Remote Working Policies at London's Top Law Firms

Flexible working has moved from pandemic concession to permanent battleground in London's legal market. As firms tighten their office attendance requirements and candidates increasingly weigh flexibility alongside salary, knowing what each firm's policy actually looks like in practice has never been more important. This is JMC Legal Recruitment's honest assessment of where the market stands in 2026.

The Remote Working Landscape in 2026

A Market Pulling in Two Directions

In 2020, most City lawyers proved something that law firm management had long resisted accepting: that legal work can be done effectively away from the office. The five years of negotiation, pilot programmes, formal policies, quiet retraction, and public announcements that followed left the London legal market in a position that is both more settled and more complex than it appears.

The headline story is simple: hybrid working is now the norm. No major City or US firm in London is asking its lawyers to work five days a week in the office as a standard expectation. The age of the mandatory full-time office is, for now, a thing of the past.

The nuance beneath that headline, however, matters enormously, particularly if you are a candidate evaluating an offer, a lawyer thinking about a move, or a hiring partner trying to understand why your firm is losing people to a competitor. The difference between a three-day office policy at a Magic Circle firm and a four-day mandate at a US practice is not just a question of the morning commute. It reflects fundamentally different views on talent development, culture, client expectations, and the unwritten social contract between a firm and its lawyers.

On top of that, there’s a not unsubstantial gap, we hear time and time again at JMC, between what firms officially publish and what they expect. That gap is wider than most candidates realise and understanding it is one of the most practically useful pieces of intelligence available to anyone navigating a move.

 The policy on paper is only part of the picture. The culture around that policy is what candidates need to understand before they accept an offer.

Why This Matters More Than Most Candidates Think

Flexible working consistently features in the top three factors candidates raise when discussing a potential move, alongside compensation and quality of work. A 2025 survey found that 71% of associates place work-life balance on their list of top priorities. In a market where the salary gap between Magic Circle and leading US firms can be north of £40,000 at NQ level, flexibility has become one of the few remaining differentiators that UK-headquartered firms can point to.

The risk for candidates is treating the stated policy as the full picture. Research consistently shows that at most large law firms, written remote working policies substantially understate the real cultural expectations. In one major 2025 study of US and international law firms, 89% of associates reported that unwritten cultural or partner-level expectations significantly influence day-to-day flexibility, regardless of what the official policy says.

In practical terms, this means two lawyers at the same firm, on paper subject to the same three-day policy, can have entirely different experiences depending on their practice group, their supervising partner, the volume of live deals on their desk, and whether their team lead views the office as a badge of commitment.

For lawyers earlier in their careers, there is an additional dimension: visibility. In most City and US firm environments, being present in the office still affects, formally and informally, how you are perceived by senior colleagues, how much spontaneous work comes your way, and how your commitment is read at review time. Whether or not this should be the case is a separate debate.

Magic Circle Firms

The Official Line and the Reality

The Magic Circle firms (A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May) were initially better positioned on flexibility than their US counterparts after the pandemic. In 2021 and 2022, while US firms were pushing four-day office mandates, several Magic Circle firms held at a 50/50 split, explicitly using flexibility as a recruiting and retention differentiator.

That advantage has largely eroded. By 2025, all five Magic Circle firms had converged around a broadly similar model: a minimum of three days per week in the office, with the expectation that busier periods, deal completions, significant transactions and client meetings, will naturally push actual office attendance higher.

Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance operates on a broadly 50/50 stated maximum, which in practice translates to a minimum of two to three days in the office per week. The firm has invested significantly in its physical workspace by moving to an open-plan, hot-desking model that has attracted commentary from both fans of the collaborative approach and critics of the loss of private space. For junior associates managing complex workstreams, the hot-desking environment is a practical consideration worth understanding before joining.

Linklaters

Linklaters maintains a comparable 50/50 approach, with team-level variation meaning the experience in practice depends significantly on which group you sit in. The firm has a strong reputation for its mentoring culture and investment in junior lawyers which is one of the reasons its partners tend to advocate for more in-person time rather than simply mandating it.

Freshfields

Freshfields shifted its policy in 2022 from a 50/50 split to a minimum of three days per week, aligning more closely with A&O and Slaughter and May. The move was framed as a response to client expectations, and the training needs of junior lawyers. In practice, the firm has been relatively consistent in applying this expectation across its London fee-earner population.

A&O Shearman

A&O Shearman, operating as the merged entity following the combination of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling since 2023, has a stated expectation of 60% in-office time, roughly translating to three days per week. The integration of the US practice has, in the view of some observers, brought a slightly more demanding in-office culture to what was previously a firm more relaxed about remote working than some of its peers.

Slaughter and May

Slaughter and May is consistently cited as one of the more genuinely flexible Magic Circle practices, a reputation built less on formal policy than on its distinctive collegiate culture and the absence of formal billing targets. The firm broadly expects around 60% in-office attendance but has a reputation for trusting its people to manage their own time in a way that several of its peers do not quite match. For lawyers for whom culture matters as much as the written policy, Slaughter and May remains a notable outlier in the Magic Circle.

US Law Firms in London

A Harder Line, and a Deliberate One

If the narrative arc of post-pandemic working at Magic Circle firms has been a gradual tightening from relative flexibility toward something more structured, the arc at US firms in London has been consistently, deliberately, office-centric and has been so for longer.

It was American law firms in London that first led the return-to-office charge from 2023 onwards, at a time when UK firms were still using flexibility as a competitive differentiator. The reasoning from US firm management was consistent: the lean team model, the high billing expectations, and the deal intensity that justifies the premium compensation all depend on lawyers being physically present and available.

The result is that most elite US firms operating in London now require four days per week in the office, or three days with cultural expectations that effectively push many lawyers to four. For candidates weighing the salary premium of a US firm against the lifestyle question, this is the trade-off in its clearest form.

Kirkland & Ellis

Kirkland's three-day policy is somewhat misleading as a guide to actual office attendance. The firm's lean team structure, relentless deal flow in private equity and restructuring, and the culture of total availability that comes with Kirkland's compensation premium mean that in practice, most associates are in the office significantly more than three days in busy periods. That is not unique to Kirkland but it is more pronounced there than at almost anywhere else in the London market.

Latham & Watkins

Latham's move to a four-day office mandate generated more internal friction than its leadership may have anticipated. One of the largest US firm offices in London by partner headcount, Latham had positioned itself as relatively flexible by US standards. The shift to four days was seen by some associates as an unwelcome reversal, and it contributed to conversations, which JMC Legal Recruitment encountered directly, about whether the firm's offering remained competitive against rivals with three-day policies at comparable compensation levels.

Skadden

Skadden was one of the earliest US firms to formally implement a four-day office week in London, in 2023, and has maintained that position. The firm is candid about its reasoning: it believes that the mentorship, collaboration, and development of junior lawyers cannot be adequately replicated in a remote setting. Skadden's compensation is exceptional, NQ salaries sit at around £165,000, and the firm's view appears to be that the additional office day is a reasonable exchange for that premium. Whether you agree depends, in large part, on how you weigh financial reward against autonomy.

Goodwin Procter and Others

Goodwin Procter represents a different point on the US firm spectrum: three days per week in the office, with an additional allowance of one remote working week per quarter. For a US firm at this compensation level (NQs at approximately £160,000), that flexibility was deliberately designed to differentiate Goodwin from competitors with harder mandates. White & Case, operating at a similar three-day expectation, has also generally been regarded by associates as more flexible in practice than some of its US peers.

WHERE THE MAJOR FIRMS STAND IN 2026: AT A GLANCE

Data reflects publicly available firm statements, industry reporting, and JMC Legal Recruitment market intelligence as of 2026. Stated policies are minimum requirements; actual attendance frequently exceeds these figures during active deal periods. Specific team and practice group variation exists at all firms.

The Transparency Gap

What the Policy Doesn't Tell You

Across both UK and US firms, there is a well-documented and persistent gap between stated remote working policy and the lived experience of lawyers actually subject to it. Industry research has found that nearly three quarters of major law firms provide vague or incomplete information about their actual flexibility in their published policy descriptions — and that nearly nine in ten associates say that unwritten cultural expectations from partners significantly influence how much flexibility they actually experience.

For candidates evaluating a firm, this means the right question is not 'what is the policy?', it's 'what is the culture around the policy?'

The Presence Bias Problem

In most City and US firm environments, despite official policy to the contrary, being physically present in the office is still widely perceived by partners, by peers, and often by the lawyers themselves as a signal of commitment and availability. This is what researchers call 'presence bias': the tendency to evaluate people more positively when they are visible, regardless of their actual output.

Some Magic Circle firms have taken the remarkable step of tracking badge swipes, monitoring how often lawyers are entering and leaving the building, as a way of enforcing their hybrid policies. That this is necessary is itself telling. It reflects the degree to which 'three days per week' as a stated minimum has, in some practice groups, not translated into three days per week as an observed reality in either direction.

For junior lawyers in particular, the career implications of remote working patterns are worth considering honestly. Several senior partners across the market have explicitly told JMC Legal Recruitment that they believe the pandemic-trained cohort of associates is less developed than predecessors who spent more time physically present and that they are actively factoring office attendance into their assessments of junior lawyers' progression.

 The written policy tells you the minimum. The culture around it tells you what actually happens. Ask someone currently working in that team — not the HR partner who interviews you.

Deal Flow Beats Policy Every Time

The honest reality is that in the highest-intensity practice areas like leveraged finance, private equity, M&A and restructuring, the remote working policy is largely irrelevant during active periods. When a deal is live, lawyers are in the office. That is true regardless of whether the firm's stated policy is two days, three days, or four. The relevant flexibility question is not what happens during a deal, it's what the expectation is between deals, and how much downtime there actually is.

Senior People, Not Junior People, Are Often the Problem

There is an interesting and underreported dimension to the return-to-office debate in law firms: the people most resistant to coming back are not, as is commonly assumed, Gen Z associates. Industry research from 2025 identified senior associates and partners as the demographic showing the greatest resistance to regular office attendance.

This creates a particular dynamic at junior level. A junior associate who works three days in the office per week, in line with the firm's stated policy, may find themselves surrounded by mid-level and senior colleagues who are remote two or three days, while the partners visible in the office expect to see junior lawyers present. The career calculus in that environment is not hard to read.

What Candidates Are Actually Asking

In the conversations JMC Legal Recruitment has with candidates across the City and US firm market in 2026, remote working policy features in almost every discussion. In 2026, the better questions are different and more specific than simply asking if one can work from home.

The Right Questions to Ask Before You Accept an Offer

What is the team's actual attendance pattern in a normal week? 

This can differ substantially, and a direct conversation with a current team member is far more useful than reading the careers page.

How is flexibility managed during busy periods and quieter periods? 

Understanding the distinction between active deal time (when you will be in the office regardless) and downtime (when the policy is most relevant) gives you a clearer picture of your actual working life.

What is the supervising partner's personal view on in-office presence?

Formal policy is set at firm level; practical expectation is set at team level. The two can differ significantly. This is a reasonable and legitimate question to ask at final stage.

Is office attendance tracked, and how? 

Several firms now monitor badge swipes. Understanding whether attendance is being actively measured, and what the consequences of non-compliance are, is practical intelligence worth having.

How have flexible working arrangements been handled for associates on parental leave or with caring responsibilities? 

This tells you something meaningful about the culture beyond the policy, and whether stated flexibility is genuinely accessible or effectively limited to those without external commitments.

What This Means for Your Career

For lawyers thinking about a move in 2026, the remote working question sits within a broader set of considerations and the weight you give it should reflect your specific career stage and what actually matters to you.

If You Are NQ to 3 PQE

At this stage, the career case for being in the office regularly is stronger than at any other point. The work you do in your first three years is largely invisible on paper — you are building technical skills, absorbing legal judgment, and learning how to operate in a professional environment. Almost all of that learning happens most effectively in person, through proximity to senior colleagues, through the kind of informal conversation that does not happen on a Teams call, and through the visibility that leads to good work coming your way rather than going to the person sitting in the next chair.

This is not an argument against ever working from home at this stage. It is an argument for being deliberate about when you do and for understanding that the colleagues who know you best, and who will advocate for you at review time, are the ones who can see what you are doing.

If You Are 3 to 6 PQE

By the mid-level, the case for in-office presence is less about learning and more about visibility in a different sense, the commercial and relational visibility that builds your standing in the market, your connections with clients, and your profile within the firm. This is the period when the relationship between your career trajectory and your day-to-day work pattern becomes more apparent.

It is also the period when, if you are considering a move to a US firm, the in-office expectations at your target firm become a real practical consideration, not as a deterrent, but as context for evaluating whether the compensation premium reflects the full picture of what is being asked of you.

If You Are Senior Associate or Above

At senior associate and counsel level, the flexibility question is more genuinely within your control and more directly connected to how you are building your practice. The lawyers who are most effective at this stage in hybrid environments are those who use in-person time deliberately: for client relationships, for internal visibility, for the conversations that require it. They are not the lawyers who default to the office out of habit, nor the ones who default to home out of inertia.

At this level, the formal policy matters less. What matters is whether you are building the commercial profile and client relationships that the next stage of your career requires and whether your working pattern is helping or hindering that.

Thinking About a Move? Talk to JMC First

Remote working policy is one of dozens of factors that matter when evaluating a lateral move and it is one of the areas where the gap between what firms communicate publicly and what candidates need to know is widest. JMC Legal Recruitment has direct, current, and honest intelligence on the working cultures at every major City and US firm in London.

If you are weighing a move and want an honest picture of what a firm's culture is like, we can give you that. If you are trying to understand how your current working pattern compares to the market, or whether a firm's flexibility reputation holds up under scrutiny, that is exactly the kind of conversation we have every day.

Get in touch with our team to discuss your specific situation in confidence.