Brave new hybrid world

The Law Society’s Annual General Meeting took place last week. It was an opportunity for members to ask office holders questions arising out of the annual report and accounts. If you were not present, you missed a question about the use of the flag-pole outside the Chancery Lane premises.

I have only one comment on the proceedings (which went very smoothly). Despite all pandemic restrictions being lifted for many months now, the meeting was in hybrid format: most were in the room, but some were on screen.

Every meeting I attend now is hybrid. We may as well get used to it. Our ways of participating and inter-connecting have changed forever.

For those who hark back to the golden pre-pandemic days, I am ready: they were not golden. It had become the norm at pre-pandemic legal conferences at which I spoke to look out at a sea of faces, most of whom were bent over their phones and not listening. Maybe it was because I was uniquely boring, but I noticed the same phenomenon with other speakers. At meetings, too, some would be typing or texting away while the chair went diligently through the agenda.

Of course, in those days we could actually see when people were not participating. Nowadays, when only a name appears on the screen, the video and microphone having been turned off, we don’t know whether the participant is even in the room, or has gone to sleep. (Make sure that you are there at the end of the meeting, though: a tell-tale sign of nominal participation is when everyone else says goodbye, and your name still appears on the screen for many minutes afterwards.)

There appears to be a mini-trend against participation in person. I moderated an online webinar last week with over 900 lawyer participants – over 900! – and yet that same organisation reports that its in-person training is less well attended than before the pandemic. Lawyers seemingly don’t want to leave their homes or offices for training when it is available on demand without moving.

I don’t have to rehearse the positives which flow from being physically present with others. It is usually better for our mental health, for our networking opportunities, for information gathering.

The American Bar Association has just published an interesting survey of nearly 2,000 lawyers (more precisely, those who work in positions requiring a law degree, but mostly lawyers), called ‘Where does the legal profession go from here?’.

One of the key questions asked was: What patterns of hybrid work are taking place and what workplace policies are preferred by lawyers?

87% of respondents were allowed to work remotely. 30% worked wholly from home, and 63% had the ability to choose their own schedule.

But the report revealed negatives. For instance, women lawyers and lawyers of colour were much more concerned than their counterparts about the possible negative consequences of remote working, such as missing business opportunities, being overlooked for meaningful assignments, receiving lower pay or reviews, and not being seen as committed.

Presumably these groups are in favour, therefore, of more in-person working. Yet their answers to another question, this time about stress at work, showed that circumstances are not straightforward: for some groups, in-person interaction brings greater stress. Over a third of women lawyers, lawyers of colour, lawyers with disabilities and lawyers who identify as LGBTQ+ experienced stress at work because of their characteristics (and for lawyers with disabilities that rose to almost a half). The percentages from non-members of those groups who felt stress at work was, on the other hand, negligible.

There were similar disparities, although the percentages were different, when members of those same groups were asked whether they were perceived as less competent at work than other lawyers at their level, whether they could be their authentic selves at work, and whether they had experienced demeaning or insulting comments at work around their characteristics.

Now there was no question asked as to whether such conduct was blunted or reduced by remote working. But, interestingly, both women lawyers and lawyers of colour rated the ability to work remotely much more highly than non-members of those groups.

In other words, the brave new hybrid world brings new and nuanced challenges. The report ends with recommended best practices to deal with some of them. 

Finally, on a lighter note, there was a finding in the report with which I can identify, as someone who works only from home. When asked what kinds of technology lawyers need to feel well-supported at work, the answers were much as expected (strong IT support, office-quality internet access), but there was one which caught my eye: home equipment that parallels office equipment, such as an office-quality printer. As someone fed up with my slow desktop printer-scanner, and pining for the days of a large office copier, I can only say: hear-hear.

Jonathan Goldsmith is Law Society Council member for EU & international, chair of the Law Society’s Policy & Regulatory Affairs Committee and a member of its board. All views expressed are personal and are not made in his capacity as a Law Society Council member, nor on behalf of the Law Society