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The Trend:

For law firms, fostering professional development, encouraging collaboration and maintaining a culture in a world in which attorneys are working remotely some or all of the time is certainly challenging. But it's also, as many have pointed out, entirely doable.

It will, of course, require firms to devise new approaches, leave behind old traditions and get creative—prospects that are clearly beginning to unnerve some firm leaders and high-profile clients who would prefer to just get back to business as pre-pandemic usual. After all, from the perspective of this notoriously risk-averse industry, the success of remote work over the past 16 months does not guarantee continued success moving forward. Anything that can't be comfortably categorized as "the way we've always done things" is viewed as a potentially perilous endeavor.

Still, even with some big-name clients tugging firms back toward their office-centric pasts, a powerful talent market continues to demand a more flexible future. For law firms, that dynamic could create a whole new set of risks that are tricky to assess. And choosing the wrong side could have major consequences.