With the recent news of Sullivan & Cromwell’s five-day office attendance edict, law firms continually find themselves balancing their in-office needs against associates’ and partners’ hybrid schedules — and it’s no surprise that the flexibility that remote work offers makes in-person facetime seem rather unappealing. If associates don’t like it, they’ll of course just have to deal with it, but as it turns out, the partners don’t like it either.
BTI Consulting Group 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 “hell no” to the prospect of forced office attendance. They list the following reasons they’re against the prospect of full-time office attendance like what’s being enforced at SullCrom:
- No one else will be there
- I am more productive working remotely
- Remote options keep the edge off
- I go in when I need to
- I am an adult and can manage my schedule
- I collaborate more when remote — it is easier to reach out by text and Zoom — “and can you believe I get better response when my colleagues are remote”
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 “quietly resist any mandate” because “the benefits of flexibility outweigh the drawbacks.”
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’s why they support in-person office attendance mandates:
Better collaboration
Training less experienced attorneys
Improved productivity
Higher engagement levels
Builds firm culture
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.
As we learned from this survey, not even partners want to be forced to go to the office — so why mandate that associates do what the partners can’t bear to do themselves?
Hell No We Won’t Go: Partners Respond to RTO Mandates [Mad Clientist / BTI Consulting Group]
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 Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
