In-House Counsel

The Future Of Work After COVID-19: What This Means For The Legal Profession

Do you want to stay in a remote work situation, or do you see yourself shifting back into an office?

By  
on

Many of my conversations these days revolve around what job seekers are planning for their careers post-COVID. I often ask: what does the future of work look like for you? Do you want to stay in a remote work situation, or do you see yourself shifting back into an office? What is making you want to shift your career in a new direction? What has changed for you at work since COVID-19 began?

All of these are valid questions, and there are no wrong answers. The consensus appears to be a split between the desire for permanent remote work or a hybrid work situation (a few days in the office and a few days WFH). Many are interested in the possibility of relocating to a new city or state. Many have realized that their companies aren’t focused on culture or well-being, and restructurings within the organization have shown this first-hand.

The legal market has gone through deep transformation this past year. There are more active lawyers on LinkedIn (an uptick in digital skills), more hiring (increased job networking), and more open discussions surrounding mental health (higher well-being). This last year-plus of the pandemic has taught us the power of resilience, adaptability, crisis management, social networking, and extreme gratitude. Yet, it has also reaffirmed and reminded us about the stress of feeling cramped in makeshift work-from-home desk spaces, an inability to distinguish work start/stop times, and an overabundance of Zoom calls that could have been emails.

There’s been a large shift in the way many lawyers view work and what they want out of their careers for the long-term. Much of this is due to the paradox our profession believed in pre-COVID: face time in the office equated to greater productivity and work interest.

The forced WFH situation put the brakes on everything. It showed us that flex work schedules and remote work is possible and highly profitable. It made many realize and appreciate the lost time with family. The 6 p.m. office checks became a thing of the past — we can all log onto Zoom, business on top, jammies on the bottom, and still crank out more work than we anticipated. Weeknight dinners and bath-time with children are now routine instead of a once-a-week possibility. As a result, many lawyers are willing to forgo the fame of Biglaw, prestige of a Fortune 25, or the higher paycheck in exchange for a better work culture that embraces flexible work options and elevated well-being.

With COVID-19 numbers spiking across the country due to the delta variant, many lawyers (and professionals for that matter) are reconfiguring what the future of work looks like for the long-term. Public transportation, long commutes, and longer work hours are less than ideal right now. Add in the stress of kids going back to in-person schooling (or potential continued homeschooling/virtual learning), and the future of work produces higher than normal levels of anxiety for many. There’s also the uproar of mandatory vaccines and vaccine passports in certain cities across the country. Much has changed for us without even realizing it. Flashing back to March 2020, we didn’t know how this was going to pan out. There have been new hypothetical scenarios thrown into the mix without us even realizing it.

As we head deeper into a new cycle of the unknown in the pandemic, one thing is for sure: our learned skills as lawyers make us well-equipped for navigating sudden and unanticipated changes in the workplace. Think about the hard and soft skills that we’ve utilized over this time — crisis management, conflict resolution, business planning, and workforce management. These are skills we’ve had to master prior to COVID-19, and now we are just putting them to the true test: handling uncertainty with grace and applying those Type B personality traits.

Sponsored

What does the future of work look like to you in the post-COVID world? I’d love to know if you’ve had an epiphany during this time or shifted gears in your legal career. Feel free to reach out to me via e-mail, LinkedIn, or one of my other social media channels.

Wendi Weiner is an attorney, career expert, and founder of The Writing Guru, an award-winning executive resume writing services company. Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, executives, and C-suite/Board leaders for their job search and digital footprint. She also writes for major publications about alternative careers for lawyers, personal branding, LinkedIn storytelling, career strategy, and the job search process. You can reach her by email at wendi@writingguru.net, connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @thewritingguru.  

Sponsored

Topics

, , ,