Big Law and the four day week? No, they’re moving the other way
Eyes on the Law is a weekly column by Maria Ward-Brennan focused on the legal sector.
Two hundred UK companies made the headlines this week after switching permanently to a four-day working week, with employees not losing any pay. But notably, no City law firms were featured on the list.
This comes after results from a pilot that took place in the UK in February 2023. Almost every company that took part in the experiment decided to continue with the four-day working week policy.
Among those companies was four UK law firms, including IMD Solicitors, based in Manchester; JMK Solicitors, based in Northern Ireland; Collective Law Solicitors in Birmingham; and Southgate Solicitors in North London.
Having Friday, Saturday and Sunday off is an enticing prospect for British workers. According to data by Startups and YouGov, almost eight in ten employees (78 per cent) would be in favour of a four-day working week.
Would this be something we might see start popping up at City law firms?
Office first, always
Christopher Clark, director at Definitum Search, noted: “There are large numbers of lawyers working a four-days week, often working mothers who want to have a day with their young children.”
He does add that the challenge for this “comes at partner level, where they will still be responsive to clients needs and can end up working a number of hours on their ‘non-working” day, despite being paid 80 per cent pro-rata compensation.”
However, Nick Woolf, partner at Woolf&Co highlighted that “beyond those individual cases”, he can’t imagine mid-tier law firms using it as a recruitment or retention tool.
Clark agreed, stating that he doesn’t think many firms will go for it, especially a firm wide policy.
While other (smaller) sectors consider the four-day workweek, Big Law is shifting in the opposite direction, with City firms requiring employees in the office for four days… and then some.
Return to pre-Covid
As Maximilian Campbell, senior consultant at MRA Search, commented: “Four days in the office feels like the inevitable destination for the legal sector’s working practices, as there’s a desire to get back to pre-Covid working practices.”
Campbell, who is New York based, explained that across the Atlantic “this move has already occurred, with more firms moving to four days in the office, which has become the prevailing long-term trend, and it has flowed through to US firms’ London market.”
“When I was a junior lawyer, five days in was the norm,” he stated.
He pointed out that the move by law firms is driven by client behaviour.
Just two weeks ago, banking giant JP Morgan Chase put an end to its flexible working policy after ordering all 316,000 of its workers to return to the office on a full-time basis.
As Woolf noted “there is no doubt that City law firms have, without necessarily mandating it, started pushing harder for lawyers to be in four days a week more often than not.”
“With top US firms expecting lawyers to be in every day, this is an opportunity for other firms to think about whether they want to differentiate their offering by being more flexible, without trying to compete financially,” he added.
Woolf went on to explain that he has “seen many situations with both in-house roles and senior business services positions, whereby candidates have withdrawn from processes because the flexible working offering was unattractive to them.”
He added that as different firms take different stances, it is “highly likely” office policies “will play a part in recruitment decisions.”