Jamie Lawless (courtesy photo)
During the height of the pandemic, the legal profession was forced to quickly adopt remote work policies. This went smashingly well, of course, leading to record financial success for the industry. Now that the coronavirus crisis is behind us, the Biglaw firms have brought their workforces back to the office, but some are still flourishing in the online world.
What’s driving the decision to work remotely when so many other firms have returned to their offices? Who better to ask than the business leader of a prominent law firm?
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Jamie Lawless, CEO of Husch Blackwell, an Am Law 100 firm, to get her thoughts on the business case for remote work. Here is a write-up of our lively conversation.
Staci Zaretsky (SZ): Husch Blackwell’s virtual office, The Link, has more than 700 members — including you. What’s it been like to serve as one of the firm’s leaders while working remotely?
Jamie Lawless (JL): The decision to select our virtual (and largest) office, The Link, as my home office with Husch Blackwell was extremely intentional. Since I’m not associated with a particular brick-and-mortar office as the chief executive, I’m viewed much more as a true citizen of the firm. Simply stated, I’m where I need to be when I need to be there. Looking back on my first year at the firm, I spent the majority of my time visiting our various brick-and-mortar locations. In fact, I’ve been to every one of our brick-and-mortar offices, and to many of them several times now. Through these travels, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with thousands of my HB colleagues, build trusting relationships, and make business more personal. So, I consider myself a leader who is literally working from everywhere, and The Link has given me the opportunity to lead in a way that is unlike most law firm leaders. It allows me to be visible to our colleagues, to our clients, and in our communities across the platform, regardless of geography.
SZ: Not only is The Link an incredible remote work opportunity, but it’s also been a financial boon for the firm. That more than establishes the business case for a virtual office, wouldn’t you say?
JL: Absolutely. The Link is centered on flexibility but rooted in the needs of our clients. People often assume that we launched The Link because of COVID-19. But it was a business decision that the firm had made several years before the pandemic hit. It was part of the firm’s Future of Work initiative, which was designed to enable us to serve clients when and where they need us and to give our employees flexibility. I guess you could say we are pioneers of the hybrid workforce. We are leaning into flexibility and remote work at a time when not all firms are doing it, and we have benefited from it. The Link has allowed us to recruit, attract, and retain top legal talent across our national platform. By widening our talent pool to be limitless in many regards, we have achieved a lot of success in attracting the talent that can serve our clients the best.
Part of what has made The Link so successful is that it is run like a brick-and-mortar office. It has a managing partner, a deputy managing partner, an office administrator, committee heads, and more. It is being treated and managed like a physical office and, as a result, receives very high engagement scores. As J.Y. Miller, managing partner of The Link, describes it: The Link is truly the future of work, and it is less a work-from-home setup and more a work-from-anywhere model. On top of all of the other benefits, The Link optimizes our real estate spend, our second highest cost of running a business, and allows us to be more thoughtful about how we are spending money on real estate and how we use space.
SZ: The Link has also served as a proving ground of sorts for several of the firm’s new brick-and-mortar office launches. Please tell me a little more about that.
JL: Nashville, which we recently announced will open a brick-and-mortar office later this year, is a great case study for how we have used The Link as a proving ground for office openings. It provides an opportunity to establish ourselves in the region and attract high-class talent while we gain a better understanding of the market – like what clients in that market expect, what they need, and their collaboration styles. Using The Link as a test case allows us to confirm that opening a physical office makes business sense. It also allows us to immediately serve clients in those geographies rather than waiting for an office to be built out. In addition to Nashville, we did the same with our office location in Minneapolis.
SZ: As a businessperson in a chief executive role at a law firm, what are some of the business challenges that you see law firms facing? Has there been anything that surprised you in your first year?
JL: Legal, like most industries, is confronting the adoption of artificial intelligence. As a firm, we made a decision to double down on our investments in AI. We are one of the few firms that are trailblazing in this capacity, and I am grateful that we have clients who are willing to collaborate with us on AI solutions and alternative fee arrangements as we find ways to make our collective work higher quality, highly productive, and more cost-effective while achieving the same superior results. Another challenge that not a lot of leaders are talking about is how to lead, inspire, motivate, and get results from a working population that spans four generations. Every business, including legal, is wrestling with it, as every generation has a slightly nuanced acceptance, approach, or desire when it comes to how they want to be led, and businesses need to navigate those differences. Finally, navigating economic and political variabilities continues to be a focus for business executives.
As for surprises in year one, I have found the collaborative relationships and partnerships with our clients to be more significant than I ever imagined. Our colleagues’ engagement across the platform and the culture of dedication to client service and collaboration is something I’ve seen few places elsewhere.
SZ: With your one-year anniversary at the firm this month, what would you say has been one of your greatest successes?
JL: After spending most of my first year on the road meeting people where they are, I consider the intentional connections I have made and continue to make with our lawyers and business professionals across our platform to be one of my greatest successes. I believe that the professional and personal connections I’ve made in the past year will enhance my ability to lead our firm in the coming years as we continue to actively scale our business operations to ensure that we maintain our commitment to running the firm like a business in a way that is best for our clients. We have seen the impact of that in our ability to attract top talent – with 84 lateral attorneys to date this year, a record-breaking number. If my first year is any indication of the future, the momentum will continue, as we do things differently and are truly uncommon leaders in the legal industry.
On behalf of everyone here at Above the Law, we’d like to thank Jamie Lawless for taking the time to help answer these questions on the continuing business case for remote work in Biglaw.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.