Having the resources to work from anywhere should be acknowledged in the field of legal professionals as well as lawyers.
An article in Above the Law came out this week arguing that partners shouldn’t insist their associates be in the office at 9am each morning because the model is outdated. While I whole-heartedly agree, I think the focus of the article is too narrow (although appropriate for the blog).
“While I agree with the premise that 9 to 5 doesn't work for associates, the arguments therein are equally applicable to the legal recruiting professional.”
As legal professionals, we often keep our ears to the ground regarding news and trends that effect our lawyers and sometimes it can be difficult to shine the focus back on our own professional lives. While I agree with the premise that 9 to 5 doesn’t work for associates, the arguments therein are equally applicable to the legal recruiting professional. So I wanted to take a minute, do a little self-care, and focus on how this applies to our own niche in the legal industry.
Work for Pay
Hours worked in exchange for money is a transactional relationship that means you are selling time. Showing up at the office for 8 hours 5 days a week is the physical expression of trading time for dollars. That makes sense in jobs that require a person to actually be present – manufacturing, call centers, retail stores, etc – but its benefits diminish for jobs that are based on relationships. In particular, the legal recruiting professional works with lawyers who, although they bill their hours, they are not paid hourly and certainly do not confine their work periods to a tidy 8-hour-a-day box.
Now that we have the communication tools to work from anywhere, it is increasingly expected that our professional skills and resources be available outside of the 8 hour window. So it makes sense that the transactional relationship of trading our hours for money be transitioned into trading our skills for money instead. What is the purpose of sitting in an office waiting for an answer that’s not going to come until after you’re “off”?
Now that we have the communication tools to work from anywhere, it is increasingly expected that our professional skills and resources be available outside of the 8 hour window.
Let’s also be clear that the 9 to 5 work day was established at a time when only men worked. Men had wives that stayed home and did all the child raising, cooking, cleaning, and picked up the dry cleaning. Women are still primarily responsible for those tasks today, but now they’re having to fit that into a time structure that was never built for incorporating household responsibilities. So enforcing everyone to abide by the 8 hour day/9am start ends up being unduly burdensome for women most of all – but also perhaps even skews towards reinforcing the gender role gap by making men feel less free to participate in those duties because of the time restrictions.
Use Skills Not Time
I would argue that giving legal professionals more freedom to structure their time would benefit the firm and everyone they work with, as well as associates and partners. Additionally it would reflect a more straightforward approach for work:pay. Legal recruiting professionals have administrative skill combined with a special set of knowledge, experience, and relationship skills and that is what we are trading for our salaries.
Often times, because of the nature of our work and those we work for, to be good at our job demands we work off-site and off the clock. Not only that, but we want to do it! The best recruiters I know care about their clients – the lawyers – and strive to provide the best possible customer service experience for them. Why not let the industry accurately reflect what is happening anyway?
There is a lot more that could be said about this topic, and I hope we continue to have conversations about the possibilities. Law firms are notoriously slow to change, so although I don’t see this happening soon, I do believe it is important to get it started. Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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