Letter From The Editor – Working from Home

First, there was the office. 

Well-dressed lawyers worked shoulder to shoulder with fellow attorneys, paralegals and the support staff. Phones rang almost incessantly. Clients rotated through the waiting room. 

Then, the passing of time tempered those things. Casual Fridays toned down office dress. Increasing amounts of business were handled by email. Online resources that put everything from case histories to forms at lawyers’ fingertips whittled down the office staff. 

Few people thought the situation would change further — but it did. 

The COVID-19 pandemic shoved aside much of the office routine. Lawyers used to a mad scramble in a bustling office found themselves working from a desk or the dining room table at home. Partners and others who once hustled into an office with the latest update or urgent situation were replaced by a school-age child or a beloved pet coming in for help or attention. 

While the pandemic is largely past, many changes it fostered at law practices have not passed away. As Heath Hamacher reports in this edition, many lawyers have found that they can be just as productive working from home, that the stress level there is lower, and that the time spent commuting to work could be better invested elsewhere.  

Some issues might still require an office presence. Mentoring, for instance, might be more effective in person than over Zoom or Teams, and some clients will still insist on face-to-face meetings. 

But the eight-to-five workday in the high-paneled office amid a sea of other legal professionals — “old-school lawyering,” as one attorney put it — is shifting to a more modern legal practice. 

Editor Ross Chandler can be reached — at home — at [email protected].