For the past year, a significant portion of the legal field has been working from home. The vast majority of people we’ve heard from have adapted fairly well to the home office. Sure, there are distractions and a lack of comradery that typically comes with in-person interactions, but there are some positives including decreased costs and eliminating time spent commuting to the office.
Now that vaccines are more readily available, most businesses and law firms expect to welcome employees back to the office within the next few months. What remains to be seen is whether employers will allow their workers to continue to work from home in either full- or part-time capacities and if employees will be required to be vaccinated. I suspect most firms and companies are waiting to see what others do before determining if they can/should require people to be vaccinated, knowing the potential for litigation on such a surprisingly controversial subject.
We are also starting to see some law firms with no physical presence in the Twin Cities offering attorneys the ability to work remotely now that they know it’s possible. Thus far, it’s been mostly in practice areas that are challenging to find candidates such as corporate and commercial real estate, but it will be interested to see if this lasts or even potentially expands to be more commonplace. Either way, the lasting effects of COVID has the potential of really changing the way people practice law.