Law firms are implementing measures to ensure social distancing in their offices. Photo: Shutterstock.com

As law firms across Australia start to repopulate their offices, they are ensuring social distancing by limiting the number of staff on site, splitting teams into two groups and taking chairs out of meeting rooms to limit attendance.

Beginning Monday, Anglo-Australian firm Norton Rose Fulbright plans to bring back a small "advance party" of staff eager to return to the firm's offices.

But in the future, as more people return to the office, the firm is considering splitting teams into alternate week groups, so that there is always a mix of people working in the office and at home to enable appropriate levels of social distancing within its offices.

"We will look to bring larger numbers back in June," managing partner-elect Alison Deitz said in a statement, adding that when this occurs, "we may have up to half of our people at most in an office at any one time.

But the elaborate steps being taken to ensure safety go beyond limiting the number of people in the office. Measures to accommodate social distancing also include allocating four square meters per person and removing agile desk arrangements and allocating set seats to all staff instead.

"We are protecting our clients and people by being vigilant about monitoring illness. We will prescreen those who are attending the office," Deitz said. "We are also ensuring appropriate hygiene measures are in place for all staff and implementing enhanced cleaning arrangements for our premises."

U.K.-based Holman Fenwick Willan reopened its offices in Perth at the start of May and now has about 60% of its staff coming to work there on any one day.

But the firm isn't taking any chances. For example, Australia managing partner Gavin Vallely said it has removed chairs from its meeting rooms and communal kitchens to keep meeting sizes to a minimum.

"At this stage, staff have the choice to continue to work from home or attend the office and most have elected to do a combination of both," Vallely said.

The firm also has offices in Sydney and Melbourne but they have not yet reopened. The firm said it will be guided by directives from the New South Wales and Victorian governments about fully reopening its offices there.

"Crowding and social distancing will certainly be a challenge that we will face in both Sydney and Melbourne, being such densely populated cities where there is heavy use of public transport," Vallely said. "We will offer a number of options to staff to ensure their safety, such as staggered start and finish times and continued work from home."

The firm will also partner with building management in Sydney and Melbourne to ensure staff are protected as they move through shared building space, he added.

Australian top-tier firm Clayton Utz is implementing a phased return to work at its Brisbane and Perth offices beginning May 25 but will only allow a maximum of 30% of staff in the office at any one time.

Canberra will be the next office to open, followed by Sydney and Melbourne, but the latter two offices are more difficult to reopen because of their layouts and because they are larger.

"At the moment, the message to people is to continue to work from home unless there is a critical business or personal need to work from the office," Clayton Utz said.

Along with the cap on the number of staff who can be in the office, the firm will introduce staggered start and finish times to avoid peak public transport, ensure reduced elevator capacities and limit meetings to a maximum of 10 people.

The firm expects a lot more lawyers to adopt flexible working arrangements in the future, after a survey of over 1,000 staff revealed many were keen to work from home more regularly.

The firms are the latest to reveal their plans for repopulating their offices as governments around Australia relax their social distancing measures.

The number of known COVID-19 cases across Australia rose by six Wednesday to 7,083, with 522 active cases. The death toll remains at 100.

Herbert Smith Freehills plans to roster attendance to limit the number of people in the office at any one time and will stagger arrival and departure times.

The firm has already started adding to the skeleton staff in its Perth office, with a "small increase" in people there in the past week.

It expects the Sydney and Melbourne offices to be next, but this will depend on how the situation develops. The firm said different people have different views about returning to the office.

"We intend to use what we've learned from this challenging time to rethink the way we work to better suit individual, business and client needs. We trust our people and teams to make the right decisions for themselves, their clients and the firm, and we will continue to support them working from home if they choose to do so once our offices reopen," the firm said.

Herbert Smith also said it anticipates that many of its people will elect to work remotely on a more regular basis, thereby reducing the number of people in its offices."

Denton, too, said the majority of its employees continue to work from home and the global firm said it does not have any specific dates for when the majority of employees will return to the office.

It will also consider splitting staff into two teams putting them on a roster to control the number of people in the office at one time.

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Law Firms in Australia Begin Opening Offices, but Remote Working May Win Out