Firm Wars: Return to the Workplace

I’m going, going, back, back to the office, office.

I have not worked in an office since March of 2020. Yes, you read that correctly. For over a year, I have been working in my home office, taking breaks to walk my Great Dane, and attending Zoom hearings in my sweatpants. For many of us, this is the new normal. Honestly, I cannot imagine taking the time to get ready and commute in rush hour traffic, when I can walk 20 feet from my bed and bill those two hours that I would have spent driving to work.

As vaccinations numbers rise and COVID-19 cases fall, law firms throughout Tennessee have taken a hard look at the pros and cons of returning to the office. For some, this means giving their employees the option to work from home a few days out of the week or indefinitely.

While some attorneys cannot wait to put on a suit and get back in the office, others ask: Why pay for thousands of square feet of office space downtown when my employees have shown that they can get the job done working at home? More importantly, many ask: Why leave my pet home alone when I can use one hand to dictate and the other to feed them treats?

In preparing to write this article, I spoke to twelve Nashville attorneys working in various areas of law about their return-to-work schedules.

Out of only twelve attorneys, there were at least five different return-to-work schedules reported. Most of these attorneys have returned to work on a hybrid schedule–having the option to go to the office one to three days a week. These attorneys do not feel pressured to be in the office every day and can maintain the new normal they have adapted to working from home. They also reported that they had the option to go back to the office sooner than their co-workers if they had been vaccinated.

At least two of the attorneys work for firms whose offices completely closed during the pandemic, and now, their work will continue to be 100% remote for the foreseeable future.

In contrast, five of the attorneys I spoke to reported that their offices never closed. A few were given the option to work from home when the pandemic started, but they found that no one actually took advantage of that opportunity. Interestingly, half of these attorneys work in-house. Some attorneys reported that even if they had the option to work from home, they would not take it because of the distractions at home, such as Netflix’s pretty compelling specials during the pandemic or toddlers running into the background of Zoom hearings or drawing space ships on mommy’s summary

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APR/MAY GOLDEN OLDIES

Congratulations to Dewey Branstetter of Sherrad Roe Voigt Harbison for correctly identifying the individuals in last issue’s photo! From left to right: John Kitch, Marietta Shipley, Randy Kennedy, Bernadette Welch , and Rebekah Shulman.