Lockdown diaries: Brecher’s Nicky Richmond

Nicky Richmond is managing partner at London law firm Brecher. Here she shares a day in lockdown, with a back-to-office pilot, Zoom etiquette (and challenges) through to an evening curry. I do not need to look at the clock, because I know it is 5:15am, my now regular wake-up time. This started because my mind was working overtime when the pandemic started and now it has become a habit.  I am a morning person, though I am not superwoman, so this has necessitated an adjustment to my already grandmotherly bedtime. Add constant gardening and Radio 4 to my day and you get the picture. Exciting, it is not. I have been through the gamut of emotions during lockdown and it is only in the past few weeks that it has started to feel like something approaching normal. I have my first coffee (three shots of espresso) outside. On my phone I look at, in strict order, my e-mails, the Times and the FT, Instagram (I’m @the_food_judge) and LinkedIn. At 7:30 it’s time for my daily exercise: walking. I know I should do strength training, but I don’t have the strength for it. Today is the “practical” 90-minute walk with a combination of fields, woodland and the small town of Watlington. It’s practical in that I can pick up any necessities, which are, invariably, food-related. But this is no idyllic stroll, my AirPods are doing overtime. As is the case almost every day, it’s my morning call from the Duracell bunny, AKA my firm’s chief executive, Jacqui Rook. We are talking office layout, the new social distancing requirements of the day with the rumoured reduction to 1m, recruitment, work levels, ideas for social media, work in progress and debtors. At Brecher we have 96 employees in our Mayfair office. Around 10 or so are in the office regularly and this will increase as lockdown loosens. We know many have found working from home to be effective and liberating, and they want to have more flexibility and we are planning a pilot scheme to allow all staff to work from home for two days a week, if they want to. Jacqui and I also discuss how to stay in touch with clients in this changed environment. This week there is Royal Ascot and we have eight clients joining us, betting online and no doubt enjoying copious amounts of fizz. We are also planning a (socially distanced) picnic for a group of insolvency industry clients. I’m doing the catering, obviously. At 10am I work on an internal training session for juniors on Zoom etiquette. Training has to be both meaningful and relevant during lockdown. As much as anything, it’s important to get the lawyers talking to each other. As a profession which attracts more than its fair share of introverts, it’s too easy for lawyers to close in on themselves and become insular. After an hour, it is time for my next Zoom call. I join an introductory call with a new client, Masthaven, a bridging lender. We usually do this over drinks. It’s essential to meet (virtually or otherwise) to know who you are dealing with behind the e-mail. When I enter their Zoom room, I see a solid wall of unfamiliar faces. Alan Margolis, their team head, launches into a stream-of-consciousness introduction including a run-down on what they hate about lawyers. Apparently it’s the lack of clear advice, many lawyers wanting to sit on the fence. I try to respond with humour, but their faces are completely impassive. A tough crowd. After blathering on for a few seconds more, I realise that my Wi-Fi has stopped working. They are not actually unresponsive, but truly frozen. We get there though, in the end, and a couple of instructions arrive the next day. Though it is not always this way. One of the unexpected side effects of lockdown is the opportunity to have more meaningful conversations with clients and colleagues. Most of them want to chat and invariably one ends up going off topic and talking about real-life issues and the challenges (and benefits) of their own particular lockdown.  I’m hoping that some of my younger colleagues will start to see the benefit of a real conversation. Solicitors can often hide behind e-mail, but the voice is a much more powerful and nuanced tool. We are all hard-wired for real human connection, even the most introverted of us, and a screen is a poor substitute. The afternoon is my time to work on our social media and pro bono programmes. My partner Michael Nee and I are working with the London Irish Centre in Camden on two fronts. They are planning a major redevelopment, where we will do the construction work pro bono and we are also trying to set up a legal advice drop-in for the people from the local community who use the centre. Many of the issues relate to housing, so we are hoping that we can offer useful advice. My colleague Peter Richards has also been doing property work for the NHS pro bono during the lockdown period; he used to work for them and has helped sorting out the legalities for the new Covid-19 field hospitals. At 4pm, it’s our weekly real estate finance drinks session with around a dozen people. It’s so important to have that regular interaction, especially for the furloughed staff. The transition to working from home has been unexpectedly smooth, but, we weren’t set up as a virtual law firm and there are social aspects to the workplace that need to be nurtured and encouraged. Wine definitely helps. After drinks, no more e-mails. I follow a “don’t drink and e-mail” policy, which has stood me in good stead. I cook the aubergine mash from Roopa Gulati’s book, India: The World Vegetarian (recommended) while listening to Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light on Audible. My day ends where it started, back in the garden. I spend an hour weeding, before the sun sets. Rock ’n’ roll.