I was chatting recently with my neighbor, an Am Law 100 partner who has been in no rush to get back to the office after two years away. Essentially, this lawyer has been more productive than ever before, without the distractions of the workplace and the impediments of the commute.  

I’m confident that this voice is not an outlier. It’s all well and good for firm leaders to talk about fostering culture and the role of in-person work in doing so, but the real question is whether they’re willing to prioritize this amorphous value over far more quantifiable metrics like hours worked and revenue.