Law firms need to force people back to the office.
Let's be honest - you can't build culture at home. And you definitely can't train people effectively at home.
That's what they say and yet...
This week marks my 4 year anniversary working from home. In that time, I've done some pretty ridiculous things:
- Built the leading training company in Canada for junior corporate lawyers - and have seen my co-founder a total of 0 times in person.
- Taught more than 100 classes to lawyers across the country with incredible feedback - all fully remote.
- Launched a BD podcast, ran multiple BD cohorts, and ran a very successful legal conference; you guessed it, all fully remote, and all while seeing my co-founder a total of 0 times in person
Fine you say - those are startups. Law firms are different.
The classic 'lawyer uniqueness' excuse.
I also run a law firm. We are fully remote. Nobody is forced to come to an office.
I would gladly put our culture up against the culture of any law firm of our size or bigger any day of the week. Same with our training.
Here's the thing: doing these things well remotely is actually really hard.
Most companies tried to replicate what they did in person, didn't have much success, and gave up.
We did not.
I had 0 idea how to run a remote business. So I read books on how to run remote businesses - turns out there are a ton of best practices.
We implemented those best practices and - surprise surprise - they work.
Is every day easy? Absolutely not.
Have we made some incredibly terrible decisions? Absolutely.
Did it force us to get way better as managers and leaders? Definitely.
But the end result is an environment where people are empowered to work the way they want to work.
Want to work from Argentina for a month? Fine.
Want to move to the middle of nowhere? Sure, as long as your Internet works.
It's let us hire people from all over the world, and it's allowed us to attract all sorts of people who have been looking for more autonomy and flexibility.
And perhaps most importantly - it's allowed me to be an involved parent with our toddler.
Work life balance is hard enough as a lawyer or an entrepreneur - and if you're raising young kids at the same time, it's even harder.
I'm proud to say that at Renno & Co, we'll never force anyone to work from an office.
And I'm incredibly proud of the culture we've built and are continuing to build - all in a remote environment.
#lawyers #lawfirms #legalprofession
Let's be honest - you can't build culture at home. And you definitely can't train people effectively at home.
That's what they say and yet...
This week marks my 4 year anniversary working from home. In that time, I've done some pretty ridiculous things:
- Built the leading training company in Canada for junior corporate lawyers - and have seen my co-founder a total of 0 times in person.
- Taught more than 100 classes to lawyers across the country with incredible feedback - all fully remote.
- Launched a BD podcast, ran multiple BD cohorts, and ran a very successful legal conference; you guessed it, all fully remote, and all while seeing my co-founder a total of 0 times in person
Fine you say - those are startups. Law firms are different.
The classic 'lawyer uniqueness' excuse.
I also run a law firm. We are fully remote. Nobody is forced to come to an office.
I would gladly put our culture up against the culture of any law firm of our size or bigger any day of the week. Same with our training.
Here's the thing: doing these things well remotely is actually really hard.
Most companies tried to replicate what they did in person, didn't have much success, and gave up.
We did not.
I had 0 idea how to run a remote business. So I read books on how to run remote businesses - turns out there are a ton of best practices.
We implemented those best practices and - surprise surprise - they work.
Is every day easy? Absolutely not.
Have we made some incredibly terrible decisions? Absolutely.
Did it force us to get way better as managers and leaders? Definitely.
But the end result is an environment where people are empowered to work the way they want to work.
Want to work from Argentina for a month? Fine.
Want to move to the middle of nowhere? Sure, as long as your Internet works.
It's let us hire people from all over the world, and it's allowed us to attract all sorts of people who have been looking for more autonomy and flexibility.
And perhaps most importantly - it's allowed me to be an involved parent with our toddler.
Work life balance is hard enough as a lawyer or an entrepreneur - and if you're raising young kids at the same time, it's even harder.
I'm proud to say that at Renno & Co, we'll never force anyone to work from an office.
And I'm incredibly proud of the culture we've built and are continuing to build - all in a remote environment.
#lawyers #lawfirms #legalprofession