Slaughter and May is piloting a working from home initiative for associates and partners across its key practice areas.

The six-month pilot, which began in May, has seen some associates and partners trial working from home one day per fortnight.

The scheme is open to associates who qualified in September 2012 or earlier across four practice groups – one group from each of the corporate and financing practices, plus the dispute resolution group and pensions & employment group.

Across these groups, 89 associates are able to participate in the pilot. One Slaughters partner told Legal Week that "take up has been good".

"We are looking at how working from home would affect the working cycle over the next few months," added the partner.

"However the firm already has a degree of inbuilt flexibility, so we want to be careful with bringing anything in formally in case it might result in removing any informal arrangements we currently have which work for us."

Another Slaughters partner said that flexibility around different ways of working was something that was valued by the firm.

The working from home pilot is being overseen by diversity partner and litigator Ewan Brown.

The magic circle firm is understood to be seeking feedback from both associates and partners, including those not taking part in the pilot

Last year, Slaughters held partner-level discussions regarding flexible working options for partners and associates. It is unclear whether the new pilot scheme is a direct result of this consultation.

The consultation looked at formalising existing arrangements for associates across all practices through which they are able to request extended leave or reduced working weeks. At the time, the firm said it could also expand the arrangement to include partners.