Job Survey, Politics, Pro Bono

Associate Life Survey: Poll Positions

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We received 836 responses to Monday’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on whether you’ll be volunteering your services on Election Day, and the results are pretty remarkable. Over 40% of practicing attorneys who took the survey said that they would be helping out:

  * 23% will be working as election monitors.

  * 11% will be staffing call centers.

  * 7% will be members of a legal response team.

  * Another 7% are still deciding whether to volunteer.

Law students are even more active, with 46% planning to work as election monitors, 6% staffing call centers, and 9% supporting a legal response team.

Interestingly, Obama supporters were much more likely than McCain voters to spread their time around for Joe the Voter, with 30% working as election monitors (vs. 15% of McCain voters), 12% staffing call centers (vs. 4%), and 9% working in legal response teams (vs. 5%).

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Formal law firm support also had a pretty substantial impact on attorney participation in next Tuesday’s efforts, especially among attorneys staffing call centers:

  * At firms counting the work as billable time, more than two thirds of attorney respondents will be volunteering their services (31% as poll monitors, 30% in call centers, and 7% in response teams).

  * The percentage of volunteers drops slightly, to 60%, at firms that consider the work pro bono but non-billable (31% poll monitors, 18% call center staff, and 11% in response teams).

  * But at firms that give no credit at all, only 34% of respondents have decided to volunteer on Election Day (24% as poll monitors, 2% in call centers, and 8% in response teams).

Quite a few firms will be giving credit. 27% of respondents said that they can indeed count their service toward their billable hours, including associates at Cleary Gottlieb, Cooley Godward, Davis Polk, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Goodwin Procter, Hogan & Hartson, Katten, Kelley Drye, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham, Morgan Lewis, MoFo, Orrick, Paul Hastings, Ropes & Gray, Shearman & Sterling, and Skadden. Another 12% of respondents will count their work as pro bono, but not billable time.

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That said, though, roughly a third of respondents said that their firms would not be providing any credit for volunteering next week, and about a quarter of you weren’t sure.

In addition to firm support, there’s quite a bit of peer support going around. More than half of attorney respondents noted that their firm colleagues were also volunteering next Tuesday. 41% said that both partners and associates were pitching in, while 11% said that other associates were signing up, but not partners.

Actual participation may be even higher though, as 38% of respondents weren’t sure whether other attorneys at their firms were getting involved. Only 9% of respondents said that neither their peers nor their partners would be volunteering next week.

So, overall, it looks like next Tuesday’s going to be a pretty quiet day at the office. Probably a good day to do some volunteer work. (You can still sign up here or here.)

—

Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.

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