The cultural divide between working at the office and resting at home is relatively young. For most of human history, people worked from home, with many companies meeting clients in luxurious homes as late as the 19th century.
Amidst the nightmare of the pandemic, there is one small, special gift to law firms: a swift kick up the backside on remote and flexible work.
We see law firms standing on the precipice of an entirely new way of working. And firms that seize the opportunity to transform and ride the wave of change will sail far ahead of those who don’t.
The interview touches on a breadth of topics from globalisation to changing client demands and the personality types of the lawyers involved, as well as insights into the Bowd model and its goal of helping lawyers redefine the ever-blurring lines separating work and life.
Like every woman in our profession, in this last week or so the Heydon revelations have forced me to re-live my own experiences of the practice of law. Since the Heydon conduct has come to light I have been thinking hard about how I think we can put a stop to sexual harassment in our profession, particularly in law firms.
In the midst of the painful and distressing news about Dyson Heydon this week, I received a complaint from a fellow lawyer in which he threatened to seek to have me struck off.
While all businesses are keen to get things ‘back to normal’, some law firms will not be rushing their people back to the physical office.
Missing from much the current commentary about return to work is the option to make a pragmatic and level headed decision to delay widespread changes to office environments and instead, simply keep staff who can work from home, at home.
Last week our CEO Fionn talked about the opportunities being missed by large law firms in the current crisis with Michael Bromley from Beyond Billables in his ‘Leaders in Lockdown’ podcast series.
We urgently press all law firms to delay redundancies and implement alternative capacity management in these early days of crisis.
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