Susan Gross Sholinsky, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in The American Lawyer in “Law Firm Leaders Idealize 'Collaboration' in the Office Space Race, Despite So Much Change,” by Andrew Maloney. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Big Law firms have done a little bit of everything with their real estate since the pandemic. They’ve pledged to slim down. They’ve doubled down. They’ve switched spaces downtown.
But a key driver in many of these different decisions has been the same, according to firm leaders: collaboration….
Susan Sholinsky, vice chair of the employment, labor and workforce management group at Epstein Becker & Green said her firm started redoing some of its offices before the pandemic and adding more collaborative spaces—small conference rooms where people can chat and strategize together.
But she said individual offices can also be ideal for a kind of collaboration most firms desire—training and mentoring junior lawyers.
“We want, here in particular, for associates to be able to stop by my office and fit in my office while I’m on a conference call with a client and take it in, so they have experience and training when they do calls like that in the future. They can potentially sit in on a deposition and shadow it,” she said.
“That doesn’t necessarily happen over Zoom, right? You don’t necessarily pick someone’s brain over Zoom like you do when you’re their next-door neighbor in the office.”
People
Board of Directors / Member of the Firm
