Yeah, Lawyers, BTO Is Awful, Even for Partners

WFH during the pandemic conjured up a collective Ah-Ha among the professional class: It was the office which had been creating so much unnecessary stress and extracting so much time from a personal life.

PARTNERS MAY NOT WANT TO BE THERE EITHER

For partners not wanting to be BTO it’s often the matter of the long commute. The location of the firm may be Midtown Manhattan. Since they have a family, they opted for living in Greenwich, Connecticut, not the Upper East Side. So there will be all this: The drive to the Metro North station, then the train ride into Grand Central, next walking or taking a taxi to the office. Late in the evening, it’s a do-over. Not all have enough PPP to finance a private driver from home to the desk in the trophy building.

ASSOCIATES AND THE CULTURE OF SCARCITY

For associates it could be more the reality that the ethos of the law office is essentially a culture of scarcity. There isn’t enough to go around. Not enough employment security. Not enough promotability. Not enough interesting work. Therefore, being there is being in a setting of extreme competitiveness. Also, it means being under the constant eye of superiors. Working from home eliminates a lot of that kind of pressure. Just do the work.

THE NEW JOKE GOING AROUND

No surprise a recent Law.com survey found associates are not enthusiastic about being BTO. Those who aren’t are actually in the process of talking with recruiters about what’s out there with more flexibility. Incidentally, the joke about that is this: If a law firm wants to lop off headcount without a reduction-in-force all it has to do is require being in the office three or more days a week.

MORE TYPICAL BEEFS

In addition to these upscale professional types of complaints about The Office, there are the more commonplace ones.

At the top of the list is The Watching Game. We watch everyone else watching us and we watch them. All watch the boss. At any time of the workday we all know exactly where the boss is in the building – or is out of the building.

Factor in co-workers who assume we are truly interested in their lives and opinions. Deterring the overcommunication is tricky. We have to work with them. If we hurt their feelings in attempts to lessen the jaw-jawing, they can destroy us in the grapevine. Actually they could be doing that anyway and we are unaware of the destruction of our professional brand.

As with law partners, there is also the commute. No matter how we do that it’s a thief of time. Currently it is also expensive.

AHEAD OF MY TIME, I OPTED OUT

In 1987, I risked it all to leave the office of a Fortune 50 corporation and hang out a shingle. That was in my tiny apartment based in the Manhattan Metro area. But to me it was Paradise Found. During a slow period in my business I went into high angst and accepted a full-time job. Yes, that required showing up in the office and putting in extra hours of face time daily. After six weeks I bolted back to working from home.

YES, TIME IS MONEY

Working from home can be more lucrative than BTO. That’s because time really is money. Remote gives us control over our time. That means smarter spending decisions. Also, we don’t have to waste funds on the kinds of cheer-up stuff we need to get through a week at the office.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova a

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