A recent Major Lindsay & Africa Survey shows a startling gap between law firm management and law firm associates. Major Lindsay & Africa is a legal search firm that conducted its study at the beginning of 2023.

Here are some results that should cause management to take notice:

• 60% of the associates surveyed say their firms are doing little to nothing to keep them at their firms.

• 25% say they do not plan to stay at their firm for over a year.

• 92% say they have yet to be asked to participate in an interview to give feedback on their experience at the firm.

For years, many of us toiling away in law firms thought that life would be so much better as an in-house counsel. You didn’t have to bill time; you didn’t have billable hour quotas. You didn’t have to hustle business. Life would be so much simpler.

But a couple of recent surveys pretty clearly confirm that the grass is seldom greener. A study by Axiom, an alternative legal service provider, for example, has disturbing news for those thinking about jumping ship to in-house. 89% of the in-house lawyers surveyed say they are dissatisfied with their positions. That’s just about every in-house counsel surveyed. 61% say they are very stressed with their current jobs (so much for the simplistic, carefree life we outside lawyers envisioned).

I was recently a guest on a podcast called Discussions at the Round Table. The podcast is put on by the Round Table Group. The Group is a premier expert referral service. It locates, vetts, and engages expert witnesses in complex litigation matters. I was asked to talk about my work as a practicing lawyer with experts over the years.

For most of my career, I was a national mass tort defense lawyer. I had the chance to work with all sorts of experts in all types of cases and jurisdictions. Some of these experts were better, and some were worse. And the fact that the rules concerning what must be disclosed and how detailed expert reports must be sometimes made working with experts complicated.

They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Matthew 23:4

Like so many things, whether you love or hate remote work depends on how you look at it. Do you look at the remote work phenomenon and see multiple problems? Do you pine for the days when everyone had to come to the office? Or so you see opportunity?

One person and one law firm that looks for the opportunities remote work holds is J.Y. Miller and Husch Blackwell. Miller described the firm’s approach to remote work and laid out these advantages in a recent LegalSpeak podcast.

He also discussed what Husch is doing to take maximum advantage of the virtual office concept. Miller, the co-managing partner of Husch Blackwell’s virtual office, was interviewed by Alaina Lancaster.

Husch Blackwell is a national law firm with 21 brick and mortar offices. It also has a formalized virtual office, which actually has a name: The Link. Launched in 2020, The Link now includes more lawyers than those who work in the firm’s physical offices. The Link has 200 lawyers and 400 legal professionals working from homes in 28 states and Washington, D.C.