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46 Law Prac. 26 (2020)
Working from Home Works: Law Firms Must Adapt

handle is hein.journals/lwpra46 and id is 428 raw text is: TECH FROM THE TRENCHES Working From Home Works: Law Firms Must Adapt BY DANIEL J. SIEGEL IF YOU'RE NOT HERE, I'm not here I muttered that phrase under my breath for what seems like thousands of times during my two decades of working at law firms as my bosses repeatedly believed that the only time I was working was when they too were in the office. As a morning person' I wake up around 4:30 a.m., a time most people consider crazy. I exercise and then go to work, arriving by 7:00 a.m. and working until 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. at the latest. My bosses, however, tended to arrive around 9:00 a.m., or even later, and stayed until early evening. As a result, I left the office before they did. They always made it clear by their words and/or body language, however, that I wasn't working enough That I always completed my assignments on time, that my brain was a french fry by 5:00 p.m., and that I worked more efficiently and produced my best work product early in the morning when phones didn't ring and bosses didn't stop by to chat was irrele- vant. Because my circadian rhythms did not match theirs, I was not working enough. Each time they commented or made a face, I would mutter to myself, If you're not here, I'm not here. Bosses might assume that just because they're not in the office, you're not either, but If you're not here, I'm not here is wrong. It highlights why law firms should change as a result of the quarantine orders that forced thousands of firms throughout the country to close their physical doors and have their entire staff work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, many firms did not sufficiently appreciate those attorneys who needed accommodations, such as the ability to work remotely or on reduced or flexible schedules, creating a second-class group of attorneys, who are primarily female. Since the pandemic, those workers became the models for the in-office staff forced to figure out how to work from a kitchen table or with children screaming Mommy all around them. Over the years, I met many lawyers who worked remotely and had to adjust their work schedules not because they arose with the roosters, but because of their need to juggle their work 26 Law Practice November/December 2020 1 wwwlawpractice.org lives with other commitments such as child care-the thing commonly known as their personal lives. Many conceded that they had to perform familial gymnastics to hide their problems from the powers-that-be who would determine their futures in their firms. What I also saw was that the overwhelming majority of the firms they worked for did not appreciate these lawyers, whose loyalty remained despite the obstacles they faced. Then came COVID-19, and everyone had some of the same problems. A 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. schedule is far more challenging when you need to deal with Zoom classes for toddlers and many other adjustments. Consequently, firms had to adapt and allow staff to modify their schedules and their working hours to accom- modate those problems. Suddenly homebound, all these people had to take on the role of quasi-teacher, babysitter, day care worker and more. They may also have had to care for aging relatives or family members infected with the coronavirus. No one could hide it. It meant that work schedules had to become more flexible. After all, if a kindergartner's Zoom classes were at 1:00 p.m., and one parent was scheduled to give a presentation to her CEO at that time, the other parent's work schedule had to wait until kindergarten class was over. Not only was everyone at almost every firm working from home, but so was everyone else, including their spouses, their kids' teachers and everyone else with school-age chil- dren. They were also parenting from home, and teaching from home, while learning fifth-grade math and tenth-grade social studies. Plus, their quarantined kids couldn't be with friends and were antsy. They did not care if they interrupted Daddy's Zoom videoconference with the judge to whine about how bored they were. They just banged on the door or simply came into the room. This daily juggling act was impossible to hide. Rather, it became what some call the new normal, the challenging balance that spawned social media jokes like the my co-worker PRODUCT WATCH

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