Biglaw Firms Want Associates Back In The Office -- Will Mandates Work?
If you want to really piss off associates, mandates are the way to do it.
‘You can’t force me to go back to the office!’
You can’t treat an associate who bills 2,400 hours like they are on a factory floor. If you insist on factory rules, you’ll get factory results.
— Tom Sharbaugh, a professor of practice at Penn State Law, commenting in an interview with the American Lawyer, on the delicate way that Biglaw firms must handle their return-to-office edicts for associates. Many associates are motivated by having autonomy in their work lives, he said, and enacting office-return mandates is sure to sour associates’ relationships with their jobs.
Staci 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.
