Linklaters tells lawyers they can spend half their time at home permanently
Magic circle law firm Linklaters today said its lawyers could spend up to half their time out of the office on a permanent basis.
The London-headquartered firm, which has more than 2,000 lawyers worldwide, said the new policy was based on its experience during the coronavirus pandemic.
The majority of Linklaters lawyers are still working from home and the firm would not comment on its future plans to bring back staff in large numbers.
Linklaters City office on Silk Street is open for staff that would like to use it with social distancing in place.
“We are being very clear with our teams that if individual circumstances or preference are currently to still work remotely, then we continue to fully support that approach,” the firm said in a statement.
Linklaters said it is “encouraging open and continuous dialogues across the firm” on issues such as flexible start and finish times, modified daily ‘core’ hours and modified hours to allow for commitments outside of work.
Andrea Arosio, managing partner of Linklaters in Italy and member of Linklaters’ global people committee, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic and our enforced remote working experiment has given us an opportunity to take stock and revisit how we approach agile and remote working.
Our recent experience has demonstrated that, whilst we are a people-focussed business and collaboration is key, remote working has worked remarkably well and we can deliver high quality work whilst working remotely. Conversely, it has also reinforced the huge benefits we and our clients obtain from face to face interaction and the value of our offices as hubs of teamwork and learning and this policy does not detract from that.
“Being agile is essential to our business, meeting the needs of our people and our clients. We are committed to fostering our agile culture which encourages our people develop working arrangements which suit their needs along with those of the firm and our clients.”
The firm said the ultimate application of the new rules would be down to individuals and their teams.