Partner Peter Lando spoke to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly about L&A’s plans for a return to working in the office.
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Meanwhile, the intellectual property firm Lando & Anastasi could have been thrown for a loop given the fact that the pandemic hit with full force just after it moved its office from Cambridge to the heart of Boston’s Financial District last March.
Despite the unfortunate timing, Peter C. Lando said he doesn’t regret the move. To the contrary, he said he’s proud of the way the firm met the challenge of the pandemic.
Diane M. Power, executive director of Mirick O’Connell, estimated that 60 to 70 percent of attorneys and staff have returned to the firm’s offices in Worcester, Westborough and Boston.
“The work is still getting done, and we’re still doing very well,” Lando said. “It’s amazing; here we are a whole year later.”
When the emergency was declared, the firm’s IT department responded quickly in equipping attorneys and staff to work remotely, Lando said.
“Everybody was working remotely, and the bulk of us continue to do so,” he said.
At the beginning of July, the firm reopened its office to those who felt comfortable coming into the workplace.
“We made it voluntary that first Monday in July,” Lando said. “We provide lunch and a parking stipend to all employees who come in.”
Working in the office remains voluntary to the firm’s 60-plus employees, Lando said. On most days, there are approximately a dozen people in the office, and at maximum 20. He said he anticipates the office to be fully open sometime in the second half of the year.
“We don’t have a date on the calendar yet,” Lando said.
At a recent Zoom meeting, however, Lando said he encouraged employees to start coming into the office one or two days a week to get used to the commute and the work environment.
“We’re trying to make it as comfortable as possible with [the personal protection equipment] we have in place, [and] trying to ease their minds in other ways so that we can reopen,” Lando said.
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