ABA Journal October 1, 2025

By Danielle Braff

For decades, law firm culture has been defined by long hours and late nights—but a handful of firms are flipping the script.

They’ve created a four-day workweek with no cut in pay. It’s a move that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. But amid talent shortages and shifting values, it’s become feasible.

That’s the reason that on Mondays, you’ll find Phoenix-based lawyer Ruth Carter wearing mud-splattered boots, leggings and a hoodie while cuddling with cows, scooping poop and singing to the goats.

Carter, of counsel with Venjuris and a 2012 ABA Journal Legal Rebel who uses the pronoun they, moved to a four-day workweek in 2021.

Carter decided to try a shortened workweek after hitting a metaphorical wall and struggling to maintain focus.

“I wasn’t just exhausted, I was drained,” Carter wrote in a 2022 blog post about their decision.

Despite being nervous about maintaining their workload, Carter committed to volunteering at a local farm one morning each week. When there, Carter turns off the cellphone ringer and doesn’t check email, instead activating an automated outgoing message that reads: “Happy Monday! I’m volunteering at my local farm animal sanctuary this morning, so while you’re working, I’m probably petting a pig or being nuzzled by a goat.”

The firm accepted Carter’s four-day workweek request—made simpler because the firm doesn’t have a billable hour requirement. Still, Carter is now billing as much, if not more, than prior to the four-day week because of the stress-free day built into the schedule.

“No one cares when, where or how much I work as long as I get my work done and I cover my share of the overhead expenses,” Carter says.

The Benenati Law Firm, an Orlando, Florida-based bankruptcy practice, made headlines in 2019 when it announced the adoption of a four-day workweek.

Name partner Walter Benenati calls it “one of the best decisions I’ve made as a firm owner” and says it’s been a great retention tool for the firm.

“Our staff truly values having a consistent three-day weekend. It gives them more time with family, to rest, or take care of personal errands, which in turn shows up in better morale, productivity and client care,” he says, adding that most people take Fridays off, so the firm has to stagger the off days so that the firm can remain open throughout the week.

Will it catch on? Not all law firms, however, feel this way. Lawyers at large firms regularly work more than 60 hours per week; and in 2024, a report from Reuters found that 56% of attorneys at those firms are required to come into the office at least three times per week. This

office-working percentage appears to be increasing as firms move further from the pandemic work model.

Law firms with reduced workweeks, however, are demonstrating that forcing attorneys to work long hours doesn’t necessarily equate to extra income for the firm.

IMD Solicitors, a small firm in Manchester, England, launched a pilot four-day workweek in one department in January 2023. Nine months later, they were shocked by the data: despite working 80% of their former hours, the team achieved 122% of their previous fee income. So they rolled out the four-day workweek firmwide in October 2023.

“We have implemented the four-day workweek in its pure form, without compressed hours, and this approach relies on the right people and the right culture, creating a high-trust environment that encourages efficiency and autonomy,” says Marcin Durlak, managing partner of the firm.

IMD Solicitors didn’t reduce the salary for the four-day week, and this has helped them attract top talent from top-30 U.K. firms, which Durlak says is a significant achievement for a boutique firm like his. Additionally, according to Durlak, the firm maintained 100% voluntary staff retention between November 2022 and July 2025: No one chose to resign during that time period.

Durlak says the firm has achieved outstanding scores on its quarterly internal Net Promoter Score surveys, which are a measure of how likely clients are to recommend them to others.

The key to success is staggering days off to ensure continuous client support.

“With the rapid advancement of AI and technology, I believe the four-day workweek is not just a trend but the future of work,” Durlak says. “It is only a matter of time before this becomes the norm, much like the adoption of the five-day workweek a century ago.”

Working culture has undergone many changes since then, most notably working from home during and after the pandemic. Jason Epstein, the Seattle-based owner and managing partner of the personal injury firm Premier Law Group, notes that while working from

home wasn’t successful at his firm—they had a productivity drop-off—he dabbled with the idea of increasing productivity while helping his staff with their work-life balance.

In late 2022, he decided to offer the firm a four-day week with staggered days off without a salary reduction. He finally found his solution.

“Productivity has been zero drop-off,” Epstein says. “One of our rules is that we have certain tasks that we track. If anyone’s tasks are overdue by a certain parameter, then everyone in the office loses their day off.”

The result: If someone has too much work, the others step in so that no one loses their day off. It helps, Epstein says, that they are a contingency-based firm. Since they only get paid when they win, they have extra motivation to get their work done.

At first, Epstein says, they rolled out the shortened workweek for nonlawyer staff members. But today, he says, anyone—including the attorneys—can work a four-day week if they get their work done.

“If someone is bringing in the most money,” he says, “I wouldn’t care if they are ever here. Was it a doctor’s appointment, or were they sleeping in? As long as the other metrics are being hit, we don’t care.”

Still, Premier Law Group depends on client recruitment, so if they don’t get a case because no one was available, Epstein says, it would send him into a rage. So even if someone had planned on a shorter workweek, he says, they still need to take emergency calls or even come into the office when necessary.

Carter understands the need to be flexible and admits to sometimes working five to seven days a week, though they try not to let this affect their farm time. Recently, Carter dropped off their laptop at a co-worker’s house on the way to volunteer, and after they played with the animals, they returned to his house, changed into clean clothing and worked on a court filing at the co-worker’s kitchen table.

Carter may still work an alarming number of hours when necessary, but Mondays at the farm are a reminder that rest can fuel results.

“I’m becoming more aware that time is the most valuable resource I have, and it tends to be things that people didn’t do that cause the most regrets,” Carter wrote in the blog post. “I don’t think anyone dies wishing they could have billed a few more hours.”

VIEWS AND CONCLUSIONS EXPRESSED IN ARTICLES HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF FLORIDA BAR STAFF, OFFICIALS, OR BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FLORIDA BAR.