Valley law firms are positioned for growth as the pandemic fades and their profession struggles to define the new normal. For attorneys, that struggle includes the balance of remote work and the demands of a client-driven business.
A report on the legal sector found that law firms showed “surprising agility” during the pandemic in transitioning to remote work, and now face the next transition.
“The legal industry emerging from the pandemic is not the same one that entered it,” said James Jones, lead author of “2022 Report on the State of the Legal Market” from the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law and Thomson Reuters Institute. “Much of that change is now happening inside the firms themselves as lawyers reevaluate their careers and life priorities.”
Several of the attorneys profiled on the following pages mention remote work as a response to the pandemic, and one – Richard Rosenberg of Ballard Rosenberg Golper & Savitt in Encino – has plans for three days per week in the office. “There seems to be some emerging consensus that most firms will probably require about three days a week in the office for most lawyers,” the Thomson-Georgetown report states. “Firms will have to determine how to manage key areas including equitable assignment of work, mentoring, evaluations, career advancement, and maintaining firm culture in hybrid work environments.”
The Business Journal’s annual list of Law Firms follows the profiles and starts on page 13.