On a warm night this past July, Bay Street finally came back out to play. Over a glittering view of Toronto’s entertainment district from the rooftop terrace of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, 300 guests — including lawyers, students, clients, bankers and businesspeople —enjoyed mini Jamaican patties, jerk shrimp, rum punch and ginger beer, while a steel-pan band and dancers in traditional Caribbean dress entertained the crowd.
But with a push to return to in-person work and a recession looming, will any of the benefits law firms gained over the past three years stick? Or will everything go back to the way it was before? We spoke with some of the legal industry’s in-the-know recruiters and consultants to find out.There were several factors that made the pandemic period so lucrative for Canadian law firms, some of which won’t be easy to replicate.
For her part, Sereda has a more sanguine outlook. “When you look at the legal market in its totality, it rides the wave. There are different areas that are busy at different times,” she says, noting that bankruptcies can keep transactional groups in clients, while family law is “recession proof,” and those who do environmental compliance will continue to be in demand.
But that trend is already starting to reverse, says Sereda, who has seen a slowdown in bonuses in the past few months. Even worse, young associates with jacked-up salaries now risk looking unworthy of their premium price tags. “You’ve got a number of people out there who are worried that they may have priced themselves out of a job,” says Glatter. “They know if a slowdown comes, they’re vulnerable.
A return to the office also risks compromising some of the hard work many firms have done on equity, diversity and inclusion over the past two-plus years. Without the need to adhere to rigid in-office schedules or partake in the informal rituals that the legal profession has often relied on to identify partner material, women with kids and BIPOC lawyers had finally experienced a more level playing field. But if everyone must appear at their desks again, that equity could vanish, says Glatter.
Firms are also looking at a more moderate return to travel, retreats and conferences after realizing just how much they could save when lawyers had no flights, accommodation or client wine-and-dines to expense. Of course, while Zoom may be an adequate solution to keep in touch with existing clients, it doesn’t provide the networking opportunities critical to building new business—a serious problem in a slowing economy. The compromise for some firms is to invest in more selective events.