Founding Partner, Michelle Foster, Quoted by Law.com on The Impact of Delta on Office Returns
/Law.com Trendspotter: As Delta Dashes Dreams of a Post-Pandemic Fall, Law Firm Leaders Rethink Office Returns
The Trend:
The spread of the Delta variant has forced a number of law firms in recent weeks to delay or alter their office return plans, including mandating vaccinations for those resuming in-person work.
The Driver:
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed guidance on mask mandates in May, it became clear that some Big Law leaders (not to mention clients) were eager to press the accelerator on office returns. But just a few short months later, some firms are pumping the brakes once again as we skid into an uncertain fall.
Several are also taking the step of making vaccinations or, in the alternative, proof of a negative COVID test a prerequisite for setting foot in the door.
The Buzz:
>> As Law.com’s Jessie Yount reported late Tuesday, Sheppard Mullin became the latest in a growing number of law firms to tighten its vaccination and masking policies for in-office U.S. personnel and roll back a more comprehensive reopening, as the threat of the Delta variant reverberates throughout the United States.
“A new wave of infections is sweeping the country. After a couple of quiet months, infections among our people—especially the unvaccinated—are on the rise,” Sheppard Mullin chairman Guy Halgren said in a firmwide memo on Aug. 10, adding that ”[t]he consequences for our people have at times been serious. The CDC and state and local governments have all been adjusting their rules and guidance and we need to do the same.”
The firm, which previously announced beginning Aug. 16 it would only permit vaccinated individuals or those who in the preceding seven days tested negative for COVID-19, eliminated its testing exception.
“The Delta variant is simply too strong and rampant to rely on weekly testing,” Halgren said, noting the policy is consistent with ones adopted by dozens of Am Law 100 firms, the U.S. military and many of the firm’s own clients.
The firm said it will require employees to upload proof of vaccination to its internal database. As of Tuesday, over 1,360 employees had uploaded their proof of vaccination record.
About 93% of Sheppard Mullin’s workforce is fully vaccinated or on the pathway to being fully vaccinated, according to a firm representative.
News of the mandate was accompanied by a postponement of the firm’s “more vibrant” return-to-office plans from Sept. 7 to an undetermined date. The firm noted the delay comes with the expectation that scientists should know more about the arc of the Delta variant in the next few weeks.
A day earlier, as Law.com’s Dylan Jackson reported, Boies Schiller Flexner, Ballard Spahr and New York City-based Davis & Gilbert announced they would also be requiring vaccines to return to the office. Meanwhile, as Law.com’s Yount, Justin Henry and Andrew Maloney reported last Friday, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, Cozen O’Connor, Seyfarth Shaw and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati all updated their office return policies, pushing back the original dates they had set for beginning hybrid working arrangements.
>> The internal and external messaging from these firms has reflected both a desire to keep pushing toward the goal of an office return as soon as possible and a recognition that rushing back is not only potentially unsafe, but also unnecessary.
“The big takeaway here is that we have proven we can serve our clients, stay safe and be successful as a firm while working from home and in various hybrid permutations,” Halgren said in Sheppard Mullin’s memo. “We know we need to get back in the office on a more regular basis if we are going to grow our careers and be the best we can be. At the same time there is nothing to be gained by rushing things or expecting more office attendance than is prudent.”
“The health and well-being of everyone at Davis & Gilbert is of paramount importance. Given the increased risk of infection from the Delta variant, we have determined that it would be unwise to set a specific return to office date at this time,” Davis & Gilbert chairman Ron Urbach said in a statement. “When health conditions in New York City and surrounding areas become clearer, we will provide more details regarding our return to office plans.”
But, as Law.com’s Maloney reported last week, getting people back to the office for at least part of the week remains an important target for many firms and the proliferation of vaccine mandates demonstrates that there is an increasing unwillingness on the part of firm leaders to compromise on reaching that goal sooner rather than later.
“Firms are becoming more firm about what they want people to do, particularly requiring vaccinations,” Jeffrey Lowe, a recruiter who is practice leader of the law firm practice group at Major, Lindsey & Africa, told Maloney. “There was a period where people were much more comfortable and willing to be flexible, but what I’m seeing at firms, and just generally, is people’s patience is wearing a little thin about this because they don’t want to continue in this way indefinitely.”
Michelle Foster, the managing partner of the legal recruiting firm The Foster Group in New York, agreed.
“At least from everything I’m seeing, there’s a big push toward getting as close to 100% as possible having the vaccine,” she told Maloney.
Dickinson Wright informed its workforce in late July that they must be vaccinated in order to come into any of the firm’s 19 offices. That policy went into effect Aug. 2 and applies to all firm events.
“It seemed half-measures were becoming increasingly difficult,” firm CEO Michael Hammer said in a memo. “We decided this is the safest course for everyone. Even though in our regions, the [infection] numbers are relatively low—but given that the numbers likely will, or may increase, we just didn’t want to have a hodgepodge.”
Lowenstein Sandler chair and managing partner Gary Wingens has said his firm has had success getting people to come into the office over the summer, before a larger firmwide return in September. Part of the reason Lowenstein is now mandating that personnel get vaccinated is that leaders there didn’t want to lose momentum toward reaching that target.
“The last thing we want to do is backslide,” Wingens told Maloney. “As people were starting to get more nervous about Delta the past few weeks, we got the sense people would stop coming in if they didn’t understand who was around and didn’t know the vaccination status of people in the office.”
Meanwhile, several major corporations, from Disney to Walmart and Google, have now implemented vaccine mandates for their own workers in some fashion. Those moves in the corporate world, coupled with the recent flurry of law firm vaccine mandate announcements, will likely embolden other firms to take similar steps.
“I think it becomes easier when high-performing firms are doing it,” legal consultant Kent Zimmermann told Law.com’s Jackson. “It becomes easier when clients of strategic importance are doing it.”