Biglaw

Top 20 Biglaw Firm To Launch Partial Reopening In November, Full Reopening In January 2022

Attorneys will be able to work remotely two days each week, starting in 2022.

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Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, law firms of all sizes have been forced to create, recreate, postpone, and delay their reopening plans to get attorneys and staff members back into their offices. Many firms had hoped to reopen en masse in September. Thanks to the Delta variant, those plans got pushed to October. When things looked like they wouldn’t improve any time soon, October plans were canceled, with many firms waiting before announcing any further plans to avoid additional rescheduling issues, while others decided to forgo a 2021 reopening altogether.

Some firms, however, have opted to bring employees back to the office in November. One of those firms is Weil Gotshal & Manges.

On Friday, all personnel received a memo from partner Mindy J. Spector, the firm’s general counsel, where she notified them that a return to the office, at least in part, will be happening next month. Here’s a relevant excerpt from that memo:

As everyone has likely followed in the news, we have seen, in recent weeks, the stabilization of case counts following the surge of the Delta variant that had occurred this summer. This development, coupled with the Firm’s vaccination requirement for all Weil employees, gives us optimism in moving forward with the next phase of our plan to return to the office in the US.

Accordingly, we are planning to transition to a partial return to the office on Monday, November 1st. As of that time, all members of the Weil family will be expected to work in the office for a minimum of two days each week.

Spending two days in the office doesn’t seem too terrible, but keep in mind that two days is the minimum. All Weil employees must be fully vaccinated by November 1 (barring approved medical or religious exemptions).

The firm plans to reopen in full on January 10, and at that time, all attorneys and staff will be permitted to work remotely on Fridays, and attorneys will be able to take one additional remote day each week (i.e., that’s two remote days per attorney and one remote day per staff member). Weil will work on a pilot of this remote work program for 12 months, beginning in January 2022.

What has your firm announced as far as a reopening plan is concerned? The more information is out there, the more likely it is that firms will be able to establish a market standard for a return to work.

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(Flip the page to read the memos from Weil.)

As soon as you find out about the reopening plan at your firm, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Office Reopening”) or text us at (646) 820-8477. We always keep our sources on stories anonymous. There’s no need to send a memo (if one exists) using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure to include it as proof; we like to post complete memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. Thanks.

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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