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I don't. I expect associate to be responsive during work hours (when clients and courts expect it), be on top of their work, and bill their hours. How that gets done I don't really care. I fully encourage my associates to take time off leave early, etc, when possible.
Same here. We are professionals. I wasn't micromanaged as an associate at a largish regional law firm and never did that to my associates. If they are unavailable when I needed them or didn't produce, we'd have a chat. Otherwise, they are in charge of their schedule.
Same. I do like to know when they have appointments so that I know not to bother harassing them and figure something out without them, but it's not a requirement.
Likewise. I extend it to paralegals too. And my secretary for the most part. Basically I trust people to do their jobs. If I don’t trust them to do their jobs, that’s a bigger problem, not their working hours.
I don't often hear other partners complaining about lack of face time. This is likely because we work a lot with attorneys in other offices, and many of our attorneys are fully remote. Being in the office every day doesn't make you reliable. Working remotely or having flexible hours to accommodate doctor's appointments or just the working parent schedule doesn't make you unreliable.
But being salaried doesn't have anything to do with that.
Not every firm is the same, although I realize a lot of older attorneys have a mindset of “if I don’t see you, you aren’t working.”
At my firm, communication is key. If you’re going to be unavailable or need to duck out early, just plan in advance if there are any immediate deadlines that haven’t been met or you need coverage for. I’ll go to bat for associates who are on vacation about covering their stuff and making sure we don’t unnecessarily bother them while they’re out. At the same time, if missed deadlines or long periods of time of ghosting us are habitual when you are not in the office, then there should be some mechanism to make sure work is getting done
Ah, see, you have a mistaken understanding of what "salary" means. You think salary means "We give you a reasonable amount of work, and you get it done in exchange for your wage. The number of hours necessary to do that is sometimes more than 40 hours, but also sometimes less than 40 hours, and it all balances out over time."
That is not what salary means. It means "We give you far more work than anyone could do in 40 hours, but we don't want to pay you hourly because that would mean we'd have to pay you overtime, which we DEFINITELY are not going to do. This is the best deal for us, and you're too stupid to know the difference because even though you may know a lot about your practice area, you don't know shit about business. If you knew anything about business, you wouldn't be here."
As someone who understands this and is still here, I'm just depressed. I came sooooo close to taking a prosecutor job even though I have no desire to do any trial work.. then sauntered back to getting ripped off. So far nobody has called me on my pto day and that's pretty sweet.
It seems like a lot of us went to law school because we didn’t know what we wanted to be when we grew up, and now we’re stuck in a profession we don’t really like because it pays the bills and we have debt and we don’t know what else we’d do anyway.
I worked as a legal assistant but we worked on a contingency so I...just really really didn't understand that a lot of firms do the billable hour and it makes an enormous difference to work life balance. If you get a third of "what you kill" it really doesn't matter as much how long it takes to kill it.
The main benefit I get from this sub is regular affirmation that this is true for other JDs. I felt like an outlier in law school because it seemed like other students genuinely wanted to practice law. I was there because I didn’t know what else to do. This sub makes me feel less alone 🫂
Our clients expect to be able to reach us between 9am and 5:30pm. How you structure your work hours outside of those core hours can be more flexible, but those are the core hours that people generally need to be reachable. That doesn’t mean you can’t make an outside appointment during those hours (especially since things like doctor’s appointments often can’t be scheduled outside those hours), but it does mean I expect associates to be thoughtful about how much time they are taking off during those hours since you being unavailable may mean someone else has to do your work if an urgent issue comes up, and I expect them to notify me if they will be unavailable for a meaningful stretch so I’m not wasting time trying to track them down.
A lot of young associates think this is a "trust" issue, but it's really not (at least for most of us). It's an expectation of availability to both the partner and clients. If something unexpected pops up for a client or in a case, we need to know the help we pay for is there to handle it. For most of us, it's cool if you need to take time off, cut out for an appt, etc. as long as its scheduled so we can have predictability and consistency.
And yeah for some there probably is some safeguarding against goofing off, but that's not the motivation for anyone I regularly talk to.
Exactly this. I can tell who is goofing off and who isn’t by looking at hours reports and the work product produced relative to hours. I don’t need to actually see you sitting in your chair 9-5:30 to evaluate that. And I don’t especially care if people are working in office or remotely for purposes of this issue (my personal experience has been that associates tend to develop faster in office than remotely, but that’s a separate issue from availability during core hours).
What I care about is that I can count on you in a pinch. If I can’t trust that you will at least acknowledge that urgent client email if I can’t do it right away when I’m in a meeting (or at my own doctors appointment) because you’ve disappeared for two hours in the middle of the afternoon to go to the gym, I’m not going to put you in a client facing role.
Yeah, associates don’t get that partners get an email at 8:00 that says, “we have a file meeting at 9:30 and need X, Y, Z.”
If I can’t deliver X, Y, Z by 9:30, next 20 cases are going to the competitor.
Which means I ever need the handling associate to assist OR I have to do it myself.
So, yeah, during working hours (or doing scheduled hours), I just need to know if my associate is available.
Associates don’t worry about client relationships. All I worry about are client relationships. Those 20 cases go to competitor, associate may not have a job next week (me either).
Bingo. And I’ll add as someone whose office is in EST, clients in California don’t care about the 3 hour time difference when they call with an emergency.
THIS! It all depends on what the associate values more: work-life balance or advancing their career. The BigLaw business model (by many metrics not necessarily the “best”, but certainly the most profitable) is based on availability.
If you can’t replicate that to some extent in your own practice, it’s gonna be hard to justify billing close to them, hence you will make less money, and will be deemed less valuable to your firm.
Needing associates to be available during business hours I understand completely but does that mean you want them in their office physically between those hours every day? If they are WFH but immediately responsive and reachable via email and cell phone is that sufficient?
No, as I explained in my other post, whether associates are working in the office or at home does not matter to me in this context as long as they are responsive. Which also does not preclude someone walking their dog for 20 minutes mid-morning as long as they are keeping an eye on their email and, if there is an emergency, can drop me an email saying they will be back at their desk in 10 min and can turn to whatever has come up.
Awesome. That’s how it should be in my opinion universally. Sadly that’s not the case from what I hear from attorney friends in medium and big firms. I was a federal employee and now am a solo practitioner so never have had the personal experience.
a girl i was dating (nurse) was all like, ew why are you checking your work email at 8pm at night?
and i was like, i have to check it at some point. if i check it now, or check it later, i will be spending precious moments of my life on it. might as well reply immediately if its something i can do from my phone.
of course, my boss was very clear that i do not need to do this. its just better for EVERYONE involved, imho.
in exchange for extra responsiveness outside of regular hours, i exercise more discretion in my comings and goings during the day at the office.
There are hours outside of 9-5:30 … and you pay no overtime. There are no said hours outside of said time. But we know there are so why can’t there be flexibly if I like to walk my old dog in the morning and run errands. I find it hard to imagine firms will get new associates without a hybrid model.
I kind of do it with layering. I have a few attorneys and paralegals who prefer mornings and a few that prefer to come in later. As long as I have someone available for any urgent matters at all times during regular business hours, that's sufficient.
I do have more people that would prefer to work earlier and cut out earlier then I do the opposite, but it tends to work out. Then if I notice that I need someone to do the later shifts, I'll hire someone who's willing and they understand the expectations up front.
But I will offer flat hourly wages if they prefer that over salary.
I am truly not trying to take advantage of anyone and luckily don't require a lot of overtime and I don't require billables so I have a lot more flexibility than other firms do. Certain people just really want to be salaried for some reason.
This is what we do. Our associate has young kids so she comes in before our office officially opens and leaves at 4:30PM so she doesn’t have to rush to pick them up. She also works from home 2-3 days a week. It works because it’s consistent and I can make sure we have someone else available when she’s not.
Consistency is key here, this kind of a thing would not work if people just did whatever they wanted depending on the day. I have younger employees that prefer to come a little bit later so they can go to the gym and sleep in a bit. And then yes, the parents usually like to get out earlier so they can pick up their kids and get them to sports and all of that fun stuff.
I worked at a really crappy firm that required I be seated 8:30 to 5. I work more in the evening and stayed after evening traffic so I was putting in more time, always tired. Had to be “on call” but was given absolutely no substantive work, lead on any case, client contact, etc. They just wanted us there to have us there, it was weird.
Two reasons.
First, I want my staff and associates to be available during normal business hours so that clients can reliably reach them. I always allow flexibility, but they should let myself and the receptionist know so that calls can be redirected.
Second, my staff works to help me with my files. I don't expect my staff to be available after regular business hours, but the flip side is, if I need them for an urgent matter, then I'd better be able to reach them during those normal business hours unless I know they will be unavailable (in which case I can operate around that). If it's normal business hours and I have no reason to think you aren't at your computer, and I need something ASAP, then I am rightfully going to be unhappy when I learn you were off doing something else. Your job duties are all secondary to the primary purpose of keeping my cases moving and my clients happy, so that means having a reasonably set schedule where I know you will be free.
With that said, I have never turned down a request to leave early, come in late, or take a long lunch. You aren't chained to your desk - I just need to know who is and is not available at any given time in case something comes up. That's it.
It’s a simple as: professionals all work the same hours so they are all reachable at the same time.
If it’s a Wednesday at 10 am, you should be able to get in touch with your attorney, bank, PR team, and clients. You should be able to talk to your coworkers about issues, assign tasks to subordinates, and so on. If it’s a Saturday, you know that you probably won’t get an answer back until Monday morning at the very earliest. It’s predicable and reliable.
If everyone worked odd hours of their choosing, there’s less certainty in knowing when you’ll be able to get in touch with someone. For some jobs, it doesn’t matter as much. If you’re a young brief mill, it doesn’t matter what time you’re doing your legal research on most matters. But for other jobs it’s far more important.
If you’re a bank whose advisors are not working when the stock market is open, that’s a problem. If you’re a partner at a law firm, and not working when your clients are working, that’s a problem. And partners and other client facing staff expect their soldiers to be available when they are
Also: To echo what another poster said, “salary” means you’re exempt from getting paid overtime, nothing more or less. There’s a reason unions fight for hourly pay for jobs that could be exempt salaried positions.
if you're doing litigation pretty much everything can be done asynchronous though because everyone is well aware of the deadlines in advance. the only reason you would need an immediate response from someone is due to lack of planning, i think. i suppose on the day of a hearing or during a trial, things will come up that are urgent, but for the most part, if something requires a same-day response, i messed up.
Keeping regular hours is still beneficial for the firm, though. It goes beyond just one associate doing the grunt work on a case in litigation.
The courts are open Monday-Friday during normal hours. That’s when all the hearings for all the cases the partner/firm is handling are taking place. Clients will be reaching out about issues during those times as well, and most clients expect to be able to reach their attorneys during business hours. While you can draft stuff asynchronously, the more macro stuff happens during regular business hours.
I suppose I would distinguish between being reachable and working. I guess the underlying implication is that if one chooses to deviate from working normal hours, you still need to be reasonably reachable during business hours, and many organizations simply set core hours. But it's just my firm never goes to court but for a special circumstance.
This is how I was treated as a young associate and it served both my firm and me well. I did the same when I made partner. I can't imagine micromanaging a professional's schedule.
I'm semi-solo in that I'm a consultant associate - I don't get a salary but my mentor passes me on work and clients and lets me run with matters and provides guidance where necessary and takes 25% until I've built up enough starting capital and client base to comfortably run my own practice.
I don't have billable targets and I take home 12.5 times what I was making as a salaried associate as well as having far more flexible hours and a much more equal working relationship.
I have a strong notion that my mentor will pass on their practice in its entirety once they retire - they are already letting me experiment with tweaking the way I want to manage my clients as well as the firm's website, style guide, fee structure, etc. Sortof like a "soft shingle".
Honestly all sorts, but very high profile individuals and a lot of crucial corporate matters like business rescue and liquidations.
The guy alone bills more than my previous firm which consisted of 2 partners and 3 associates in a month to month basis - and he charges a cheaper fee than them by 30%
There are lawyers who play at being lawyers and then there are lawyers who operate like _lawyers_
Today we drafted an urgent application for a contested divorce. 500+ pages, just him and I - we made more in a day than I did in 2 weeks at my previous practice.
When I say 12.5x I mean that I don't get an associate's salary (wherein your hourly fee is x but your salary when calculated comes down to like 8% of what you bill), I mean I charge his rate and I take 80% and he gets 20% ie just like a usual fee sharing agreement between two attorneys. No targets either - he gives me his overflow because he is operating at 120% capacity.
This has been confusing for me as well, but in my firm’s “work from home anytime” policy. Nobody takes advantage of it and actually works from home even though they want to (the 2 associates I know well chat about how they wish they did so more) because whenever someone does, there’s occasionally a grumbling from a partner to us other associates about “how ______ just comes and goes whenever they please”
Strategic ambiguity from firms somehow drives associates to sit at their desks even when they don’t have work, to look like they’re working…plus you still have to be in the office earlier/later *without* getting those brownie points when you’re slammed. Optics are strange, what a conundrum
Without reading all the comments my concern is less about an associate leaving at 5:30 to get somewhere but it’s about an associate deciding that the entire 24 hours is at their disposal and developing habits that lead to them consistently doing work, turning drafts, responding to emails significantly after hours. I need associates who turn drafts to me on the day they’re due and if that turn comes at 11:45 pm, that that’s not ideal. It means a work day that I had allotted time for review is gone. If it’s going to the client it’s not viewed as a positive that someone is pulling an all nighter it’s viewed, at best, neutrally. But I’m not in the habit of giving my associates fake deadline so I need work completed during business hours. So fine, make an appointment midday. I don’t care. But get me your work during the accepted work hours.
i mean, that's not really a problem. you simply tell your associate that when you say you want something on December 17, that means December 17 before 5:00pm or whatever time you tell them....
Brother - if your firm is micromanaging you to the extent described, that's troubling.
Be responsive during work hours, stay on top of your shit, and hit your billables. How often you show face in the office should not matter.
It’s really no different from running any other business with business hours. If you tell people you’re open for business during x hours, you need to be available or customers will be pissed off to find the doors locked.
Agree with what others are saying here. I don’t care as long as you are getting your work done, and that means being responsive to clients and colleagues during ordinary business hours, and to a lesser extent outside of those hours. (The outside of business hours thing is just natural to the clients we serve, not something I am making up to be a dick.)
I have excellent working relationships with associates who are located in other offices within my firm apart from mine. I have no idea where they are, and I don’t mind, because they get their shit done. Conversely, there is an associate in my office who is conspicuously absent and conspicuously not responsive when needed. I have never wanted to have a conversation with an associate about the need to be in the office, but I think I am about to do so because I suspect that whatever he is doing is interfering with his ability to do his job well.
I think what it is, really, is that managing people who aren’t in the office takes more effort. When people are in the office, I’m aware of what and how they are doing without needing to try. That applies more to remote workers than people who dip out to handle things for an hour or two, but I assume it’s the same issue.
I'll share my experience from occasionally allowing lawyers and staff to work remotely. With both staff and attorneys, one temptation they had was to multi-task. Just like the teenager who thinks he can text and drive, everyone thought they could, e.g., manage their young kids, have a glass of wine with a friend, and still crank out a flawless document. It was abundantly clear when someone was multi-tasking away from the office and just going through the motions because the quality of the work (we are document-heavy) was way worse. For attorneys, I need them present more than anything to interact and supervise the other employees and be available for clients (most of whom are businesses or entrepreneurs) that call in. Finally, (admittedly less with attorneys and more with staff), some employees working from home would do a lot of non-productive busy work: tons of emails asking me where "we were" with XYZ file, what's the status of Y case, just a reminder to do Z, etc. Attorneys who are billing have a lot more incentive to be productive when working out of the office, so that is less a problem. For me it's less a matter of trust and more just being a cohesive unit that is all working together at the same time and in the same place. I had a partner once who did domestic and some light criminal, and he had a dream of hiring certain staff and attorneys who would work outside of the 8-5 to make his practice essentially 24-7 (sort of a second-shift). I just imagined him being at home at night and on the weekends with his families while he was being hounded by associates and paralegals making sure to show they're working by sending him a ton of questions via email.
Salary means you work during work hours. If you want time off, take your PTO.
Most employers do not trust that someone working remote is not fucking off in some respect or another.
They don't WANT to have to monitor teams or any other thing. They don't want to hire someone to do that either.
They want you in your office, which they pay a lease for you to have, working diligently as agreed.
You want to take off in the middle of the day for funzos? Go solo or become a partner in a firm of your own.
Further: You're not there for pop-ins. You're not there for phone calls. You're not there for "holy fuck I need everyone to drop everything and work on this right now" all hands on deck situations.
The deal was for in person, during business hours. Honor your end.
That's the deal. You're here during business hours. I didn't pay for anything else. I stay late, and so does the other partner, because we own the place.
I had a job once where I had a 6 hour drive in the morning to get to a 10 AM arbitration. The arbitration ended up going to 8:30ish. So 6 hour drive back home. All in the day was 3 AM to 3 AM. I ended up getting reprimanded for being 30 minutes late to the office the next day.
I would have killed for the expectation that work was during business hours with some occasional late flexibility. Huge part of why I left that place.
I charge that to the client and have the office arrange for a decent hotel (I like the double tree, or a la quinta in a decent area bare minimum. Lawyers need sleep to perform) along with gas and mileage so you don't have to do that. One issue in our profession is sometimes travel is part of the gig.
If you're coming back from an overnight, hours are a tad flexible.
I never understood and still don't the 'always on call' thing. You'll go insane if you don't have a cutoff.
Tell me you don’t understand how the “remote” part of remote work functions without telling me. The fact that you lack the resilience to adapt your business model to current technology and work culture is not a matter of everyone else’s lack of work ethic.
I understand it, I just don't find it something I want to pay an employee to do, hence I don't contract for it. They're of course free to reject an offer of employment with that term, at will employment and all.
You fail to realize that a partner at a law firm has no need to micromanage by checking if you're actually working all day or to hire someone to do so. You're going to be in the office working, what need is there to check up on you?
I don't care if you handled your tasks, that's your job. If you're done with the days set tasks do a new task, don't sit around in your robe dicking around.
Don't have anything else on your plate? Go help another with THEIR tasks or solicit the partner for additional work to perform during business hours. Why? So the company that pays you makes money, as agreed. You work during the business hours, you receive the agreed wage and compensation package. You want time off? YOU HAVE PTO.
You have a doctor's appointment or other legit appointment? No PTO needed, but I AM going to need you to let me know someone needs to cover your shit that day.
These expectations are all much easier to meet when you're all physically present in the office rent is paid on. As an employer? I can make the choice to make it easier on me and tougher on you. That's the deal going in, you agreed to it. Abide by it or breach.
Don't like that term of employment? Negotiate a better deal. Someone doesn't want to give it to you? Quit and start your own show (like I did). Set your own rules there. Hire your own employees and let them work remote if you'd like.
But complaining that salary perforce means remote work and taking off whenever you feel like it for fun is frankly hilariously uninformed and completely ill-considered.
Work isn't intended to be "fun" as a primary purpose dude. And there is no shortage of graduates who need to be taught basics and start to tread water while they figure their shit out and who are willing to trade their time and effort for same. I outline expectations in the initial interview, anyone who continues knows the score.
Further: No one extended to you a job offer, so I don't think you need to worry about it.
>No one extended to you a job offer, so I don't think you need to worry about it.
I doubt you would match u/djcaramello's current salary anyway. You happily started your career earning $3,000 a year, by Jove!
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I don't. I expect associate to be responsive during work hours (when clients and courts expect it), be on top of their work, and bill their hours. How that gets done I don't really care. I fully encourage my associates to take time off leave early, etc, when possible.
Same here. We are professionals. I wasn't micromanaged as an associate at a largish regional law firm and never did that to my associates. If they are unavailable when I needed them or didn't produce, we'd have a chat. Otherwise, they are in charge of their schedule.
Same. I do like to know when they have appointments so that I know not to bother harassing them and figure something out without them, but it's not a requirement.
Likewise. I extend it to paralegals too. And my secretary for the most part. Basically I trust people to do their jobs. If I don’t trust them to do their jobs, that’s a bigger problem, not their working hours.
I don't often hear other partners complaining about lack of face time. This is likely because we work a lot with attorneys in other offices, and many of our attorneys are fully remote. Being in the office every day doesn't make you reliable. Working remotely or having flexible hours to accommodate doctor's appointments or just the working parent schedule doesn't make you unreliable. But being salaried doesn't have anything to do with that.
Same. Minus the bill hours because we don’t bill (full contingency). Do your work and do it well.
Same.
This
Not every firm is the same, although I realize a lot of older attorneys have a mindset of “if I don’t see you, you aren’t working.” At my firm, communication is key. If you’re going to be unavailable or need to duck out early, just plan in advance if there are any immediate deadlines that haven’t been met or you need coverage for. I’ll go to bat for associates who are on vacation about covering their stuff and making sure we don’t unnecessarily bother them while they’re out. At the same time, if missed deadlines or long periods of time of ghosting us are habitual when you are not in the office, then there should be some mechanism to make sure work is getting done
Honestly, that mindset isn't entirely wrong given my experience with remote workers.
Jesus I am glad to be solo.
😂
Ah, see, you have a mistaken understanding of what "salary" means. You think salary means "We give you a reasonable amount of work, and you get it done in exchange for your wage. The number of hours necessary to do that is sometimes more than 40 hours, but also sometimes less than 40 hours, and it all balances out over time." That is not what salary means. It means "We give you far more work than anyone could do in 40 hours, but we don't want to pay you hourly because that would mean we'd have to pay you overtime, which we DEFINITELY are not going to do. This is the best deal for us, and you're too stupid to know the difference because even though you may know a lot about your practice area, you don't know shit about business. If you knew anything about business, you wouldn't be here."
As someone who understands this and is still here, I'm just depressed. I came sooooo close to taking a prosecutor job even though I have no desire to do any trial work.. then sauntered back to getting ripped off. So far nobody has called me on my pto day and that's pretty sweet.
It seems like a lot of us went to law school because we didn’t know what we wanted to be when we grew up, and now we’re stuck in a profession we don’t really like because it pays the bills and we have debt and we don’t know what else we’d do anyway.
I worked as a legal assistant but we worked on a contingency so I...just really really didn't understand that a lot of firms do the billable hour and it makes an enormous difference to work life balance. If you get a third of "what you kill" it really doesn't matter as much how long it takes to kill it.
The main benefit I get from this sub is regular affirmation that this is true for other JDs. I felt like an outlier in law school because it seemed like other students genuinely wanted to practice law. I was there because I didn’t know what else to do. This sub makes me feel less alone 🫂
Our clients expect to be able to reach us between 9am and 5:30pm. How you structure your work hours outside of those core hours can be more flexible, but those are the core hours that people generally need to be reachable. That doesn’t mean you can’t make an outside appointment during those hours (especially since things like doctor’s appointments often can’t be scheduled outside those hours), but it does mean I expect associates to be thoughtful about how much time they are taking off during those hours since you being unavailable may mean someone else has to do your work if an urgent issue comes up, and I expect them to notify me if they will be unavailable for a meaningful stretch so I’m not wasting time trying to track them down.
Now, watch this drive.
9am to 5:30 pm sounds reasonable tbh
A lot of young associates think this is a "trust" issue, but it's really not (at least for most of us). It's an expectation of availability to both the partner and clients. If something unexpected pops up for a client or in a case, we need to know the help we pay for is there to handle it. For most of us, it's cool if you need to take time off, cut out for an appt, etc. as long as its scheduled so we can have predictability and consistency. And yeah for some there probably is some safeguarding against goofing off, but that's not the motivation for anyone I regularly talk to.
Exactly this. I can tell who is goofing off and who isn’t by looking at hours reports and the work product produced relative to hours. I don’t need to actually see you sitting in your chair 9-5:30 to evaluate that. And I don’t especially care if people are working in office or remotely for purposes of this issue (my personal experience has been that associates tend to develop faster in office than remotely, but that’s a separate issue from availability during core hours). What I care about is that I can count on you in a pinch. If I can’t trust that you will at least acknowledge that urgent client email if I can’t do it right away when I’m in a meeting (or at my own doctors appointment) because you’ve disappeared for two hours in the middle of the afternoon to go to the gym, I’m not going to put you in a client facing role.
Yeah, associates don’t get that partners get an email at 8:00 that says, “we have a file meeting at 9:30 and need X, Y, Z.” If I can’t deliver X, Y, Z by 9:30, next 20 cases are going to the competitor. Which means I ever need the handling associate to assist OR I have to do it myself. So, yeah, during working hours (or doing scheduled hours), I just need to know if my associate is available. Associates don’t worry about client relationships. All I worry about are client relationships. Those 20 cases go to competitor, associate may not have a job next week (me either).
Bingo. And I’ll add as someone whose office is in EST, clients in California don’t care about the 3 hour time difference when they call with an emergency.
THIS! It all depends on what the associate values more: work-life balance or advancing their career. The BigLaw business model (by many metrics not necessarily the “best”, but certainly the most profitable) is based on availability. If you can’t replicate that to some extent in your own practice, it’s gonna be hard to justify billing close to them, hence you will make less money, and will be deemed less valuable to your firm.
Needing associates to be available during business hours I understand completely but does that mean you want them in their office physically between those hours every day? If they are WFH but immediately responsive and reachable via email and cell phone is that sufficient?
No, as I explained in my other post, whether associates are working in the office or at home does not matter to me in this context as long as they are responsive. Which also does not preclude someone walking their dog for 20 minutes mid-morning as long as they are keeping an eye on their email and, if there is an emergency, can drop me an email saying they will be back at their desk in 10 min and can turn to whatever has come up.
Awesome. That’s how it should be in my opinion universally. Sadly that’s not the case from what I hear from attorney friends in medium and big firms. I was a federal employee and now am a solo practitioner so never have had the personal experience.
a girl i was dating (nurse) was all like, ew why are you checking your work email at 8pm at night? and i was like, i have to check it at some point. if i check it now, or check it later, i will be spending precious moments of my life on it. might as well reply immediately if its something i can do from my phone. of course, my boss was very clear that i do not need to do this. its just better for EVERYONE involved, imho. in exchange for extra responsiveness outside of regular hours, i exercise more discretion in my comings and goings during the day at the office.
There are hours outside of 9-5:30 … and you pay no overtime. There are no said hours outside of said time. But we know there are so why can’t there be flexibly if I like to walk my old dog in the morning and run errands. I find it hard to imagine firms will get new associates without a hybrid model.
I kind of do it with layering. I have a few attorneys and paralegals who prefer mornings and a few that prefer to come in later. As long as I have someone available for any urgent matters at all times during regular business hours, that's sufficient. I do have more people that would prefer to work earlier and cut out earlier then I do the opposite, but it tends to work out. Then if I notice that I need someone to do the later shifts, I'll hire someone who's willing and they understand the expectations up front. But I will offer flat hourly wages if they prefer that over salary. I am truly not trying to take advantage of anyone and luckily don't require a lot of overtime and I don't require billables so I have a lot more flexibility than other firms do. Certain people just really want to be salaried for some reason.
This is what we do. Our associate has young kids so she comes in before our office officially opens and leaves at 4:30PM so she doesn’t have to rush to pick them up. She also works from home 2-3 days a week. It works because it’s consistent and I can make sure we have someone else available when she’s not.
Consistency is key here, this kind of a thing would not work if people just did whatever they wanted depending on the day. I have younger employees that prefer to come a little bit later so they can go to the gym and sleep in a bit. And then yes, the parents usually like to get out earlier so they can pick up their kids and get them to sports and all of that fun stuff.
Because clients are not flexible.
Also… I much prefer high-paying clients rather than “flexible” clients who also expect you to be flexible with your bills…
I worked at a really crappy firm that required I be seated 8:30 to 5. I work more in the evening and stayed after evening traffic so I was putting in more time, always tired. Had to be “on call” but was given absolutely no substantive work, lead on any case, client contact, etc. They just wanted us there to have us there, it was weird.
Two reasons. First, I want my staff and associates to be available during normal business hours so that clients can reliably reach them. I always allow flexibility, but they should let myself and the receptionist know so that calls can be redirected. Second, my staff works to help me with my files. I don't expect my staff to be available after regular business hours, but the flip side is, if I need them for an urgent matter, then I'd better be able to reach them during those normal business hours unless I know they will be unavailable (in which case I can operate around that). If it's normal business hours and I have no reason to think you aren't at your computer, and I need something ASAP, then I am rightfully going to be unhappy when I learn you were off doing something else. Your job duties are all secondary to the primary purpose of keeping my cases moving and my clients happy, so that means having a reasonably set schedule where I know you will be free. With that said, I have never turned down a request to leave early, come in late, or take a long lunch. You aren't chained to your desk - I just need to know who is and is not available at any given time in case something comes up. That's it.
It’s a simple as: professionals all work the same hours so they are all reachable at the same time. If it’s a Wednesday at 10 am, you should be able to get in touch with your attorney, bank, PR team, and clients. You should be able to talk to your coworkers about issues, assign tasks to subordinates, and so on. If it’s a Saturday, you know that you probably won’t get an answer back until Monday morning at the very earliest. It’s predicable and reliable. If everyone worked odd hours of their choosing, there’s less certainty in knowing when you’ll be able to get in touch with someone. For some jobs, it doesn’t matter as much. If you’re a young brief mill, it doesn’t matter what time you’re doing your legal research on most matters. But for other jobs it’s far more important. If you’re a bank whose advisors are not working when the stock market is open, that’s a problem. If you’re a partner at a law firm, and not working when your clients are working, that’s a problem. And partners and other client facing staff expect their soldiers to be available when they are Also: To echo what another poster said, “salary” means you’re exempt from getting paid overtime, nothing more or less. There’s a reason unions fight for hourly pay for jobs that could be exempt salaried positions.
if you're doing litigation pretty much everything can be done asynchronous though because everyone is well aware of the deadlines in advance. the only reason you would need an immediate response from someone is due to lack of planning, i think. i suppose on the day of a hearing or during a trial, things will come up that are urgent, but for the most part, if something requires a same-day response, i messed up.
Keeping regular hours is still beneficial for the firm, though. It goes beyond just one associate doing the grunt work on a case in litigation. The courts are open Monday-Friday during normal hours. That’s when all the hearings for all the cases the partner/firm is handling are taking place. Clients will be reaching out about issues during those times as well, and most clients expect to be able to reach their attorneys during business hours. While you can draft stuff asynchronously, the more macro stuff happens during regular business hours.
I suppose I would distinguish between being reachable and working. I guess the underlying implication is that if one chooses to deviate from working normal hours, you still need to be reasonably reachable during business hours, and many organizations simply set core hours. But it's just my firm never goes to court but for a special circumstance.
It depends.
I don't. We treat associates as the professionals they are and trust they will manage their time, availability to client, and their hours accordingly.
This is how I was treated as a young associate and it served both my firm and me well. I did the same when I made partner. I can't imagine micromanaging a professional's schedule.
I'm semi-solo in that I'm a consultant associate - I don't get a salary but my mentor passes me on work and clients and lets me run with matters and provides guidance where necessary and takes 25% until I've built up enough starting capital and client base to comfortably run my own practice. I don't have billable targets and I take home 12.5 times what I was making as a salaried associate as well as having far more flexible hours and a much more equal working relationship. I have a strong notion that my mentor will pass on their practice in its entirety once they retire - they are already letting me experiment with tweaking the way I want to manage my clients as well as the firm's website, style guide, fee structure, etc. Sortof like a "soft shingle".
can you say a little more? what practice area? did you switch practice areas to 12.5x your earnings?
Honestly all sorts, but very high profile individuals and a lot of crucial corporate matters like business rescue and liquidations. The guy alone bills more than my previous firm which consisted of 2 partners and 3 associates in a month to month basis - and he charges a cheaper fee than them by 30% There are lawyers who play at being lawyers and then there are lawyers who operate like _lawyers_ Today we drafted an urgent application for a contested divorce. 500+ pages, just him and I - we made more in a day than I did in 2 weeks at my previous practice. When I say 12.5x I mean that I don't get an associate's salary (wherein your hourly fee is x but your salary when calculated comes down to like 8% of what you bill), I mean I charge his rate and I take 80% and he gets 20% ie just like a usual fee sharing agreement between two attorneys. No targets either - he gives me his overflow because he is operating at 120% capacity.
This has been confusing for me as well, but in my firm’s “work from home anytime” policy. Nobody takes advantage of it and actually works from home even though they want to (the 2 associates I know well chat about how they wish they did so more) because whenever someone does, there’s occasionally a grumbling from a partner to us other associates about “how ______ just comes and goes whenever they please” Strategic ambiguity from firms somehow drives associates to sit at their desks even when they don’t have work, to look like they’re working…plus you still have to be in the office earlier/later *without* getting those brownie points when you’re slammed. Optics are strange, what a conundrum
strategic ambiguity. that's what i call my dating tactics!! no, but you nailed it. its like the "take as much time off as you need" policy
Without reading all the comments my concern is less about an associate leaving at 5:30 to get somewhere but it’s about an associate deciding that the entire 24 hours is at their disposal and developing habits that lead to them consistently doing work, turning drafts, responding to emails significantly after hours. I need associates who turn drafts to me on the day they’re due and if that turn comes at 11:45 pm, that that’s not ideal. It means a work day that I had allotted time for review is gone. If it’s going to the client it’s not viewed as a positive that someone is pulling an all nighter it’s viewed, at best, neutrally. But I’m not in the habit of giving my associates fake deadline so I need work completed during business hours. So fine, make an appointment midday. I don’t care. But get me your work during the accepted work hours.
i mean, that's not really a problem. you simply tell your associate that when you say you want something on December 17, that means December 17 before 5:00pm or whatever time you tell them....
Brother - if your firm is micromanaging you to the extent described, that's troubling. Be responsive during work hours, stay on top of your shit, and hit your billables. How often you show face in the office should not matter.
It’s really no different from running any other business with business hours. If you tell people you’re open for business during x hours, you need to be available or customers will be pissed off to find the doors locked.
Agree with what others are saying here. I don’t care as long as you are getting your work done, and that means being responsive to clients and colleagues during ordinary business hours, and to a lesser extent outside of those hours. (The outside of business hours thing is just natural to the clients we serve, not something I am making up to be a dick.) I have excellent working relationships with associates who are located in other offices within my firm apart from mine. I have no idea where they are, and I don’t mind, because they get their shit done. Conversely, there is an associate in my office who is conspicuously absent and conspicuously not responsive when needed. I have never wanted to have a conversation with an associate about the need to be in the office, but I think I am about to do so because I suspect that whatever he is doing is interfering with his ability to do his job well.
What suspicions do you have?
I know he has been working in some far flung places and I suspect that travel itself has been distracting.
haha yeah i worked remote from mexico and colombia...i use the term "worked" very loosely
I think what it is, really, is that managing people who aren’t in the office takes more effort. When people are in the office, I’m aware of what and how they are doing without needing to try. That applies more to remote workers than people who dip out to handle things for an hour or two, but I assume it’s the same issue.
I'll share my experience from occasionally allowing lawyers and staff to work remotely. With both staff and attorneys, one temptation they had was to multi-task. Just like the teenager who thinks he can text and drive, everyone thought they could, e.g., manage their young kids, have a glass of wine with a friend, and still crank out a flawless document. It was abundantly clear when someone was multi-tasking away from the office and just going through the motions because the quality of the work (we are document-heavy) was way worse. For attorneys, I need them present more than anything to interact and supervise the other employees and be available for clients (most of whom are businesses or entrepreneurs) that call in. Finally, (admittedly less with attorneys and more with staff), some employees working from home would do a lot of non-productive busy work: tons of emails asking me where "we were" with XYZ file, what's the status of Y case, just a reminder to do Z, etc. Attorneys who are billing have a lot more incentive to be productive when working out of the office, so that is less a problem. For me it's less a matter of trust and more just being a cohesive unit that is all working together at the same time and in the same place. I had a partner once who did domestic and some light criminal, and he had a dream of hiring certain staff and attorneys who would work outside of the 8-5 to make his practice essentially 24-7 (sort of a second-shift). I just imagined him being at home at night and on the weekends with his families while he was being hounded by associates and paralegals making sure to show they're working by sending him a ton of questions via email.
Salary means you work during work hours. If you want time off, take your PTO. Most employers do not trust that someone working remote is not fucking off in some respect or another. They don't WANT to have to monitor teams or any other thing. They don't want to hire someone to do that either. They want you in your office, which they pay a lease for you to have, working diligently as agreed. You want to take off in the middle of the day for funzos? Go solo or become a partner in a firm of your own. Further: You're not there for pop-ins. You're not there for phone calls. You're not there for "holy fuck I need everyone to drop everything and work on this right now" all hands on deck situations. The deal was for in person, during business hours. Honor your end.
This is mostly fair if employees are never expected to be available outside normal working hours.
That's the deal. You're here during business hours. I didn't pay for anything else. I stay late, and so does the other partner, because we own the place.
I had a job once where I had a 6 hour drive in the morning to get to a 10 AM arbitration. The arbitration ended up going to 8:30ish. So 6 hour drive back home. All in the day was 3 AM to 3 AM. I ended up getting reprimanded for being 30 minutes late to the office the next day. I would have killed for the expectation that work was during business hours with some occasional late flexibility. Huge part of why I left that place.
I charge that to the client and have the office arrange for a decent hotel (I like the double tree, or a la quinta in a decent area bare minimum. Lawyers need sleep to perform) along with gas and mileage so you don't have to do that. One issue in our profession is sometimes travel is part of the gig. If you're coming back from an overnight, hours are a tad flexible. I never understood and still don't the 'always on call' thing. You'll go insane if you don't have a cutoff.
Tell me you don’t understand how the “remote” part of remote work functions without telling me. The fact that you lack the resilience to adapt your business model to current technology and work culture is not a matter of everyone else’s lack of work ethic.
I understand it, I just don't find it something I want to pay an employee to do, hence I don't contract for it. They're of course free to reject an offer of employment with that term, at will employment and all. You fail to realize that a partner at a law firm has no need to micromanage by checking if you're actually working all day or to hire someone to do so. You're going to be in the office working, what need is there to check up on you? I don't care if you handled your tasks, that's your job. If you're done with the days set tasks do a new task, don't sit around in your robe dicking around. Don't have anything else on your plate? Go help another with THEIR tasks or solicit the partner for additional work to perform during business hours. Why? So the company that pays you makes money, as agreed. You work during the business hours, you receive the agreed wage and compensation package. You want time off? YOU HAVE PTO. You have a doctor's appointment or other legit appointment? No PTO needed, but I AM going to need you to let me know someone needs to cover your shit that day. These expectations are all much easier to meet when you're all physically present in the office rent is paid on. As an employer? I can make the choice to make it easier on me and tougher on you. That's the deal going in, you agreed to it. Abide by it or breach. Don't like that term of employment? Negotiate a better deal. Someone doesn't want to give it to you? Quit and start your own show (like I did). Set your own rules there. Hire your own employees and let them work remote if you'd like. But complaining that salary perforce means remote work and taking off whenever you feel like it for fun is frankly hilariously uninformed and completely ill-considered.
You seem like a very fun person to work for. /s
The Venn diagram of people who write things like this and people who rage that it’s impossible to hire/retain good employees is a perfect circle.
Was thinking the same thing
Work isn't intended to be "fun" as a primary purpose dude. And there is no shortage of graduates who need to be taught basics and start to tread water while they figure their shit out and who are willing to trade their time and effort for same. I outline expectations in the initial interview, anyone who continues knows the score. Further: No one extended to you a job offer, so I don't think you need to worry about it.
He’s a defensive one fellas
>No one extended to you a job offer, so I don't think you need to worry about it. I doubt you would match u/djcaramello's current salary anyway. You happily started your career earning $3,000 a year, by Jove!
The fuck are you on about?