Can Offering Work Flexibility Help a Firm’s Bottom Line?

Any outcry made over billable hour demands put on law firm associates has lately been drowned out by the chorus of laid-off lawyers and just-graduated law students wondering what realistic career options they have.

In a post last week, magazine editor and law blogger Jordan Furlong noted this turn of the tide and wondered if the work-life balance debate will ever be revived. When the market was on their side, lawyers were positioned to make demands with regards to work-life balance, and they tallied some victories. But now that they’re in no position to do so? That war might be over. “Law firms aren’t going to unilaterally change their business models for the sake of work-life balance,” Furlong wrote.

But in the American Lawyer this week, consultant Deborah Epstein Henry makes a fiscal argument for firms to cut lawyers’ hours and pay rather than laying them off: the cost savings would be realized immediately, and morale and productivity would be better. In the same article, blogger and author Julie Tower-Pierce says that in this new world order, firms will become more interested in flexibility as a cost-savings strategy.

That got us thinking: Can a law firm help its bottom line by allowing more flexibility with regards to office face-time and billable hours requirements? Or is the reality that advancement and financial rewards come with long hours, and you can either accept that or find a different path?

Answer in the comments below.

Read the 130-plus answers to last week’s question: Roll Call: What Time Did You Get to Work Today?

Featured Answers:

Posted by Brian: “I’m an early-morning person and a solo. I usually get to the office that is only 6 minutes from home t about 3:30 a.m. and try to get out by about 2 p.m. My clients understand that I can get 2x the work done from 3:30 a.m. to about 8:30 than after as there are no phone calls, I do not keep e-mail open, etc. The key for me was an office close to home for minimal travel time. I saved more than 2 hours of travel per day when I moved. That is 10 hours per week, more than 2 hours of additional billing time per day. The other is taking control of my life and having a plan rather than being controlled by others. I accept only engagements I want, have no issues with firing clients, but I make sure I am on top of the knowledge and information game for the clients.

Posted by Greg Mattacola: “I’m in by 8 a.m. most days unless I have to take the kids to school, etc. There is a church next door to my office that has mass at 8 a.m., and the bells ring for it. I know that my day is on schedule when I’m at the office when the bells toll. The bells toll again at 6 p.m., and that is usually a good sign for me to get home!”

Bonus points for using the ABA Journal Weekly as a time indicator:

Posted by MEM: “What time did I get here this morning? I never went home last night…. I wouldn’t know what day of the week it was except for the fact that I got the ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter this morning at 4:40 a.m.”