As many U.K. and U.S. associates are working flexibly, from home and in the office, their French equivalents are under a stricter dictat – to commute into the office as they did before the pandemic. 

In Orrick’s Paris base, office co-leader Patrick Tardivy has asked lawyers to try to spend two to three days at their desks. “We told our employees and lawyers that we believed that it was important to come back to the office to revive the social interactions we were used to,” he says.