As of April 10, 2023 we are starting a new pilot project at Smith & Little LLP of closing our office on Mondays. The lawyers will both continue to work on Mondays and our staff will be trialling a four day work week. We spend significant amounts of time each year strategizing how we can best meet the needs of our clients. It will come as no surprise to you that on occasion, each client matter requires one or both of us to turn considerable time and attention to a larger project. Some examples of these projects are: preparing an offer to settle, preparing an agreement, preparing written materials for court, or preparing for a mediation or trial. We are able to do this type of work best when we have the time and space to do so mentally without interruption. For this reason, we are choosing to close our office on Mondays. The lawyers will still be working on Mondays but are reserving this time for intensive, focussed work. We will not be scheduling meetings, court dates, accepting phone calls, replying to emails, etc. on Mondays so that we have this time to focus. It is our sincere belief that this will cause us to be more efficient and permit us to continue upholding the excellent quality of work and timely response times that our clients expect.
We have always been committed to running our law firm in a way that makes the most sense for us and for the outcomes that our clients are seeking and not necessarily just doing what everyone else is doing. We are very excited to learn about the positive effects of implementing a four-day work week and have therefore also decided to run a pilot project whereby our support staff will be working four days per week, being Tuesdays through Fridays each week. We believe that these two major changes together will have a positive impact on our staff, our client experience, and our performance.