Melbourne, Australia is in the state of Victoria / Photo: shutterstock.com

Local and international law firms have pushed back their plans to reopen their Melbourne offices as the southern Australian city battles a resurgence of COVID-19 virus.

Firms including Norton Rose Fulbright, Clayton Utz and MinterEllison had planned to start slowly allowing staff in their Melbourne offices to return to the workplace this month but are now taking a more cautious approach.

"We were originally looking at around July 6 to begin the first stage of our return to office plan," said Paul James, partner in charge of Melborne office with Clayton Utz, a leading local firm. "We've obviously had to put those plans on hold in light of recent developments."

The state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, has suffered a sharp spike in coronavirus cases from the end of June after security guards were believed to have contracted the virus from quarantined returned travelers and spread it through the community. Some 270 new cases were detected in Victoria on Monday, with 1,523 coming in the past 7 days. Before that, the state's new infections had dropped to below 10 on many days in April and June before rising sharply.

Clayton Utz's Melbourne office has remained open for essential business, but Melbourne partners and employees are being asked to continue working remotely.

"We were looking forward to starting to welcome people back into the office. Clearly it's a very frustrating and anxious time again for many people, and we're looking to support our Melbourne team in the best way we can," James said.

 

Norton Rose Fulbright last month moved to new Melbourne premises, which have so far remained largely unoccupied.

"We had planned to see more of our people return to the office in Melbourne this month to experience our new building at Olderfleet, 477 Collins Street. This would have aligned with our other Australian offices, where people have been gradually returning throughout July and up to 50% have been in the office on any given day," said firm Australia managing partner Alison Deitz, who's based in Sydney.

"The worsening COVID-19 situation in the city of Melbourne in particular required us to delay those plans for the time being," she said.

Before the spike local firm MinterEllison had started on the first steps of reopening its Melbourne office, moving to what it calls Phase 2, where fewer than 20% of its staff can be in the office at the same time.

It has now moved back to Phase 1, where only business critical staff are on the premises.

The surge in new COVID-19 cases in Melbourne has taken Australia's total number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 10,250 with 108 deaths. The nation's peak in daily new cases came at the end of March, with only a handful of daily new cases reported through most of May and June until the Melbourne resurgence.

Even before the new outbreaks in Melbourne, the Victorian government had been more cautious about relaxing social distancing laws, asking people to continue working from home if they could, while other states opened up more quickly.

Like other businesses, law firms have restaffed their offices more quickly in other major cities.

Local firm Gilbert + Tobin's Perth office is "effectively fully open," while in Sydney staff can choose either to work at home or in the office. "Our people are making that choice day-by-day based on what suits their work best. On any given day we are probably at 40-50% of normal capacity," the firm said.

Staff at the Sydney, Brisbane and Perth offices of DLA Piper are transitioning back to work for a few days a week and will continue to work from home for the rest of the week for the foreseeable future. Melbourne staff will continue to work from home.

At Baker McKenzie, staff in Sydney and Brisbane have been working from the offices on a voluntary basis.

A spokesman for Corrs Chambers Westgarth said the firm's remote working arrangements "have proven to be very effective and we have been taking a conservative approach to the use of our offices".

"While all our offices remain open, our people in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are continuing to work remotely, with only a small team of people in each office performing essential on-site services. At this point we have no plans to alter this position," the firm said.

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