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The KattenFlex program planted a stake in the legal landscape, bucking the trend of “mandatory office creep,” by adopting a policy that elevated flexibility allowing practice groups and individual professionals the freedom to figure out a hybrid path that works for them. As the firm declared at the time “it ‘doesn’t feel right’ to mandate that everyone must come into the office a set number of days.”
So… Katten just informed attorneys that they need to come in twice a week.
Today, we announce an update to KattenFlex: beginning May 1, the firm expects attorneys to work from a Katten office a minimum of two days per week. Additionally, the firm continues to expect that regardless of where you are working, all professionals are generally available during regular business hours and as needed to meet client demands after hours.
It’s understandable to see this as a retreat from the firm’s earlier laissez-faire policy because it is, in fact, a retreat. Every time a firm blasts out a new revision to bring people back to the office, it will rankle attorneys who thought they were going to be treated as true professionals. But in an industry marching toward four-day attendance policies and paranoid surveillance, let’s focus on what Katten is still getting right.
Katten stresses that the expectation is not a mandate or requirement, but an effort to set some consistency. The program amendment is a mere two days, offering attorneys more freedom from commuting than peer firms. And the mandate does not set specific days to come in, continuing to give groups and their attorneys the flexibility to choose. Ultimately that’s more important than the number of days required. Attorneys want to be able to say, “I can come in, but, for me, I need to be home on Wednesdays because that’s the day I have to handle school car pool” or whatever it is.
The announcement even stresses “we are keeping the ‘flex’ in KattenFlex, a key component of Katten’s supportive workplace environment.”
That said, the announcement might be too loosey-goosey.
However, select legal departments or practice groups may choose to require or designate specific days for in-office attendance or for a specific number of days per week. Your legal department or practice group will provide additional guidance.
This is the sort of exception that risks swallowing the rule. Katten’s memo suggests that leadership intends to work with practice groups to prevent groups from invalidating the spirit of the rule, but it still extends an awful lot of latitude to partners itching to bring everyone back in.
Fully remote work was never going to take hold across Biglaw. The stakes are too high, the importance of providing practical training to young associates too engrained, and the partner egos too brittle. But firms that protect attorney flexibility will earn themselves a consistent advantage in recruitment and retention.
Katten’s new policy walked back some of core features while claiming to preserve others. How much of a retreat this turns out to be is now up to the implementation.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
