Half of survey respondents have returned to the office full-time
The majority of UK and US-based in-house lawyers do not want to return to the office full-time – despite almost half of them already being back in five days a week.
The Law Society Gazette reported that a survey of 350 in-house lawyers based in the UK and US found that 66 percent would prefer that their employer adopt a work-from-home policy. Of these, respondents were split equally between those wanting hybrid working and those wanting to be remote full-time.
Despite these preferences, half of respondents said they are already back in the office full-time, with 57 percent of UK-based respondents and 44 percent of US-based lawyers reporting this, according to the Gazette. Only 17 per cent of in-house lawyers said they work under a hybrid model.
Mark Rhodes, managing director of software supplier ContractWorks, which commissioned the research, told the Gazette: “The results of our research may come as a wake up call to legal department bosses, many of who saw their teams remain in the office throughout the pandemic. Like most sectors, there is now a real appetite amongst in-house lawyers, both in the UK and the US, to be able to work from home for good.”
More than half of in-house lawyers (57 percent) agreed that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of new legal technology by at least three years, the Gazette reported. Lack of resources and departmental budgetary restraints were identified as among the main obstacles to the successful adoption of technology, with almost a third saying a lack of technological literacy was holding their business back.
The findings were based on responses from 100 lawyers in the UK land 250 in the US.
