Working days: Is four the magic number?

• The legal industry is grappling with how to offer lawyers flexibility and a good work-life balance while maintaining high standards and competitiveness.
• Firms have experimented with the four-day working week to achieve this, but a number of issues have arisen.
• Ultimately, alternative solutions and outside-the-box thinking has proven more effective in achieving a better work-life balance in the legal sector.

For a long time, the legal industry has been seeking a viable solution to achieving a good work-life balance, and new solutions are now being explored by law firm management to address the challenge of delivering client service while balancing employees’ expectations. This debate is no longer just a focus of Big Law—it is a conversation that small firms, sole practitioners and even law students are grappling with.

One idea touted by major law firms is a four-day work week. Indeed, a survey by Major, Lindsey & Africa of Gen-Z future lawyers found that 40% of them expect to have flexibility to choose their working hours at a law firm, and 60% expect to work a set number of hours per week (see ‘Gen-Z: Shaping Tomorrow’s Law Firm Culture’, May 2020). Condensing the week would allow employees extra down-time, but there are limitations as to how far a four-day work week could realistically be an option for the legal industry at large in the long term.

Client expectations

For an industry like law which is driven by client demand, shortening the working week presents challenges from a client servicing perspective. The legal industry is set up around providing clients with specialist advice, with revenue generation deriving from expertise that is built up over time, and which cannot easily be compartmentalised or commoditised.

If a firm were to offer a four-day work week, clients may raise concerns about quality or consistency of service and choose to go elsewhere. Clients, especially those paying the highest fees, may long have become accustomed to having their lawyers at their beck and call during evenings and weekends—a change in this habit may be hard for some to digest.

One size does not fit all

Additionally, a four-day week model might be at odds with the global working environment of law. What counts as the ‘standard’ working week differs around the world. For example, in the United Arab Emirates, while traditional working days used to run from Sunday to Thursday, many businesses run a five-and-a-half-day week. Meanwhile, other countries in the Middle East are still operating on the Sunday to Thursday model. As well as negotiating time differences, law firms that are truly global will want to have teams at the ready right across the week.

The size of firm will also affect how viable a four-day week is. Smaller firms typically operate with fewer resources to invest in technologies and other conveniences that might allow them to experiment with alternative working models, and so they could struggle to adapt. Similarly, legal students trying to juggle studies and work schemes may find a shorter week untenable.

The race to get ahead

Perhaps the biggest barrier to the implementation of the four-day week is the competitive nature of law. Without wishing to generalise, it is probably fair to say the legal industry tends to attract driven and even competitive personalities—in a working environment where client pressures can be high, the most resilient and ambitious tend to flourish.

As such, it is likely that should management teams choose to introduce a four-day week, this may be hard to implement in practice, as lawyers may feel they want, or perhaps even need, to extend their working hours—there will always be those willing to get ahead through extra work.

Reducing the working week can also be impractical when it comes to in-person collaboration. With leaner teams, implementation of data privacy and confidentiality policies, for instance, can be harder to monitor.

Pay has also been a big consideration in the war for legal talent and is a factor that might come into play when it comes to a four-day week. It remains to be seen whether lawyers would be prepared to accept reduced pay in return for reduced hours, especially if there is some scepticism about whether workloads will be reduced in reality and whether career progression will not be hampered by accepting such an arrangement.

Thinking outside the box

Anecdotally, a trend appears to be emerging where younger lawyers find they are able to finish early on Fridays but ready themselves for the week ahead by doing a stint on a Sunday, thereby tackling the so-called ‘Sunday scaries’—that feeling of dread felt by some as the weekend draws to a close—head on. This suggests that despite not being suited to a four-day working week, the legal sector may nevertheless benefit from a rework of the typical 9-5 working week model. Flexible and modular approaches, such as finishing early on a Friday and starting work on a Sunday, could perhaps be more readily adopted by the legal profession to ensure the right balance between work and play.

Implementing flexible ideas and policies is a complex managerial challenge, but one that needs addressing to safeguard the wellbeing of lawyers, avoid burnout and retain talent. While a four-day working week is unlikely to hit the mark, there is an opportunity to introduce a workplace culture based on greater flexibility.

We are already seeing some firms making inroads here, by offering reduced pay in exchange for a permanent work-from-home arrangement, or by offering remote working from a different location for a month. This kind of thinking is more likely to succeed in the long term, as it is centred on developing solutions that are in line with a firm’s specific culture and working practices.

The fact that any law firm is even contemplating introducing a four-day work week would have been unheard of only a few years ago. The pandemic has shaken up how we all view work, and the legal sector needs to find its own solution. So while for practical reasons, a four-day week may not be the answer, the indications are that more flexibility is possible, although a tailored and more creative approach may be required. 

Nathan Peart, managing director & practice lead at Major, Lindsey & Africa (www.mlaglobal.com).