Founding Partner, Michelle Foster, Quoted by The American Lawyer on Return to Office Delays
/Two Weeks? Two Months? Will Some Return Delays Be Enough?
Several large law firms are now diverging on return-to-office dates in September, as the delta variant scuttles in-person plans. Some firms are delaying by only two weeks, while others are delaying by a month or a few months.
But amid dire warnings about the rise of infections and hospitalizations in the U.S., will a delay of just weeks be enough?
Legal analysts and firm leaders say while the shorter delays could be optimistic, attorneys still need some guidance on when they should be prepared to return to offices, especially if they moved away from their offices to ride out the pandemic. Plus, even just an extra couple of weeks can give firms enough time to bring their vaccination rates up near 100%—especially after they implemented new mandates.
Overall, the length of office return delays remains a somewhat subjective decision, given the uncertainty of COVID-19 and how firms have dealt with it so far.
“That’s a darn-good question because it does seem to me that it’s an evolving situation,” said Michelle Foster, managing partner of the legal recruiting firm The Foster Group in New York, because it’s based on the evolution of virus.
“[Firm leaders are] looking to try to return to some sort of new normal, and as they’re able to get the vaccination rates up, at some firms, close to 100%, at least that gives them some confidence that when people are in the office, they’re not infecting each other,” she said.
Both Cozen O’Connor and Seyfarth Shaw last week announced roughly two-week delays in firmwide office returns, to Sept. 20 and Sept. 27, respectively, and both firms noted a final push to get vaccinated was part of the rationale.
Seyfarth chair and managing partner Pete Miller said in a statement that “as the delta variant gains a foothold, these vaccines remain the best way to protect each other.” The firm also implemented testing requirements for unvaccinated individuals, and noted the return date was pushed back “to accommodate [the] new policy.”
Cozen O’Connor told its workforce that the delay of a new hybrid work plan was due to “the continuing level of uncertainty surrounding the delta variant, school reopenings, and to give those of you who have not yet received the vaccination time to do so.”
Cozen O’Connor chief executive officer Michael Heller said in an interview that the firm’s policy is ”a flexible, moving target—meaning as facts and circumstances change, the date may have to change.” But giving two additional weeks to monitor everything “just seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.
“In many respects, it’s a very personalized decision based on your culture, but I also think it’s fact-specific. If some firms are 90-plus percent vaccinated, their policies could be different than those who are 60% vaccinated. So it’s hard to look at each individual law firm with one lens,” he added.
Heller said he thinks most firms are doing what they can to protect their lawyers and their families. At the same time, he said, Cozen and others are trying to recognize that they want to be back in the office because it’s preferable for their culture. “Trying to find that right balance is not easy, and I think we’re all trying to do it in our own way, but making sure we’re doing it in a safe and healthy manner,” he said.
Other firms with return delays include Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, which went from Sept. 7 to Oct. 4, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati, which pushed its return from Sept. 20 to Oct. 25.
Similarly, McDermott Will & Emery moved a mid-September return to Oct. 12, and Schiff Hardin pushed its reopening from Sept. 7 to Nov. 4. Both firms also announced vaccine mandates. Schiff, in an internal memo, also told its people the three-month delay was “to monitor the current surge of cases and allow time for implementation of our revised protocol.”
But the shape of the pandemic in those three months and beyond is anybody’s guess. “Who knows what infections will look like over the next three to six months,” noted Kristen Stark, a California-based law firm consultant at Fairfax Associates.
Stark said firm leaders now have to weigh competing forces: delta and other potential variants on one hand, and internal pressures to return to the office or increase flexibility on the other. She said they believe more time will help them be better informed.
“At this point, most law firm leaders are just trying to buy themselves some time on this issue, to see what is coming, to see what is going to happen,” she said.
Return-to-office dates have always been somewhat aspirational during the last 17 months, but giving lawyers and staff an actual return target also ensures they’ll be ready when the time actually does come.
“It’s to give people a marker, to say, ‘This is the point where you need to at least be prepared, or be able to return to the office, so if you need to make child care arrangements or come back from somewhere else where you’ve been working remotely, this is the point in time you should expect to be in the office,’” said Lisa Smith, another principal and consultant at Fairfax Associates, based in Washington, D.C.
“They certainly have the right to move it back again if health and circumstances warrant it.”