The tendency for employees working remotely in any field has been in a significant increase. The Covid-19 epidemic in 2020 was the catalyst that began the trend towards remote work. In the year 2020, people were forced to bunker down and remain trapped in their homes for multiple weeks. Due to the need for productivity to continue, employers began offering the opportunity to login in remotely and continue working. Incidentally, this lead to the realization that the majority of jobs normally performed in an office, did not necessarily need to be performed in an office. The same applies to the practice of law. Trials were held over zoom, attorneys researched and represented clients from home.
Come the end of the pandemic and employees returning to the office, the question remained, “can’t employees just continue performing from home?” In reality, the classic law answer is, it depends. The pandemic proved that in the practice of law, a hybrid approach may be the most effective means of moving forward in the field. Some work remained remote work, such as document drafting and intake. While such things that require in-person interaction returned, such as trials. Obviously, none of this is absolute, as some judges may still prefer to meet over zoom for pre-trial matters, motions, and discovery. As stated prior, it depends. Each professional will have their preferences on how they conduct their business. The majority trend is younger employees do prefer working from home, while the older generation prefer in office work. I believe as we continue moving forward, there will definitely be a trend to perform more and more work from home. While not everything will be remote, there will be a shift towards reducing office time.
Axel,
ReplyDeleteI think that there is a good balance that one can strike in the legal profession between the need to come into the office and using remote work options. For the firm I worked for last summer, there was a lot of pretrial work that was now done via zoom or some other online platform, so going to court for every motion likely will never return. However, I still think that it is important for lawyers to go into the office, especially young attorneys, because it allows them to bounce ideas off of more senior attorneys and builds a sense of comradery.
Hello Axel, I agree with Slade about the benefits for young lawyers of going into the office. It is a common saying that it takes three years to know what you're doing after you begin practicing, and I imagine it'd be even longer if you were trying to learn everything via Zoom and Outlook. Overall, I definitely agree that we'll continue to see the work-from-home trend increase.
ReplyDeleteHi Axel,
ReplyDeleteI agree that remote work in this field will continue to change and rise. Quite frankly, I was a little surprised how much Zoom stuck around post-pandemic, specifically in courtrooms. I thought that, as soon as possible, judges would want to return to the normal way that everything was run. In the long run, though, I think Zoom has increased efficiency and productivity for lawyers and judges alike, while decreasing client waiting time in a courthouse. I'm interested to see how this evolves over the next few years.