The benefits of working in an office environment

The Jonathan Lea Network is a fast-growing law firm headquartered in Haywards Heath.

Our main focus is on corporate work, including mergers and acquisitions, equity investments, corporate tax and commercial dispute resolution.

We assist businesses with a variety of other matters too, including intellectual property and real estate, while we are also building a network of experienced solicitors with a wide range of specialisms who contract through the firm on a self-employed basis and work with us remotely.

Despite our success at using modern IT systems that facilitate the provision of legal services outside of a bricks and mortar environment, it is critical for us to also have a close-knit retained team based in our office who can closely communicate and share knowledge.

To this end, we have recently taken out a new lease at a much larger premises to aid our further growth.

Other than a short period in spring 2020, when everyone apart from two people worked from home, we have continued to have almost all employed staff remain operating from our office.

The four main benefits of this have been as follows:

a) Improved responsiveness and quality of work

With everyone working in an open plan environment we can quickly discuss and resolve issues so as to improve responsiveness and quality of work.

b) Faster staff development

Those in the office have been able to better progress than if they were outside this physical learning habitat.

c) Employing more people

Particularly as people have developed, we have been able to employ both more senior and junior staff to work alongside each other.

d) Better firm culture

Finally, a stronger team culture has emerged as a result of the improved communication and better relationships built within the office.