but your work-life balance is apparently being controlled by an even smaller group of partners (6.1%) who believe that being in the office the only proper way to work at a law firm. Here\u2019s why they support in-person office attendance mandates:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Better collaboration<br \/>Training less experienced attorneys<br \/>Improved productivity<br \/>Higher engagement levels<br \/>Builds firm culture<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>All of these wants can be, and have been, achieved through hybrid work schedules that allow associates and partners alike to have a sense of independence when it comes to their work lives.<\/p>\n<p>As we learned from this survey, not even partners want to be forced to go to the office \u2014 so why mandate that associates do what the partners can\u2019t bear to do themselves?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bticonsulting.com\/themadclientist\/hell-no-we-wont-go-partners-respond-to-rto-mandates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Hell No We Won\u2019t Go: Partners Respond to RTO Mandates<\/a> [Mad Clientist \/ BTI Consulting Group]<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-441281\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Staci-Zaretsky.jpg?resize=150%2C100&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Staci Zaretsky\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" title=\"\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/author\/staci-zaretsky\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#285b5c494b4168494a475e4d5c404d44495f064b4745\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/stacizaretsky.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stacizaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.net\/@stacizaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/staci-zaretsky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one wants to be forced to go to the office &#8212; especially not law firm partners. The post Law Firm Partners Offer An Emphatic \u2018Hell No\u2019 To Office Attendance Mandates appeared first on Above the Law. With the recent news of Sullivan &amp; Cromwell\u2019s five-day office attendance edict, law firms continually find themselves balancing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":100630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Hate-Mail-I2Pas2.jpeg?fit=636%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}