Non-working holidays are unlikely this year, and may start to disappear altogether. Credit: ShutterstockThe U.K. legal industry’s traditional summer lull will all but disappear this year according to several top partners who say pandemic working practices have wiped out the possibility of a normal holiday season altogether.
One capital markets partner at a Magic Circle law firm said the historical practice of lawyers mirroring investors by doing less work between Bastille Day (July, 14) and September 1 had “gone” and that transactions will be completed throughout July and August this year.
They added it is a “further push in the direction of working all year round” for the legal industry.
A restructuring partner at another U.K. top 50 firm echoed this sentiment, commenting that the next few months “won’t be like any summer before”. He put this down to the fact that work is taking twice as long, so traditional completion timelines have been “kicked out”.
He added that because time and work-life balance has become so blurred in this new remote-working era, clients may not necessarily be expecting lawyers to be taking a summer break anyway.
“There will be a break of some sort but I do genuinely think it will be a working break.”
The restructuring partner also predicts a bumper 2020, with the “vast majority of work” coming in autumn where “the real impact on the economy will be felt”.
A corporate M&A partner agreed that deals will likely go through in the summer months, particularly given that the change in M&A as a result of the pandemic has been “stark”. As the slowdown in work has happened earlier this year, he thinks lawyers will likely want to crack on with deals where they can. Commenting on the M&A market more widely, he says “it will be a gentle climb” to recovery.
He also expects any holidays to be working holidays, saying: “If you’re on holiday and you have your gadgets with you, there’s no reason why you can’t complete a deal.”
The lull has already been and gone for the majority of firms, a finance partner at a U.S. firm in London notes. He says that the first month of lockdown inevitably meant a period of “firefighting” for law firms, but a natural quiet period followed soon after.
That period is well and truly over, he says. “The drum beat is noticeably getting faster. I don’t know when that wall of problems which need to get sorted will hit us, but it seems to be starting now. It won’t wait for people – so it could well be August.”
And the problems aren’t waiting for in-house lawyers either. One financial services general counsel says there is “no way” the summer period will be quiet.
“General counsel are wearing a ridiculous number of hats at the moment”, they add. “I would love a lull but it won’t happen”.
“Even if we do manage to go on holiday, it’s not like I’m not going to work.”
But lawyers in some practice areas are still hoping for a normal summer break. One tax litigation partner said it’s very much business as usual. “It’s normally quiet for litigation in August and I suspect this year will be the same.”
It seems that law firms were always alive to the likelihood of an August revival of the market. Fieldfisher asked staff to take 25% of their annual leave by June, while Big Four accounting firm EY asked for 35% of annual leave by the end of July, and 70% by the end of August.
The change appears similar to a shift taking place in France. Several lawyers in Paris have said a desire to catch up on work means the legal industry will have shorter vacations, working vacations, or no vacations at all.
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June 22, 2020 at 02:45PM
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UK Lawyers Are Waving Goodbye to Traditional Summer Holidays This Year - Law.com
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