Office Returns Losing Their Luster Post-Omicron: The Morning Minute

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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS - Perhaps realizing they can also have snacks and wear jeans at home, fewer law firm personnel than ever want to return to the office for more than a day or two per week, according to new data from Major, Lindsey & Africa. As Law.com's Patrick Smith reports, the legal recruiting firm conducted a follow-up flash survey to its "Lawyers' Perspectives on Returning to the Office" survey released in 2021 and found that the desire to be in the office has declined fairly significantly in less than a year. Just 27% of respondents want to be in the office three or four days a week, the survey found last month. That's down from 46% just 10 months earlier. Still, 75% of respondents said they would like to be in the office at least one day per week—they just don't see the office as a primary work destination. Stephanie Biderman, a partner in the associate practice at MLA and a co-author of the survey, said making the office experience worth the commute should be paramount in any hybrid work plan. "You have to just give both associates and partners some level of independence on what is best for them and their team," she said. "Firms have to make time in the office more valuable. Training, mentorship, positive cultural events and team-building events. That is where the focus is going to have to be." We want to hear from you on this topic. Click here to take Law.com's readers' poll on post-omicron office returns.

DOUBLE DUTY -  GCs are increasingly taking on HR chief titles as their roles expand beyond the legal department. But while these dual roles often make sense in theory, they can make for a dicey balancing act in practice. "When you finally get to that dual role, it is really hard to do both because they're both such big roles," Mira Wolff, a veteran GC and HR chief, told Law.com's Phillip Bantz. "It's a move that's not without its risks and those need to be weighed very carefully," legal department consultant Jason Winmill added. "If there happens to be a major legal crisis, and also a crisis within their new realm of responsibilities, that can be dangerous." Regardless, there are no signs that legal department leaders' workloads will be lessening any time soon. "The pandemic highlighted a GC's versatile skills and broad operational muscle to manage quickly evolving COVID requirements and impact," Jessica Nguyen, GC for Seattle-based contract and data management tech startup Lexion, told Bantz. "Now that the cat is out of the bag about a broader scope that a GC can handle well, I expect the GC workload to remain the same or grow."