Law firms and other legal employers who allow employees to utilize flexible schedules and telecommuting often enjoy more productivity and less turnover.

1. For Better Productivity, Encourage
Better Work-Life Balance
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Summary:
Law firms and other legal employers
who allow employees to utilize flexible
schedules and telecommuting often
enjoy more productivity and less
turnover.

3. www.lawcrossing.com/employers/post-legal-jobs-main.php
According to The Atlantic, the idea that a work-life balance is only desired by
working mothers is a myth. Many new law firms have begun implementing
flexible schedules that attract both men and women, and are evolving the
definition of a successful legal career.
Stewart Friedman, a Wharton practice professor of management and director of
the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, said, “Young men today have
different values, different aspirations than their fathers. They want to be available
both psychologically and physically for children.”
At places like Netflix and Microsoft, changes have already been put into place to
accommodate parents, such as more generous parental-leave policies.
Although many law firms do provide paternal leave, the culture of the firm
prevents many men from feeling comfortable with using this time off. Some are
discouraged from taking leave, and those who do take some time off say they feel
stigmatized for doing so.
See Issues of Work-Life Balance in a Law Firm Environment for more
information.

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In fact, many men are uncomfortable even discussing parental leave policies, as
opposed to women, who feel more comfortable discussing their options. Why
such a fear? According to Lauren Pearlman, the founder of Pearlman Career
Consulting, said, “So much of men’s career psyche is still informed by societal
expectations that men are the primary breadwinners. It seems to be the
assumption that the woman will bend the career to be present for the children,
but not the man.”
However, workplaces that are modeled on the idea that only the mother will put
children before a career “do not fit the realities of our lives,” Anne-Marie
Slaughter recently wrote in the New York Times. In reality, more women work
outside of the home, and most couples share the responsibilities of parenting
and household chores.
Due to this shift, many men are leaving their positions at Big Law and are working
for firms that offer more flexible schedules.
For example, Custom Counsel is a firm based in Maine that pairs attorneys up
with discrete projects in small to mid-sized law firms.

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The firm was created to serve female attorneys who wanted to stay at home with
their children and practice law, but many men have also joined the firm. Nicole
Bradick, the founder of Custom Counsel, explained that men want “a means to
enjoy a more reasonable pace of work in order to generally enjoy a more
balanced life.” Bradick added that men are more likely to use freelancing in
addition to another job, as opposed to using it to work part-time schedules.
In a recent report, Joan Williams and her colleagues explored these alternative
firms. According to Williams, for men, a work-life balance means creating a full-
time schedule that works for their families, as opposed to reducing their hours.
Many firms allow attorneys to work from home and bill their hours however they
like. Williams explained that men want their families to know they will be home
for dinner and will take advantage of their vacation time.
Entrepreneur adds that companies stand to benefit tremendously from such
schedules. They save on real estate costs, since many flexible employees work
from home. Many employees are willing to take a pay cut in exchange for being
able to work from home—another money-saving measure for the company.
Others said they would be willing to lose health benefits and even work more
hours if given the option to work remotely.

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Further, many employees said that they would feel more loyalty to employers
that allowed them to maintain a flexible schedule—meaning less money would
be spend on training new employees every few years.
However, this new idea of flexible hours is not just for young attorneys.
Many senior attorneys are also leaving Big Law for better schedules. For example,
Bill Stone and Jon Levitt, both veteran attorneys, created Outside GC in 2002
after identifying a market for part-time, on-demand general counsels. Stone
explained, “From the very start, we saw an opportunity to attract really great
lawyers by putting them more in control of what they did and how hard they
worked.”
Debbie Epstein Henry, the founder of Bliss Lawyers, said that one reason such a
shift has occurred is the recent recession. Many attorneys were laid off during the
economic downturn, and were open to new types of schedules. Advances in
technology also make such schedules possible. Though clients used to be wary of
attorneys who worked from home, they now welcome the idea, because,
according to Epstein Henry, they know they will be charged less because there is
not as much overhead.

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Many predict that the flexible model will continue to grow, and will become the
new face of law in the future. Friedman said, “It will take decades. But it’s going
to happen.”
And productivity should skyrocket.
According to the Huffington Post, telecommuters are actually more productive
than employees who are stuck in an office all day. These employees also report
that a teamwork approach is stronger with a flexible schedule, since other
employees are willing to help out when someone has a doctor’s appointment or
a sick child.
Employers are also able to hire talent from all over the country, instead of sticking
to employees from a single location. Similarly, having employees spread out in
different locations reduces the impact of certain events, such as hurricanes,
wildfires, and other such disasters, since not all employees will be impacted by
such events.
Employers that allow flexible schedules and telecommuting are also more likely
to grow faster than if they kept all employees in a single office.

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Being able to hire individuals from across the country will help boost your firm or
company’s growth tremendously.
The bottom line: if you want your law firm or company to grow and keep its best
talent, it’s time to consider more flexible schedules for all of your employees.
This article “For Better Productivity, Encourage Better Work-Life Balance” first
appeared on LawCrossing’s employer section. It is the world leader in “pure”
monitoring and reporting of legal jobs, through its active and growing research
into all legal employers throughout the world.