Introduction
Earlier this year we published two surveys in conjunction with Saffery Champness, which considered how UK law firms were adapting their strategies around staffing, their views on future profitability and the initial impact on their attitudes towards remote working.
I am pleased to present our third survey which focuses on how the ongoing pandemic is shaping firms’ views on working practices, and the impact these changes are having on their businesses and the employees alike.
We asked participants for their view on the issues that have affected them on an individual level, as well as on the firm as a whole and the results suggest that there will not be a ‘one size fits all’ solution that will work for everybody.
Tim Kidd, Chief Executive 
Welcome to the third in our series of surveys looking at the impact of Coronavirus on professional practices. For this survey, we have cast the net a little wider to include other types of professional services firms.
Participants varied in size, location and type, from small local firms, to large national and international practices. The largest proportion of our respondents (87%) were law firms, and we also gathered responses from other professional service firms, including from the property, accountancy, insolvency and financial service sectors.
Back in April, when we found ourselves at the beginning of lockdown, our first survey revealed that, whilst there was clearly an intention for firms to furlough staff, there was a large amount of uncertainty about how deep those measures should be, and that mood continued through May as we gathered results for our second survey.
Similarly, whilst firms were also uncertain how deep an impact the pandemic would have on profitability, there was a noticeable consistency in firms’ views around the future for agile working and how this will change profoundly as we recover from the first stage of the crisis.
This survey looks more closely at that issue and gathers information on how firms’ views of the future of the physical office has changed over the course of the past six months.
Ian Johnson, Director 
Saffery Champness LLP
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