el firsto!

First to say good morning MoFo!

This is a fair request. An unfair request would be to have a time associates should arrive each day, not tell associates it, and then ding them on a performance review for coming in "late."

If you read between the lines, it seems this is a subtle hint that if you show up "late" every day, it's going to be a basis for a negative performance review, and a potential stealth layoff, or hint that it's time to leave the firm....

i'll start kash's day at dawn. god she's beautiful.

Wow, another public memo from a firm that HAS NO WORK.

Back when some of us really practiced BIGLAW, rolling in at 10:00 was no problem since we were at the office until 3:00 a.m. before.

These firms are in trouble.

My day starts when the sun is up.

- Rutgers Camden 09/Lawn Technician

I arrive at 10 am ready to roll into the firm bathroom. I bill increments while poring over WSJ articles about my client.

That's how we roll, MoFo!

Totally fair by MoFo - associates are making the big bucks to roll in at 11am, except for extenuating circumstances (appointments, just pulled an all-nighter, etc.). This isn't about "face time"; its about being a professional and showing up to work. Can't believe, especially in this economy, that anyone with a Big Law job thinks they have the right to complain about this. Get up and get cracking, people!

I am ready to roll every morning when I post Dune references to ATL.

~Unemployed and in $250,000 debt

"If it WAS up to me..."

Eew.

Of course, if associates had a union, we wouldn't have to worry about showing up on time.

Facetime at a Cali firm?!?
they don't even pull this shit at Latham!

Hey Charlie, why don't you quit writing BS memos like this one, get off your ass, and go out and get some more clients? People don't come into the office because there is no work to do. So why get in early just to surf the web -- its not like the internet closes at five o'clock. Start cutting partners that can't produce business, rather than create a facetime regime.

The good thing for MoFo is that the firm will be able to start using arrival times to justify coming stealth layoffs.

Get ready for it MoFo associates -- you are about to be on the street.

Just like governments, law firms should be managed at the local level. Each partner is responsible for a handful of associates. Why is the managing partner directing all the associates to show up by 9:30 when some of those associates may work for partners that don't arrive until 10:00? It is the same way in "firm holidays" and "vacation days". When you have a minimum billable requirement, it doesn't matter if the firm gives you unlimited amounts of vacation, because if you miss your expected hours, you will be more than able to take all the vacation you want when you are fired.

Associates are quick to figure out when clients and/or partners call them regularly at 8:30 a.m. and they aren't around to answer the call. It means the associate needs to start showing up at 8:29 on a semi-regular basis and 8:31 on the other days.

All this memo says is, Mr. Kerr is in at 8:00 a.m. and he wishes others were there to share in his miserable existence. He's upset he's the one who has to get the kids ready and take them to daycare at 7:45 so they can eventually end up in therapy because their dad was never around.

Comment removed by moderator.

Wow, I'm a big firm partner and that's the dumbest email I've ever seen

I would never work for this guy. Judge me by my billable hours and what my clients think of my work, not by the amount of time I sit at my desk. What an antiquated concept.

Those MoFo associates who fail to heed Kerr's message will be in line for Bearer's massage.

I like that he used "rolling in" properly.

Ugh... one of the ONLY perks of being a billing professional is the ability to get your work done when you want (other than scheduled meetings, court appearances, etc.). If I want to take off on Friday and work all day Sunday, does it really matter as long as the draft Motion due Monday is finished and turned in on Monday? Precisely. Facetime is just a professional way of saying adults - nay, PROFESSIONALS - are being treated like children. Heaven forbid individual MoFo associates be addressed on an individual basis, rather than punishing the whole for the abuses of a few.

So, if I'm on the West Coast in MoFo's mothership, I have to show up at 5 am to be at the office at 8 am EDT?

Fuck that shit.

20

Unfortunately, I think you are correct.

~MoFo associate (will be rolling in at 8am on the dot from now on)

I'd rather stick my head in a Gom Jabbar than work at MoFo.

Dude, take an English class---"If it WERE up to me...."--subjunctive mood, expressing doubt.

24, that really sucks. Silver lining: the memo didn't say anything about not still being drunk from the night before, though....

I just put my secretary in a subjunctive mood after I pounded her in the ass for 15 min.

12 -- I guess you don't have to know what the subjunctive tense is to be a partner at MoFo.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSER. Charles Kerr smells like the Goodwill store.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSER. Charles Kerr smells like the Goodwill store.

Comment removed by moderator.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSER. Charles Kerr smells like the Goodwill store.

27

I can roll in at 8 am but I close my office door and read classic literature like Dune or surf the Internet and post Dune references until I get called by my partner or a client.

Another MoFo associate

new and novel?

12 -- I guess you don't have to know what the subjunctive tense is to be a partner at MoFo.

I take it telecommuting is out of the question?

Take note ATL. I expect your first post at 8am now damn it!

I was working until 1 AM last night, and came in at 8:30 AM today, because my work schedule demands it (he says, while posting on ATL). Other times, I've rolled in at 10:30 and bailed at 3. My performance reviews are positive and nobody has mentioned a thing.

This is policy that will allow MoFo to cull female associates. Associates, and in particular female associates, by virtue of the fact that they are simply younger than partners, often have younger children and thus morning child care responsibilities. Therefore, these female associates will be more often found in violation of the Kerr Facetime policy. Then they will be more likely to be fired, which is apparently what MoFo wants.

MoFo found a great way to use this policy to get rid of unwanted/part time female associates in a downturn. More firms will adopt this policy as a seemingly gender neutral way to eliminate women from the firm.

"Again, this begs the question: "in the office and ready to go" do what? "

People really don't know how to use this phrase...

If you have to come in at 8:00, does that mean they have to pay you over time if you stay past 5:00?

"... but he would still like to see people hoping up and down in their offices bright and early."

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one "hop[e] up and down"?

"... but he would still like to see people hoping up and down in their offices bright and early."

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one "hop[e] up and down"?

Elie, who the fuck wants to see people "hoping up and down" in their offices?

I REMAIN yours,

QR

"hoping up and down"? I didn't even have to read the byline.

I can't find a job, and THIS TOOL is offering asinine policies about when to arrive at work. What's next, the memo about what to wear to the office?

Comment removed by moderator.

get with the times people. If it WAS is now accepted standard english. if it WERE is now relegated to the formal, like thee and thou

This is ridiculous. There is a quid pro quo here - if an associate is expected to be at work during non-business hours, such as every night past 6pm and on weekends, associates should be entitled to use their discretion and come in late when they know nobody will be contacting them early in the morning.

Frankly, I've never had a client ever contact me earlier than noon. The first thing a client does in the morning is not call his lawyer. They usually do that at the end of the day, typically around 5:59 pm, especially on Fridays.

I think I like the Progressive Insurance ad more than the Dealbreaker one.

50, you've never had a client call you before Noon? Wow, unless you solely work on international transactions, that's pretty pathetic.

Strange. Why should anyone in Biglaw be at work at 8 a.m. when the partners normally demand 6 hour assignments at 6PM on Friday?

"hopping"

This is not about face time, it's about paid time off accruals. If you want to be nice and flexible, or take your half day or your Friday, you'll have to put it down. One, that will be raising your hand to say you're underworked and ripe for a layoff, and two, when canned, the amount of PTO they have to pay you (especially the Cali employees), will be less, if you've taken more time.

In the world of goofy managing partner e-mail, this seems pretty tame. Asking spoiled biglaw associates to drag themselves to work by 9:30 is reasonable.

"reply upon our colleagues"?

The tone of his e-mail -- esp. reference to jumping jacks at 8 a.m. -- rings more like a jocular plea for professionalism than a manifesto for face time. Doesn't seem that out of line to me. I've seen far worse out of the MoFo NY partners.
-- MoFo SF Associate

Huh?

"I respect that, as professionals, we are able to manage our own time"....so therefore I am writing a letter stating how you have not been able to manage your own time and am now managing it for you....

Why is this a big deal? Partners at K&L Gates expect their associates to be at the office whenever they need them--before 8 am, after 9 pm, and on weekends--even when the partners themselves can't drum up enough work to keep the associates occupied. As succintly put by one bastard: "Your time belongs to me, I paid for it."

Kids are great. That's one of the best things about our business, all the kids you get to meet. It's a shame they have to grow up to be regular people and come to the games and call you names.

I've never heard of this firm.

41- my thought exactly.

Apparently it doesn't take too long to forget. (See http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/a_disturbing_note_from_villano.php)

Just yesterday, a partner in my office (in senior management) was noting the empty offices as he walked the halls at 9:45am, asking, "when the hell do people come in nowadays?" If any associate feels he or she may be on the chopping block, I would suggest face time is important (arrive before 9am). I can picture the review now (poor work ethic, arrives late and takes long lunches.....). It may not make a difference if you're in the office till 10pm - if you don't hit your hours, your late office arrivals could help speed your doom.

Sorry about that- the hyperlink caught the parenthesis

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/a_disturbing_note_from_villano.php

- 63

"get with the times people. If it WAS is now accepted standard english. if it WERE is now relegated to the formal, like thee and thou"

You are a bad person.

12 = snob

Elie goes to work at 8:30am? But doesn't "work" just involve waking up, stuffing down a couple donuts, and turning on the computer?

So...the firm can make you stay at work till all hours of the night, but demand you show up early in the morning? I say I'llget in early if I can leave at a reasonalb ehour - which doesnt happen. Can we get comp time for the late nights and weekends spent working? This guy is a**hole.

41: you're right.

Again, this begs the question: "in the office and ready to go" do what?

Elie, you supposedly Ivy League educated turd, this DOES NOT "beg the quetion." Do a quick google search and learn how to use this phrase.

It may "raise" the question, but it doesn't beg it. From your article (and abundance of past mistakes), it's a surprise you are ever got passed junior college.

55: Or you bill an hour or so of time from home and leave the rest of the day unaccounted-for, as I routinely did in BIGLAW.

I worked for someone like this (before being laid-off). Absolutely maddening. If I got in past 9 a.m. (which I frequently did by 1-45 minutes...you know, something about frequent late work in our profession and getting stuff done when the clients want it--didn't matter if I emailed a bunch of documents to him at 5 a.m. after a longish night, or got up early and got emails out from home at 7 a.m.), he'd say something to me about it passive-aggressively. Didn't matter that he wasn't always there by 9 a.m., just that I was, in case he "needed" me.

I don't miss that part of the job. The paycheck, on the other hand...

Kerr is right on point. As munch as I hate to admit it...he's a self-righteous blowhard, but the day should start no later than 8:30. Anyone who comes in late at CP&S is given opne warning, and then fired the next time for performance reasons (also the excuse we use to lay-off the fatties.) No tubsters here at CP&S. Don't be an entitled d-bag Mystal, fact of the matter is these people work for a boss, and it is not up to these associates to make the decisions. If you only get into work in time to "do the work you have" then you will never be available for more.

By "my day starts at 8:30" Mystal means, "Krispy Kreme opens at 8:30."

Really? It's hard to be at work at 9:30 am? And to think, I'm here before 7 every single day - including Sunday.

64: That's the problem, late arrivals is a symptom of the problem that said partner is not getting the work for the associates to do, which, to be fair, is itself a symptom of the bad economy. That said, it's more honest to terminate someone and attribute it to the state of the economy than what many firms are doing--laying it at the feet of the associates for their "poor work ethic."

I used to work at MoFo. It's a total sweatshop, and this email is typical of the attitude of the partnership there.

That said, the associates should respond by requesting clarification as to when the work day ends, since the Firm has declared that it begins at 9:30.

Actually, dorks, he should have said, "Were it up to me . . . ."

Actually, dorks, he should have said, "Were it up to me . . . ."

Agreed 64. In this economy, everyone needs to straighten up and fly right.

This type of memo is necessary because a small but significant minority of junior associates roll in at 10 or later on a regular basis. That IS disruptive to partners and senior associates that need information, questions answered, etc.

My firm is very flexible, and although it isn't a 9-5 job, the only facetime expectation is from about 9:15 a.m. to about 5:30 p.m. It is completely up to you whether you do extra work in the early morning, at night or on the weekend. I've NEVER had a partner call my number and expect an immediate response before 9 or after 5:30 without advance warning. It amazes me the number of very junior attorneys that can't show up in the office during normal business hours on a regular basis.

Oh, and clients do call regularly shortly after 8 a.m. and it is nice to call them back before 9:30. It seems like most of my in house counsel contacts (outside NYC) work from 7:30 or 8 a.m. until about 4:30 or 5 p.m.

Here is a tip for partners like Chuck Kerr. If you really want to monitor associates without inconveniencing yourself to get to the office before everyone else, hire a receptionist to come in at 7:30AM and then have her dial every associate's extension at 8:00AM. Have the receptionist make a note of who does not answer their extensions at 8:00AM. This way, when it comes to terminating unmotivated associates, you have documented evidence of tardiness. My firm tried the email check in system years ago, however, this technique is flawed in that associates can email utilizing Outlook Web Access from remote locations. Try the receptionist technique. You are welcome for the advice.

WHAT A MEAN OLD KERR

I'll show up when I damn well please, and if I get even a second glance from you, you will rue the day. Whether I'm surfing the web at home or at the office is irrelevant. Oh, and make sure the coffee is fresh. That crap you brewed at 7am isn't going to cut it at 10.

"jumping jacks"???

GET ON YOUR FACE AND START PUSHING, MAGGOT!!!

oh partner emeritus, you are clearly "emeritus." havent you ever heard of call forwarding? i can tell you my V10 firm has it.

Charles Kerr can suck balls. Jumping jacks in the lobby? What an asshole?!?!?! Why don't you focus your energy on bringing in clients or stressing that point to your partners, Douchebag! Glad you are in NY and I'm in SF.

When Elie has an orgasm, he ejaculates jelly doughnuts.

"I've NEVER had a partner call my number and expect an immediate response before 9 or after 5:30 without advance warning"

This might be the dumbest thing I've ever read, back when I was a lowly first year, I would guess 90% of my assignments came after 5:30....no one left the office before 7:00, and even that was a luxury.

Associates need to go on the time clock just like the rest of the staff. Give them a card to punch. It will be the most creative and useful thing they do all day.

The ship be sinking...

I need to be at work between 7:30am and 8:00am. My in-house job requires me to perform certain tasks before the markets open at 8:30am Central Time. Posting comments at ATL about Hardcastle and McCormick takes up the rest of my day.

This comment is addressed to post no. 86.

I don't know what non-peer firm you work for, but at my firm we use a sophisticated AVAYA phone system which has a main switchboard (for you simpletons it is the machine by the receptionist desk with all the little bright lights) that monitors what extensions have the call forwarding feature in use. Nice try but no escape there, at least not at my firm.

PE, call forwarding foils your system.

Partner Emeritus must really be a receptionist.

I am not going to be doing jumping jacks in the lobby. Any passers by would think I was from Boston Legal if I were hopping in my office. I will have some dignity in my life.

Every client that I have knows that as a single male parent, I take my kids to school in the morning. They also know I cannot be disturbed; I am available 24/7. All have my cell and home numbers, and I welcome their calls at any time. I routinely get client calls at 7 a.m. or 11:30 at night. Many of my e-mails are sent out in the wee small hours of the morning.

If some dumb ass partner is walking around taking attendence, it borders on pathetic. Why aren't they hopping in their offices or doing jumping jacks.

This was an unfortunate memo from an unfortunate man. Mr. Kerr, do you shower after your jumping jacks (and are thus unavailable to clients) or are you just a pig all day?

Comment removed by moderator.

Comment removed by moderator.

MoFo (the non-legal-world meaning of that term) is the label for Kerr. What an idiot! If I were his partner, I'd be making him do jumping jacks and hoping (his sic) to keep HIS job ...

... because if I were his partner, I'd have associates that I would NOT want to hop and jump to please Kerr, but rather to answer the bell when clients call ...

... which as others have noted can be 24/7 and make it IDIOTIC to have to be in the office every morning for Kerr to see.

I am so glad to be gone from the hall monitor mental cases that pollute far too many big law firms.

As an in-house lawyer, I would pull my work from MoFo and tell it that Kerr is the reason. (I want my outside counsel to be professionals, not baby-sat by hall monitors.) But we've not been stupid enough to place work with MoFo in the first place.

89 -

We're obviously not currently at the same firm.

I should have added that I started at a firm where a partner would regularly give me assignments at 7 p.m., to be completed by the next morning, and I wouldn't want to have found out what would have happened if I hadn't been there to take the 7 p.m. call. Of course, at that firm, there was no problem with junior associates rolling in late either. We were all there, all the time.

Maybe the problem here is that junior associates that started here don't know how good they have it, and there partners are all too nice to encourage a healthy amount of fear.

Still, it shouldn't take a whipping to make professionals understand that they should generally be in the office during normal business hours.

-81. (very happy senior associate)

I wish I could put my face in between PE's creamy white thighs.

Jimsey

Do any attorneys here (ones who still hold jobs) regret going into law? What do you wish you had done instead?

Why couldn't the man just tell them to show up at 9:30 am? Not unreasonable if you want clients and such to *think* you're a busy firm. But why write a retarted memo admitting to being a douchebag wanting employees doing jumping jacks at work at 8?

"Hi. Charles Kerr here. I don't want you to see your kids in the morning. Instead, I want you to hire people to drive your kiddies to daycare. Costly, I know and it's not like we have a lot of work. But there's a good reason, I promise - you will need this extra time in order to be in the lobby of our building by 8 am every day. What's going on every day in the lobby at 8 am? Jumping jacks! Why? Because I'm a douchebag. Regards. CK"

You guys are idiots. The duty to generate businesss does not fall solely on the shoulders of the partners. If you have nothing to do until 11am GO FIND SOME WORK. Don't sit at home and bitch that the partner that is about to fire you couldnt find something for you to do. Don't know how to generate business? Well from the sound of things you've got a lot of free time on your hands, figure it out.

"Again, this begs the question: "in the office and ready to go" do what? "

Everyone can use the time to work on the new cover sheets for their TPS reports.

I have been practicing for 18 years, and have recently witnessed this phenomenon - younger lawyers showing up for work at 10 or 11 am, and believeing that this is acceptable behavior. It is not.

Being a professional does not mean you have the unfettered right to be at the office only when you please. Partners, clients and other associates should not have to chase you down (whether by email or various phone numbers) to find you when you are needed (this is very selfish and narcissistic). What do you do if a client calls you and needs a letter drafted immediately, an important question answered quickly, or a provision in a document analyzed in 10 minutes? It is unprofessional (and very frustrating for the client) if you are not available during office hours.

If you do not have work to do, it is your own fault. Why not write an article, or offer to give a CLE, or study an area of the law that is busy now (bankruptcy)? Or, heaven forbid, try to market yourself - call your friends and network, go to lunch, or organize a netwrking function yourself.

104

Kind of hard to have free time if you're playing Civ IV from 4 am in the morning until 8:30 am when you start getting ready and then get to work at 11 am.

No, 104, Kerr is the idiot.

He claims to be a professional, but he acts like 99 says, a hall-monitor.

If he has kids, they're blessed that he's not around much to micromanage their lives. Any associate/counsel/partner dependent on him for his/her job has my sympathy. However, each needs to summon the courage to tell him he's an a**hole, and to stop micromanaging.

104: Who said late arrivals are sitting at home? Or that they aren't trying to generate business? And last I heard, you don't get clients by doing jumping jacks in a lobby. Douche.

109 - give me a break. you are a douche eating douche.

Stop your bitchin’, there is no there there. This is a perfectably reasonable request. My firm requires us to maintain face time between 9-3:30, whether we come in before 9 or leave after 3:30 is up to us and the exingencies of the circumstances. Of course if you work till midnight the night before, you are not expected to be in at 9 am. Don’t be stupid. So, there is no work, all they are asking is for you to sit on your butt and refresh ATL all day for a pay check, what’s so hard about that?

BS, 104. The duty to generate business falls solely on the partners. They are the firm's sales force. And these salesmen at MoFo can't sell.

Very few associates in Biglaw generate any business, and certainly no business that Biglaw is interested in. (What!?, whaddya mean MoFo won't accept my personal injury client on contingency?) No associate in Biglaw generates enough business to keep him working at Biglaw salary.

104, You are clearly a MoFo partner that doesn't have any business, and is now casting blame on associates because you can't do your job and sell. Loser. Now get out of the office and find some work. Sitting in an office is for closers.

Kerr writes: "In light of this, it is very important that folks get to work on time. If it was up to me, that would mean jumping jacks at 8:00 a.m. in the lobby. I am not sure, however, that I have convinced everyone that that is the right approach."

I respond: Kerr is NOT SURE that he has CONVINCED EVERYONE that that is the right approach??????????

If I were a MoFo partner reading those words, I would want to go to Kerr's office and tell him that if he was NOT CONVINCED before, he should be now ... namely, that I think he is an IDIOT! And that he needs to apologize to me and the rest of his partners for insinuating that perhaps most of not all of us agree with his ASININE opinions that are now plastered all over the ATL site and who knows where else.

Then I'd lobby my partners to dock Kerr's pay and ... for good measure, to have him spend every morning from 8a to 9:30a leading jumping jack classes in front of the building ... for a week. Rain or shine.

What an ASS!

106, get real. If you go to lunch or network, you are not in the office. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of jumping jacks?

And sure. As an associate go out and get work. You can. Say you're working on a stock purchase agreement for your client, but the partner wants you for some "immediate" due diligence or to research whether a partnership requires two persons. Who wins and who loses the client?

For what it is worth, I have word at home and fax and pdf capability. And many times the client is served better when I am at home concentrating than when I am disturbed in the office or hunting down somebody who can fax something for me.

112 - You will never make it as a lawyer if you continue to believe that. The way you make partner is to demonstrate that you can and do generate business. Since this must be proven prior to making partner, when would you suggest learning how to generate business?

77 is right. If MoFo wants to establish a start time for the workday, it is completely reasonable to also establish an end time for the workday.

This is why whitecollar workers need protection under the FMLA!! This is abuse. Employers don't own you no matter what your salary is.

112- Not a MoFo partner. Not a partner anywhere actually, just someone that wants to keep his job and have something to fall back on in case I lose it. Many firms do expect you to generate business as an associate, and not so long ago most firms would evaluate your book of business when considering you for partnership. It went out of vogue when everyone was closing billion dollar deals but the times they are a-changin. -104

Amen, 113. If Kerr's partners in NY agree with his insinuations about them, they'll deserve the disasters that are coming their way with hall monitor attitudes like his.

If his NY partners don't agree with him, I hope for the sakes of the good lawyers (partners / counsels / associates) among them that those partners either get Kerr publicly to retract his idiotic words, or dump him as their managing partner.

As for any of MoFo's clients reading Kerr's words, shame on you if you don't threaten to pull your business from MoFo, for the unsaid part of Kerr's diatribe seems to be having associates in the firm pad or make up billable hours to keep his PPP numbers high.

114 - Don't be stupid. Your email is not persuasive. I believe you have forgotten an important thing - you are the employee; if you do not want to be treated as such, become an owner.

117

So associates have to start cold calling clients for business at 8 am? Why not say so?

Kerr missed the obvious; perhaps that's the quality of partner he is. He should have told us that the first prize was a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize, a set of steak knives, and third prize is, you're fired. That would have certainly motivated associates to getting business.

Instead, Kerr (and other partners) are using stealth layoffs instead of using this opportunity to drum up business.

Kerr's partners need to rein him in, or they deserve to suffer for his idiotic words.

Clients reading Kerr's words should wonder three things: (1) how much billable hours' padding Kerr has done; (2) how much billable hours' padding Kerr's attitude will cause associates to do; and (3) how soon they can place their business with a firm full of professionals instead of MoFo, whose partners have made Kerr the NY managing partner.

Kerr's partners need to rein him in, or they deserve to suffer for his idiotic words.

Clients reading Kerr's words should wonder three things: (1) how much billable hours' padding Kerr has done; (2) how much billable hours' padding Kerr's attitude will cause associates to do; and (3) how soon they can place their business with a firm full of professionals instead of MoFo, whose partners have made Kerr the NY managing partner.

104/115 :

The fact remains that very few associates, even senior associates, have any business when they come up for partner. Yet, senior associates are made partners all the time without any business. Thus, the criterion for advancement by senior associates is most certainly not a book of business. Rather, the criterion is most often: "Does this senior associate happen to work for a partner with an existing book of business that needs, and will support, another partner?"

When a partner says to the associate "Don't look to me for work. Go out and find some business" that really means, "I am partner, I am supposed to generate business for associates to do, but I can't do that. Therefore, I will blame you for failing to do as an associate what I can't do as a partner."

115, I have been practicing for many years. Don't try to BS me with your gung ho and unrealistic view of associate responsibilities for business generation. No Biglaw firm gets any meaningful business from its associates.

Now, 104, get off your ass and find some business for the MoFo associates.

112.

I like watching PE`s jelly roll when she does jumping jacks

I like watching PE`s jelly roll when she does jumping jacks

FWIW, the MP's email doesn't seem unreasonable in content or tone at all, and I'm an associate, not a partner.

I had a boss like Kerr a few years ago. She would record what time everyone she supervised came in every morning. If I was 15 minutes late, she would come to my office and ask for an explanation. I wasn't surprised at all when her boss decided she didn't have enough constructive work to do and fired her.

We got this same shpeal in a litigation dept lunch back in January. It's like "dumbass, we come in late because there is hardly any work waiting for us, it's annoying enough to have to web surf until 7pm, if we start getting in before 9am what the hell are we supposed to do?" And how often are clients calling at 9 am anyway? Go generate some more work for your associates and maybe they will feel motivated to come in early to get on it.

We got this same shpeal in a litigation dept lunch back in January. It's like "dumbass, we come in late because there is hardly any work waiting for us, it's annoying enough to have to web surf until 7pm, if we start getting in before 9am what the hell are we supposed to do?" And how often are clients calling at 9 am anyway? Go generate some more work for your associates and maybe they will feel motivated to come in early to get on it.

Being anal retentive and a micromanager doesn't work in a dying business model.

It's akin to flogging the workers so that morale improves.

Is there a high-billing associate at MoFo NYC with the balls to confront Kerr and tell him he's dead wrong?

That what Kerr has done is to make it seem to the outside world that many of his firm's high-priced lawyers are behaving like little wayward children who need a nanny (Kerr) to keep them in line?

If Kerr's goal was to lose some good lawyers who don't like being treated like children, I hope he succeeds, and that the good lawyers who leave MoFo because of attitudes like Kerr's have happy and profitable landings elsewhere.

Mofo-NY partners are completely oblivious to the abysmal morale of associates, as evidenced by this hatch-job of an email. Sad place to work these days.

I wonder what Kerr's day is like. Doesn't sound too appealing to me.

Leave office: 11 p.m.
Sleep: 1 a.m.
Wake 5 a.m. Pop Viagra. Wait hour for semi-erection.
6 a.m.: Sex with wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, escort, hand or all or any of the above.
Leave for work: 6:15 a.m.
Arrive at work: 7:30 a.m. Begin hopping.
7:55 a.m.: e-mail associates re: jumping jacks.
9:30 a.m.: jumping jacks done, troll the halls noting who is late.
11 a.m. to 3 p.m.: troll again to see who has left for lunch and check time of return.
3-5 p.m.: Management Committee meeting re: associate hours, performance reviews, inculcating firm culture.
5-7:30p.m.: Cocktails with big client.
7:30 p.m.: call associates with day's assignments.
8-11 p.m.: Write "firm wide" memos; do time. Billable hours 11.8.
11 p.m.: repeat

120: if cold calling is the best you can do then maybe your first few mornings would be better spent learning how to generate business. I just want people to show some damn initiative. I’ve seen nothing in these posts but people with six-figure salaries complaining that they shouldn’t have to show up for work before 9:30. Half of them say its cuz they just don’t wanna be in the office and the other half say its cuz they don’t know what to do with themselves without someone hand feeding them work. I think both are pretty sorry excuses. If you want to keep your job, show-up when the boss tells you to. And better still, find something productive to do while you are there. I've made my suggestion.
-104

123 - 104 and 115 are not the same person. I am a partner at a large firm and every associate that comes up for partner is reviewed based upon his/her ability to generate business. If the associate does not have the skills to generate more business from existing clients or to generate new clients, he/she will not make partner. Period.

Also, it does not matter who is to blame for no business because the result is the same - the associate gets fired. You may be in the right, but it is you who now gets to stay at home all day, not just til 11am.

133, LOL!

But one thing's wrong. Viagra surely ineffective ... and no mate stupid enough to find out.

I imagine that associates can be in at 9:30 am, or still working at 9:30 pm, but not both. Although it raises the question - if an associate generally starts her days with a round of emails, and she has a firm Blackberry with which she can accomplish that particular task as well as with a desktop computer, what difference does it make whether she is in the office from 9-10, or on the subway, or in Starbucks?

133, LOL!

But one thing's wrong. Viagra surely ineffective ... and no mate stupid enough to find out.

So annoying and stupid. It's all based on the billable hour, who gives a FUCK when and where you do it. Jesus christ. Sorry Kerr, but that email has just marked you as an out-of-date DINOSAUR. The legal world is passing you by. 75% of associate and partner work can be done via telecommuting. Fuck it, do it all by telecommuting and save on office space. I know Kerr has never had to take his kids to school, or wait for the cable guy to come, or any other thing that women, or hell, most Gen-X or Gen-Y men do on a frequent fucking basis. So now wonder he is a FUCKING CLUELESS HAS-BEEN. Now go do some jumping jacks you used-up wrinkly piece of shit.

137 - why not both??!! If the work that needs to be done takes more than 12 hours in a day, you damn well better get it done, even if that means staying past 9:30pm.

Old fogey partners: today's massive offices and in-office working hours are on the way out. They are way too expensive, commutes waste too much time, and both have little value-added for that cost over allowing attorneys to telecommute. The biglaw office of the future will be much smaller than today (conference floor, some secretarial, mail, IT, etc. space, and a few floors of rotating offices to be "assigned" just like conference rooms to attorneys on deals who need it). You might as well get used to it sooner or later; in 20 years people will laugh at all the stupid money wasted on 100,000sf prime real estate leases and pointless "face time". Instead of worrying about where your employees are, try and focus on what is more important: how well they are doing their job. And don't give me the line about how hard it is to track an associate down--we get your emails ASAP and your phone calls can (and should) be redirected immediately. Whether I am 2 floors away or 2 miles away should hardly matter. Sure, it's "nice" to talk things over in person, but that is a completely different issue and not nearly so important to base your entire business and employee strategy on.

This e-mail (and the attitude it reflects) seems anti-parent to me. I have a young child who I have to drop off at daycare every morning. That entails lots of preparation (sippy cup washing, diaper gathering, clothes cleaning, breakfast, etc.). If I have to work until 7:30 pm on a regular basis, when am I going to get this stuff done if not in the morning?

139 - I am Gen X and I believe you need to be in the office during office hours most of the time. Why should your employer have to adjust his work methods to accommodate your idealistic notions of work/life balance?

12, "if it WAS up to me" is correct.

See the Wiki re "were":

'WERE' is a verb - plural form of was, which is past tense of the verb am/is/are which is part of the "state of being" verb "to be"

I am or I was
You are or You were
He/She/It is or He/She/It was

They are or They were

12, "if it WAS up to me" is correct.

See the Wiki re "were":

'WERE' is a verb - plural form of was, which is past tense of the verb am/is/are which is part of the "state of being" verb "to be"

I am or I was
You are or You were
He/She/It is or He/She/It was

They are or They were

142 - I don't care about your personal problems. Hire a nanny.

Interesting to read the Neanderthal comments of Kerr's supporters here. They likely don't have any business to share with associates either. If they did, they'd know that the 21st Century associate comes in all shapes and sizes, and doesn't need to have face-time every day to be successful ... especially when things are slow, and it's summertime.

If those Kerr supporters are representative of other biglaw partners with power, in NY or elsewhere, good luck to all the associates at their firms.

Any smart MoFo associate reading this story and the comments should be realizing all the more clearly how unfortunate it is to be a MoFo-NY drone ... and how important it will be to get out of MoFo-NY at the first opportunity, to practice law as a grown-up.

That's it, isn't it? Kerr doesn't think his office's associates practice law as grown-ups. His office's clients should demand refunds or huge discounts to minimum wage, since Kerr seems to think it's staffed with peon children, not adult professionals.

All the ladies in MoFo NY should be sure to email Kerr when they will have to come in late due to morning gyno appointments. Make sure that's ok, you know.

If you manage Generation X or Y and haven't realized that you manage them by results not by method, then you shouldn't be a manager.

I wonder how much vacation Kerr takes?

The associates he's dumping on probably don't take all they have been promised, and he probably takes a lot ... and thinks he's entitled to it because he's the massah and they're his slaves....

Those slaves ought to be uprising.

Just sayin'

145 here, same to 29 and 35. "if it 'were' up to me" is archaic and Bryan Garner (who I wasn't a fan of until recently) would agree with me. stop being such douchbag snobs.

Kerr seems to be under the mistaken impression that he is the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

All that is missing is his enforcer, Count Hasimir Fenring.

I'm sure that Fenring will enjoy counting heads at 8 am every morning at MoFo.

146 - Caring for your child is not a "personal problem." Biglaw is demanding. If parents of young children can't find accomodation at a great firm like MoFo, then they will leave. I'm pretty sure that is not what MoFo wants.

This comment is addressed to post no. 142.

If you want to be a parent, open a day care center or find a job that revolves around your schedule as a parent.

At my firm, your parental duties cannot interfere with the duties that you are charged with as an associate.

60 is right: This guy has the right to demand timely arrival as they can rightly say "Your time belongs to me, I paid for it."

When I left my clerkship, the judge I worked for put it another way by giving the following advice: “if you don’t regularly arrive before your supervising partner and leave after he’s done for the day you will be seen as lazy and will never make partner.” I’ll admit that I’m in small law, but with as bad as the economy is and with the pandemic of lay offs aren’t associates on such a short leash that they should be volunteering to do jumping jacks. If a partner is looking for someone to do an assignment at 8:30 and that person isn’t at their desk, wouldn’t the partner just move down the list. Way to whine when you have no leverage.

The sense of entitlement in this post and comments is just sad. Repeat after me: “yes sir, yes sir three bags full”. And if you don’t want to be at your desk at 8:30 a.m. there are 10,000 laid off associates that will be for half the price.

135:

You are half-right. When there is no business, the associate gets fired. But lately, the partner also gets fired, or, if he or she is lucky, just takes a heavy hit to comp. Look at the Dewey partners making less than first years.

And, again, don't try to BS the board on how associates at Biglaw are evaluated for their supposed ability to generate business before they are made partner. If the partner that is supporting them is a big enough rainmaker, the associate is in without any real evaulation of his or her business generation skills. Don't think this is true? Ask if your firm has ever told a rainmaker that the associate that the rainmaker wants made up can't be a partner until that associate actually generates a independent book of business? Never happens. Instead, when the partners meet to discuss an associate's supposed business generation skills, they use a soft standard like "he or she has a good relationship with big client x."

Associates at Biglaw make partner really for only one reason: They happen to work for a partner with enough business who wants the associate to be a partner. Real business generation in the form of a requirement of the associate having a book doesn't figure in it at all, not at Biglaw. Maybe one can point to one or two exceptions, or point to smaller firms that have different standards, but not Biglaw. How much business did you have as a senior associate, 135?

123

135:

You are half-right. When there is no business, the associate gets fired. But lately, the partner also gets fired, or, if he or she is lucky, just takes a heavy hit to comp. Look at the Dewey partners making less than first years.

And, again, don't try to BS the board on how associates at Biglaw are evaluated for their supposed ability to generate business before they are made partner. If the partner that is supporting them is a big enough rainmaker, the associate is in without any real evaulation of his or her business generation skills. Don't think this is true? Ask if your firm has ever told a rainmaker that the associate that the rainmaker wants made up can't be a partner until that associate actually generates a independent book of business? Never happens. Instead, when the partners meet to discuss an associate's supposed business generation skills, they use a soft standard like "he or she has a good relationship with big client x."

Associates at Biglaw make partner really for only one reason: They happen to work for a partner with enough business who wants the associate to be a partner. Real business generation in the form of a requirement of the associate having a book doesn't figure in it at all, not at Biglaw. Maybe one can point to one or two exceptions, or point to smaller firms that have different standards, but not Biglaw. How much business did you have as a senior associate, 135?

123

Yes. Let's just all hire nannies, gardeners, maids, financial planners, etc. How stupid. A partner I used to work for paid a large portion of her salary to people so that they could do the day-to-day chores we are all saddled with for her. She ended up working to pay all the people who provided her services she could have just done herself with a more reasonable schedule.

142 - I have a spouse. Others have a nanny. Others find day care centers that accomadate their schedules and get their kids up early. I'm a father of two.

Look, its all about the damn billable hour. When I was in private practice, I would always maintain we never got any “vacation” since time off was obviously not billable. In fact, I stopped putting down admin time since it didn’t count either and I refused to request “vacation” when I wasn’t going to be in (I would just tell my secretary I wouldn’t be in the next day or whatever). If you bill your hours it doesn’t matter when you come in. But I urge you all to get out of private practice unless you have your own book of business and either go in house or join the government. The last thing you want to be is some 50 year old sad sack service partner who is given the boot when the going gets tough. There is nothing more pathetic then that.

It would be really cool if MoFo hired nannies for all the children of the associates. Let's call it a day care!

Oh wait... what is this?

http://www.mofo.com/news/pressreleases/pr559.html

Surely MoFo has not changed in the last few years?

Partner is another word for senior associate. I love all these freshly-minted 'partners' in my firm who think they've made it. Equity partner is true partnership and that my friends requires a serious book of business.

Agree with 160 & 162. I have seen several "service partners" get the ax when the business cycle heads into the shitter.

I can’t believe you guys are being so obtuse. Yes, I’m sure Kerr is concerned that you are not acting like grown-ups. Neither do I, because half the people here are naïvely complaining about having nothing to do. You may not want to do it, you may feel it is someone else’s responsibility, but if doing it means keeping your job then I think it’s a no-brainer.
Sure, as for the rest of you, sounds to me like you should just stop showing up to the office, do everything from home in your PJs and then piss and moan when you get fired by your “old-fogey” irrational boss. Maybe you’ll find a hip new firm of Gen-Xers that come in “all shapes and sizes” and don’t care if you sit at home all day because none of them have any idea how to generate business. It’ll work out though; they are good at all sorts of other stuff that used to be helpful.
And for the last time, I am not a partner.
-104

I guess what PE and others are saying is that if you want to parent your child, you can't have a career in biglaw. Fair enough.

Here's what a biglaw partner told my friend who has two young boys: Your partnership prospects look good. Just know that you'll be able to take fantastic vacations with your family in Hawaii but won't be able to coach little league.

Sad.

8am? that gives me less time to eat my girlfriend's vagina....

156/157 - I had $2MM+ as a 5th year associate. An economic event occurred that put most of my clients into bankruptcy, and my generation decreased to less than $500,000. I switched law firms and started to do work for institutional clients that (until very recently) had a very low probability of failure. I was credited with $2.2 - 2.5MM of annual business generation for the 3 years prior to making partner. That number has doubled in the 5 years since making partner.

I work in a law firm with more than 600 lawyers, and my numbers are not special. If the associates up for partner cannot show this type of business generation, they will not make partner.

40 - having a professional career is a choice. having a baby is also a choice. you don't get to pick both and whine when they conflict. toughen up and get to work on time. want to care for your baby? quit your job.

167 = fabulist

I should have gone to dental school.

So the question is answered in the affirmative. Mofo's work all day and night policy is anti-engaged parent.

167--I am in biglaw, and none of the newly minted partners for the past 5 years or so have generated any business. It's not how it works in most places. If that's how it worked for you, then good for you, I guess. But the standard at my firm to make partner, and the overwhelming majority of biglaw firms, is that you be a trusted 2nd chair and work for someone with lots of business. It is that easy and that hard. Period. I'm sick of hearing from naive law students who have big dreams of "business generation." The real big law firm world will eat you alive if that's what you think will happen. You are nothing but fucking law monkey, even after you make partner.

167 - 100% not true. Just show up at 8am to do jumping jacks and stay past 8pm, and you are guaranteed partnership.

172 - that is totally what has me ready to get out of this damn profession!! it used to be the push to partner that made life hell for associates, but as a senior associate looking down the hall the most crap falls on the junior partners who are being ridden by the senior partners for inefficient staffing, lack of originations, writeoffs, etc. I don't ever truly see it getting any easier, at least where I am now. No one is truly comfortable because there's always someone else's ass to wipe. Gdamn fucking law monkey forever.

Service partners do cold calling much better than naive and ill informed associates who cannot be bothered to roll in the office before 10:30 am.

Re: 123 and 135

In a way, you're both right. Senior associates are not promoted on the *existing* book of business, but on their *potential* book of business. If you've shown no initiative at all and just wait for business to fall to you from a partner, you stand a lesser chance of making partner than a guy with only a $100k book of business, but who's actively searching for more business.

Remember, the contacts and network you build while an associate will become more important to you years later when you're a partner.

In this way boutiques actually build a more well-rounded attorney because they are actively marketing themselves from the moment they join. As opposed to big firm associates, who only expect to be given work by a partner.

I'm not sure that attorneys with children should get preferential treatment regarding work hours, etc.. They chose to have children, and they get to enjoy the benefits of having children.

172- I dont have dreams of generating business, I don't have the first clue how to actually. I hope these guys are wrong. That said, I'm probably going to take their advice. If they arent giving me work then I'll try to find it myself, that may mean asking partners for work, asking to contact clients, cold calling, anything. Bottom line: if the firm doesnt need anything from me then I expect I will be laid off soon enough. Even if I used to add value a few months back, and I may be useful a few months down the line, if they are losing money, I'm probably getting fired right now.

177 -
What were those "benefits of having children" again???????

- mother of 2

This discussion about children and lawyers is complete muck! Fact of the matter is, if you are talented successful lawyer you are likely to selfish to be a good parent and thus should not subject a child to your poor parenting skills.

If you want to raise a family, become an accountant.

Where is Rogue Associate? I miss him.

Did Thompson Hine find out who he was?

179,

Are you trying to say that you regret having had children? I'm not buying it. I suppose you think you had children for the benefit of the rest of society.

179 -
Barriers against exceeding billable hour targets, guilt for late nights, tuition expenses, colds and nasty viruses, inability to travel or have sex where and when you want to...

-father of 4

"to selfish".... shame on you Denny Crane

TTT douchebag

It's about 4:30 and I just got into the office... Did I miss anything?

183,

If children are such a burden, why did you decide to have them? Or to continue after the first?

Nothing like having four children and paying for private school tuition on the salary of an underpaid fourth year associate.

Oh well. Let's blow their college tuition on Applebee's.

Surpised to read the attorneys on here complaining about their children. If they weren't a benefit to you, why did you have them??

@183 -

Oh, those benefits! ....new skills like driving to the airport at 75 mph while holding the breast pump in one hand and praying it doesn't slip/leak, or having to choose between being really, really late or just taking the sick baby to a pretrial conference (I took the baby - thank g_d for down-to-earth judges) or serious rocks, paper, sissors duels w/ the hubby over who has to take a conference call from home w/ the teething child, or driving an hour to spend 10 minutes ooohing and aaaahing over an elementary school project at 10:45 am with the other moms who have interrupted their manicures and gardening. Oh yeah, I have had the benefit of a lot of training on time management, juggling commitments and multitasking that I might not otherwise have learned.

@182 -
I had children because I couldn't imagine not having children. I gave up a biglaw partnership when the kids were toddlers because I was not personally capable of doing both and doing both well. However, I waited until my mid-30s to have kids and I'm really glad I did the biglaw thing first. Been there - done that . Now I'm inhouse in a much more "family friendly" place - where I really can leave at 5:15 and not look back until 8:30 am. And yes, I am a selfish person raising selfish, spoiled children whom I love immensely and who will probably grow up to be lawyers....

--179 (mother of 2)

@ 179/189 - your comments only strengthen my desire not to have children, as a woman who doesn't want to screw over either her career or relationship to bring more people into this overpopulated world. I'm still baffled, though, why you would choose to have children (or why you "couldn't imagine not having children") if you're pressed to figure out what the benefits of doing so are. Still, whether you think there are many benefits or few, I don't think that those of us who are deliberately childless in the biglaw world should have to pick up the slack for folks like you who made different choices.

189,

You wrote: "I had children because I couldn't imagine not having children. . . . And yes, I am a selfish person raising selfish, spoiled children whom I love immensely."

So it seems like there are benefits after all, benefits to you. The issue is that you want it all--that is, much more than most of the rest of the world has. You want children, an elite career and job, and an elite income that probably puts you close to the richest 1 percent in America (and surely in the world). This is probably true whether or not your husband's income is taken into account. You want all of those things, when everybody else usually has to go with less. Why are you complaining?

36 - it's "subjunctive mood," not "subjunctive tense."

You must be a Yale or Harvard grad.

- Darth Skadden

When I got laid off for "performance reasons" based almost entirely on one junior service partner's negative review, the underlying criticism was that I was doing business development as a junior associate.
.
At TTThat firm, under no circumstances should junior associates be doing business development work (unless it was deliver a partner's speech at the last minute). This disgusting slimeball of a junior partner (who walked around the hall without shoes and brought her disgusting pale children to the office to put their fingers in my diet coke while I had to sit there and tell her how cute they were) had never done anything in her entire career other than service the practice group head's single client. Nothing. Not a single cent of business generation in her entire life.

She did not let the associates talk to her low level contacts at the client, or even email them. My lesson, hard learned, is that the business generation is not important to making partner. But, it is vitally important to have some control over your life and not be the kind of pathetic, socially stunted, miserable reject who lives every day in mortal fear that something will happen that will change her big salary paid for exclusively by mooching off of someone else's client development skills.

See, I'm not bitter.

Dear Sir,
I'm the senior associate here until 10 pm every night so that you all can go home to your families (my husband? oh, you don't care). I'm the one up at 2, 3, 4 a.m. or all night getting the work done that comes in with unreasonable deadlines. I work later than the West Coast lawyers, and I often email the London office as they're getting to work. And to accomplish all of this, I need to sleep. So, no, I'm not going to kill myself to commute an extra hour or two with all of the other lemmings in the world just to be able to show you my face at 9:30 a.m. You, sir, are in all meetings all day. I'm doing the real work, talking to the client, assigning and reviewing the projects. I'll take my 7 hours sleep, and if I come in late, as long as it's done on time and well, I'll thank you not to complain any more about it.

Thanks,
The Laboring Oar

193,

You raise an interesting point in the last sentence of your third paragraph. I share your concern about being dependent on one (or a small number) of persons for one's livelihood. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this?

@190 -

I agree with you entirely. I chose to have children "before it was too late" because I had a pretty strong suspicion that if I didn't while I could, I'd regret it for the rest of my life (plus I knew when I married my husband that it was a package deal - he really wanted kids and is a really gread dad). I've never regretted my decision, and I think if I had chosen to remain childless I would have had regrets when I'm old. That said, I personally am incapable of handling the workload of a biglaw partnership (w/ accompanying business development & social obligations) and the inherent workload of being the kind of mom I choose to be. So I quit, stayed home for a year, and found a better job for my situation. We all make choices and choose to let different doors close in our lives. However, when I was in my 20s & early 30s I chose not to have kids, because I was wrapped up in my practice. If my biological alarm clock hadn't rung, I'd have waited until retirement to have kids...

It's unseemly for these biglaw attorneys to be complaining about their children. If you choose to have kids, you can accept another kind of employment. Sorry if it's not the high status, high powered gig you would prefer, but that I guess is the trade off. It's unfair for you to receive a preference versus attorneys who do not have children and it's also unfair for them to be burdened with picking up the slack.

Misery loves company. If the partners have to grind out their lives day after day shuffling papers under fluorescent lights, so do you.

195 - Well, it did not work out for me at the firm,so I may not be the right person to ask...Right now, I would forget you ever read this stuff and grip the rails until the layoffs have ended.

I ended up landing at a very good job doing regulatory consulting where 50% of my week is spent writing proposals and developing business. The goal is to learn those skills, then jump back in the game as a much more well-rounded businessman than my fellow associates (although the ones that are not at home laid off right now, admittedly, will be more experienced lawyers).

I just think that there is a different feeling you have at night when you are playing your own cards.

Sadly, this email is typical of MoFo's hypocrisy.

One side of the mouth: "Yes, we support lawyers with families and want to promote women and offer great opportunities based on merit only and allow anyone to work part-time and make women partners who have children."

Other side of the mouth: "We don't really care if your kid is sick or your partner is out-of-town on business or even that you want to SEE your children in the morning after working until 11 p.m. the night before. If you're not here in the flesh, someone else with a wife to take care of everything at home will be. Sorry - you're FIRED."

Thanks 199

Lest some of you young bloods get confused by C.K.'s avuncular tone and think that this is an announcement of a "going-forward" policy, it's probable that some of you have already been shit-listed for consistent late arrival and are on "probation;" expect a performance review that is an ecstasy of passive aggression and start filling out your unemployment forms now.

189: I'm female and was in BIGLAW with a newborn and it sucked. However, I shared the burden with my husband, also a lawyer, and had a fraction of the problems many of my lawyer-sisters had. Among him, me, and our nanny, there's always some kind of coverage. I noticed that you mentioned your husband once, but why on earth would you be the one responsible for going to court with a sick baby in tow? Is your husband taking similar hits to his career? And, honestly, risking life and limb in your car to pump? Is it really worth it? As to dashing out to "ooh and aah" over a school project, if it's that insignificant, just don't go. In other words, stop being such a martyr.

I'm writing this not to snark, but it seems to me that women in BIGLAW can't quite crack that ceiling because they're trying to be all things to all people all the time. The perfect lawyer, the perfect breastfeeding, school-activity-attending mother, etc. Dudes don't worry about that stuff (well, obviously not breastfeeding, but you know what I mean) and that's why they succeed. All too often, women willingly shoulder all of these responsibilities, only to resent it later.

As for me, I left BIGLAW for a small firm that does family law. I took a pretty significant paycut, but I leave at a decent hour, almost never work weekends, and actually like my job. As to the e-mail about arriving at 9:30, I understand the griping, but other employees, professional and otherwise, have it so much worse and for so much less pay that I can't take it all that seriously.

Most partners are gone by 7:30, so any work done after that time is irrelevant; it's a sad commentary, but it's true: the only work that counts at these places is the work that partners see you doing, or the work you look like you're doing when they walk by (there are a couple of partners in every firm who do jack shit yet have mastered the fine art of appearing incredibly busy; I'm sure MoFo has a few; take a lesson from them). It's all about perception, and if getting in at 9:30 and sitting there with your thumb up your ass until there's actually something to do gets you a big gold star from these people, why not do it? The job market is too crappy not to.

Amen, 77 and 116! Kerr is trying to renegotiate the terms of employment, and have it both ways. Does the firm want you in the office at certain hours, or on-call 24-7 no matter where you are? Clearly, Kerr and MoFo (if they do not repudiate kerr's statement) think the answer should be "both".

In other words, MoFo reserves the right to have you in the office at all hours, at any time, during the term of your employment.

Partners that leave at 7:30 pm probably work from home later.

I am a 13th year associate at a V20 - am I ever going to make partner? Can someone please give me some advice on how to make partner because whatever I am doing is not working!!!!!!

190,

Your life is pathetic.

You aren't picking up anyone's slack. You are probably a work hoarder.

You will have regrets later in life. Go back to your cats, and Sex in the City marathon, and I'll send you a Rabbit, if you don't have one already.

177,

Your disdain for those with kids is pathetic. Have fun with your anime.

208/209.

Your sense of entitlement is astounding. No one here has expressed disdain for "those with kids." The issue is with those who choose to have children (with all the very personal benefits children bring) and then complain about how difficult it becomes to maintain their high class status in society--or then demand special considerations at work that are not granted to their peers who do not have children (and thus do not enjoy the corresponding benefits, compounding the unfairness).

I can't deal w/ all the whining here. I routinely put in 22 hour days, the general mantra at our firm being "you can sleep when you're dead". We do keep changes of clothes in the office and use hand sanitizer to clean up as needed. Sleeping - well, we have to _eat during our two-hour breaks so that takes up _some chunk of time... but for what it's worth they _have given us special dispensation to sleep on our desks as needed.

Billable totals, as you can imagine, are through the roof. WE'VE GOT WORK ! But this was only after major layoffs, stealth and otherwise. You could say they're cracking the whip, and that they feel they're in a strong position to do so (where else are we going to go?) but, hey, WE BOUGHT INTO THIS SYSTEM WHEN WE STARTED ! They DO subsidize trips to photography studios where you can get a life-sized two-dimensional rendition of yourself to prop up in your house to at least give your kids (assuming your sperm have not been fried by radiation from your cell phone or computer) the ILLUSION that you're there. We have one of the largest stockpiles of Ramen noodles in the city.

OK it sounds Dickensian etc. but what else have we got ? I DO want to make partner at some point (though there are now four tiers to partnership, the first starting at 12 years out of LS, and each with increasing levels of "equiti-ness" - well, more accurately, levels of "capital investment sans equity" leading to a pinnacle at Tier 4 where equity is forthcoming if you engage in unsavory acts w/ one or more executive ctee members), and our two-hour breaks are often the only time we have to do client development, give talks, attend seminars, etc... but the ball-bustingest, monliest legal ninjas who WANT THAT BITE AT THE APPLE will, by golly GET IT !!!

They _are sending bad vibes to some of us 22-a-day-ers that stealths might be around the corner on "performance" bases - something mumbled about possible outsourcing to an elite handful of English-speaking contract attorneys in Russia - so we _do each try to get an extra edge vs our peers with surreptitious backstabbing (e.g., imparting flu or other virus to a "colleague" via bathroom hand towels, etc.) and other politicking (you should see some of the flyers we distribute with compromising shots from security-challenged flops' MySpace pages or sex tapes) etc... but all in all the MONLIEST BALL-BUSTING NINJAS can and do WIN !!!

210,

For our sake, please don't have kids. Thanks.

210,

"high class status in society." That is funny stuff. A law firm associate. High class. You're a whore! That's all buddy. A paper pushing whore.

204: Bingo. My life became much easier once I learned that perception is everything at these places.

Look at it from Kerr's perspective. He is the managing partner of the New York branch of a San Fran firm. His partners and associates in NY are refugee laterals that were desperate enough to consider a firm like MoFo. No clients, no business, frustrated by the Californian "lifestyle" firm policies. Everday he sees deadbeats strolling in at 10 am, 11am, spending their day on the internet and gossiping in the kitchen/bathroom/hallway, before turning in piss weak timesheets at the end of the month -- and he is not sleeping because the office is losing money everyday. So he writes the memo which is the start of a major cull. Fair enough. The partner cull will be even bloodier - that is where the real problem is. Too many lame deadbeat partners who have no business sense and no idea about business development.

190/210

You have major disdain issues about children. Really big disdain, and it is expressly all over this board.

As an in-house counsel with beautiful 9-5 hours, I actually DO expect that the attorneys my company pays $400/hour for will be available during regular business hours. Via telephone. First thing in the morning - when I have an email in my inbox from our Asian subsidiary and need to ask you a question.

So if any of you reading actually have clients, quit your b**ching and moaning and just don't work so late the night before. Go home, sleep, and finish it in the morning. It ain't rocket science.

My god you entitled associates piss me off.

"Start times" are for jobs with "quitting times." How about some associate walks up to jack-off-senior-partner at 6:30 and yells "quitting time, fuckface"

217 - You had me until "don't work so late." You might have skipped private law firm practice, but associates generally can't just up and leave when there is work to be done. Particularly if the partner hands you the project after 6pm.

You stupid mofos deserve your fate.

And this is why I decided to start my own practice rather than go with the group I worked with at my former (now dissolved) firm. I make less but I have a life and I do exactly as I please. Much to that.

I wish Mike Judge would make a movie about law firms...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzJI08YUNik

167,

BS on your $5m book of business not being special.

Or, you can decide to ignore your kids like one associate at my firm. You won't see your kids grow up, and your wife will hate you, but hey, your "committed" to the firm.

197,

Do you know what unseemly means? Do you actually work in a law firm?

Weird. At my law firm they're called side straddle hops, and we have to be there at 0630. To each his or her own, I guess.

167 - you are full of shit.

213 - Whether you like to admit it to yourself and others, if you are an attorney at big law you are probably well in the upper classes - professional degree dealing with the levers of society, a lawyer no less, educated at one of the top institutions in the world, with an income in the 95th percentile (at least) of the United States and in the 99.9999999999999 percentile of the world. You're used to your power, and have rarely felt powerless, so you don't even recognize it.

This is issue is a lot simpler than people will acknowledge. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Period. You guys are driving yourselves crazy because you're unable to accept that simple truth.

Biglaw is not a job. It's not a career. It's a way of life.

If you want other things in your life (like any healthy, balanced individual would), it's going to be virtually impossible to achieve in Biglaw. The system is not set up to allow individuals to nurture anything other than the furtherance of Biglaw. If you try, you're more than likely going to be frustrated, bitter, driving yourself crazy or resented by others who have sacrificed so much of their life for Biglaw.

How many of you actully know HAPPY biglaw associates or partners? I know one. He absolutely loves his job. He's a major rainmaker and lives for the big deals. He's excellent at what he does. How great of a husband, father or general human being he is is more up for debate. Those things, like the practice of law, require time and energy, and when you're pouring all, or the vast majority, of your time and energy into the practice of law, it leaves little time or energy for anything else---family, friends, hobbies---whatever it is that feeds the soul and not merely the bank account and ego. Will he look back on his life when on his death bed and think he chose the right path? I highly doubt it. I wouldn't want to be him, and he's the only one I know that even appears happy.

What about everyone else? There are those that still maintain the illusion that they can please all the people all the time. They can be the perfect Biglaw associate/partner, father/mother, friend, etc. And they're frustrated that this doesn't seem to be the case---they're exhausted and unappreciated. And feel guilty on top of it because there is an urban legend about someone out there "making it all work".

There are those that have sacrificed the family, the children, the spouses and who are greatly enraged and bitter at those choices, feeling that they were not made voluntarily but forced into it due to the demands of Biglaw. It's a bitter pill to swallow to realize that your marriage is gone, your children hate/don't know you, you feel empty despite all the supposed "success". You feel like you did everything that was asked of you, made the sacrifices and still ended up losing somehow. Perhaps you breakdown under the weight of acknowledging the fact that you made so many of the wrong choices. Perhaps you rage against those around your instead (sound familiar? a more senior associate, partner, colleague? I think we all know some of these people) demanding that they make the same sacrifices to balm the wound of your own poor choices. If you can't have a loving marriage, children, meaningful pursuits, etc., why should they, right?

What used to be more women's issues, like life/work balance, raising family, etc., are become more general people's issues as more men want to be active in their children's lives and the 1950's model Biglaw is based upon isn't working anymore as the men and women of today are getting further and further away from the 1950's.

So what's the answer? Just don't have a family. Sure, for some people that may be a satisfying solution. But that doesn't solve the problem of not having enough time for yourselves. Because whether you have a family or not, you're going to want to invest time and energy into meaningful pursuits and Biglaw doesn't generally allow that. So being single or childless doesn't really solve the problem either, though you can more easily self-righteously rage against those horrible people that want to be parents or invest in meaningful pursuits in addition to being in Biglaw (190, I'm looking at you, among others).

The answer is simply this: leave. Biglaw is fundamentally broken. The idea of such significant sacrifice for 7-8 years as an associate used to make sense when the brass ring of partnership used to mean something. But now it doesn't. It's a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. If you want a life outside of Biglaw, you can't work in Biglaw. Because it's not a job, it's not a career. It's a way of life.

You guys are driving yourself nuts because you want Biglaw to be other than it is. You want it to give a shit about people. Associates want partners to care, at least to the extent to allow them to have a life outside of Biglaw. Partners want the same from other partners and their clients. But they keep doing the exact opposite---working themselves to their own detriment. The only way it's going to change is when people force the change. When associates/partners refuse to be fully expendable, to give their lives over to what should only be a job/career. When you guys care more about yourselves, your spouses, your children, meaningful pursuits than a big paycheck, ego or whatever it is that keeps you in Biglaw. Until that time, nothing will change. Resent, bitterness, rage and despair will continue and grow. More people will slide into depression, drugs, alcohol, etc.

Especially given this time, wouldn't you guys have rather taken a 10-20% cut in salary to not have to worry about layoffs? I know I would. Sure, you get paid less, but there would be no need to worry about losing your job, colleagues randomly disappearing and you could enjoy the downtime more freely (instead of these asinine emails like this one from MoFo). I know I'd rather make 25% less and work 25% less hours. An 80 week becomes 60; a 60 hour week becomes 45. A billable maximum too, instead of only a minimum. Sounds like heaven.

In the end, it's all up to you guys. It's your choice. And your choice alone. Be accountable. Accept your choice, whatever it is, rather than rage against reality. If you aren't where you want to be, figure out a way to get there. It is scary and uncertain--an unknown path. Figure out what's truly important to you, and the choice won't be that hard, even when the path is obscured. I only hope it comes before the divorce, the kids that hate you or don't know you, the mental breakdown, the heart attack, the suicide. Because those things are much harder to recover from than Biglaw.

229 - Thought provoking post. It would help me digest it if you would define this thing called Biglaw. What are its key characteristics as are relevant to your commentary? Are we talking essentially hours? How many hours/year or month turn the job into a "way of life."

You write well. What practice area are you in and where did you go to law school?

229 - best post ever on atl.

229 speaks the truth.
--Elie

221 here, giving a standing o to 229 and adding my own observation that Biglaw should be seen as an apprenticeship for whatever you do after the 7-10 years you spend there. I thank Biglaw for fostering my development as an attorney but I'd never go back to a firm, at any price.

I think 229 has really overstated his/her case. To wit:

"you want a life outside of Biglaw, you can't work in Biglaw.it:"

"If you want other things in your life (like any healthy, balanced individual would), it's going to be virtually impossible to achieve in Biglaw."

Come on now. Even the hardest working partners I know of in Biglaw have some semblance of lives outside of the firm. And the rest of the partners, and the associates, have it even better. People still do things socially, fall in love, raise families, go on vacations. 229's descriptions seems more a caricature than reality. But maybe I've only been exposed to a small segment of Biglaw.

234's last sentence is the only accurate one.

I think 229 had it right. A very articulate and heart-felt post, I believe. But he or she ignores the other model that so many big law partners follow.

They graduate from school, get married, have kids, do the big law stuff maybe achieve the brass ring and devote their lives to their careers. Suddenly, they find themselves divorced. Even worse, if they are service partners, they find themselves without a job and virtually unemployable.

So they marry again. This time they are better fathers/mothers. Yes, they are older, and kids the second time around are more taxing. Then there is the alimony to pay.

But suddenly you get how important your (second) family is to you and you try to do a better job.

If you look around big law, this is a very real model.

this whining is silly. billing 2,000 or somewhere around there is not hard. the hours may be unpredictable. you will have late nights and spoiled weekends. but to act like it prevents you from having any sort of decent life outside of work is lunacy. now some people bill way more than 2,000. they don't have to. they choose to because they want to make partner and make millions of dollars. that's their choice.

the partner who wrote the original e-mail sounds like he felt a subconscious urge to do something in his "managing partner" role. i think everyone concludes hastily that it's a firm-wide conspiracy. in reality, most partners don't really care if you're in the office at 9:30. most associates are right that it's a lame rule. regardless, how hard is it to show up at 9:30 and leave a little earlier than you used to? oh, i know--partners drop assignments on your desk at 6 p.m., they're all sadists. and on top of that, they don't have any work to give you. whine whine whine incoherently. leave a little earlier, problem solved.

229 is right on the money. I'd only add that the problem is confounded by the fact that firms--MoFo among them--advertise that they will still promote people who have taken advantage of their much-touted family-friendly policies, including maternity leave and part-time work. A flexible schedule is another one of these benefits and an important one, especially for people in families with two working parents and small children. CK's email, stupid though it is, is at the very least honest. Partners don't like flex schedules and don't give good work and client-facing work to people who use them.

229 & 238 made reading all these posts worthwhile, for they have described things accurately.

As one who passed through biglaw after starting at littlelaw and is now in-house, I have a broad range of experiences and, yes, wisdom earned through successes, disappointments, and lots of time not particularly well-spent.

FWIW, I agree that biglaw is broken, and that many who only know biglaw are either already crashing with it or soon will be. Those who remain will either radically reform it or it will break even more violently than during this round ...

... in part due to the coming days of reckoning with all Hopenchange has been doing and will continue doing to wreck our once great country that encouraged achievement rather than punishing achievers.

One more thing: as I read through the many posts here, I was struck by how many of the pompous Kerr-type partners and partner-wanna-bes who until now have used money to provide their families needed daycare/maid/cook/private school/private club/sports/tutoring/handyman/gardener services will be thunderstruck when the confiscatory tax rates under Obama and in the idiotic tax-em-more states like NY, CA, IL, MA, and OH kick in before long.

Kerr might find fewer able to join him for 8a jumping jacks, and willing to dump their families for after 8p and weekend assignments....

236 is dead-on, and explains why women get so frustrated by the system. Women can't have the second family, or wait to start a first family at 45. We have to decide, conclusively, what we want while we are still in our 30s. And, with rare exceptions, we can't get married to a stay-at-home spouse that we can ignore that will raise our children for us with very little guilt because we buy them pretty things and they live in a good neighborhood. (I've met a lot of men that say they'd like to be a stay at home spouse, I've meet very very few that will really do it.) Yes, I know that a lot of men don't want that life either, but gosh it seems like plenty are happy to have it for 20 years, get divorced and marry some else 15 years younger. Plus, if partnership doesn't work out, men can go in house /gov't, see the family more, not get divorced, and STILL have no regrets because they didn't give up having kids while they were associates.

Male associates can have kids at 30 while billing 2400+/yr without sacrificing ANYTHING (even if they do miss their families a bit). Women just don't have that option, and never will.

But, there are just enough examples of women that "have it all" that keep so many of us trying to follow suit: "Maybe I'll be the first litigator in my office to make partner on a reduced schedule . . . everybody says it is possible and that I am on track . . . and there is that one part-time partner in corporate that everybody talks about . . . "

Unfortunately, most of us will end up self selecting out while still associates because it isn't really possible, except under extraordinary circumstances, so firms will keep saying that it's possible, but that women just don't stick around. The next crop of women will repeat the process.

237 must be padding something. An honest 2000 hours is actually quite hard to achieve or lie, unless you bill travel time or lots of time at the printer. Frankly, in my usual 10 hours in the office, I get perhaps 6 billable hours. They are good hours though.

Now I guess I'll have to spend 11 hours a day to get them; one hour will be spent on jumping jacks.

Breaking news---video of Mofo associates and partners doing their 8 a.m. jumping jacks with their fearless leader Chet Kerr---obviously need some practice, but that will come---

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cpvysdQQxI

229 nailed it. The last paragraph is especially good. I left biglaw after I started thinking about values. I realized that the values I wanted to live my life by didn't match the values I needed to survive at biglaw.

MoFo associate here. At 9:30, CK walked the halls, if an attorney's office was empty, he asked the secretary where the guy was. Took notes, too.

I

MoFo associate here. At 9:30, CK walked the halls, if an attorney's office was empty, he asked the secretary where the guy was. Took notes, too.

I

Did CK take notes as to where partners were at 9:30?

Asshat.

243 is correct. You cannot work in Biglaw and have what Gen X/Y calls a "life." It just won't happen. Biglaw attorneys work on the biggest deals, have the shortest deadlines (even the gov't lawyers are working 80 hours a week these days on TALP, TARP and the auto bankryptcies), the highest pressure and the highest fees. You are expected to be at the office and to be available 24/7 (it is the clients who demand this) - there is no other option. However, there are plenty of opportunities for people that want to scale back and spend more time on themselves or their family; it's just not in Biglaw.

246 - That is none of your business. You are not the boss and never will be with that attitude. Right now, it is your job to make your boss look good, and that means being in the office during and available when your boss wants you to be.

248, "during and available when your boss wants you to be".. Kudos for the lost-soul attitude, but I fear some brain cells have also died. Palin Syndrome.

249 - It was a typo, Timmy.

This issue is so generational; "In my day, we had to do it, so I don't see why you lazy kids can't do it too" (even if work conditions have changed to the point that it's pointless to get in at a certain hour if not one extra item gets accomplished thereby). Just because Charles Kerr is morning people, he is trying to force that habit on everyone else when there is no need. Hasn't he ever heard of the second shift? As long as you put in the daily hours, who cares when they are done? When these up-before-dawn types are putting on their Victorian nightcaps and crawling into bed at 8:30 pm after a hot brandy, the rest of us are just getting started. If the dinosaurs want their firms to survive, *they* are the ones who need to adapt.

This issue is so generational; "In my day, we had to do it, so I don't see why you lazy kids can't do it too" (even if work conditions have changed to the point that it's pointless to get in at a certain hour if not one extra item gets accomplished thereby). Just because Charles Kerr is morning people, he is trying to force that habit on everyone else when there is no need. Hasn't he ever heard of the second shift? As long as you put in the daily hours, who cares when they are done? When these up-before-dawn types are putting on their Victorian nightcaps and crawling into bed at 8:30 pm after a hot brandy, the rest of us are just getting started. If the dinosaurs want their firms to survive, *they* are the ones who need to adapt.

This string is a great scrip for a Boston Legal episode! Love it! --Former BigLaw associate who found pure happiniess in no longer practicing.

This string is a great scrip for a Boston Legal episode! Love it! --Former BigLaw associate who found pure happiniess in no longer practicing.

This string is a great scrip for a Boston Legal episode! Love it! --Former BigLaw associate who found pure happiniess in no longer practicing.

Your all a bunch of overpaid spoiled brats who have way too much time on your hands. Stay out of the gym during the day and go home at a reasonable time.

230 -- 229 here. I currently practice in corporate, though I'm looking to transition, and went to Berkeley.

As for Biglaw, I think it's a combination of hours, unpredictability and attitude. Long hours are hard enough, but long, unpredictable hours are even harder. When it's 8 o'clock and you're not sure if you can meet your friends/spouse for dinner at 9:30 on a consistent basis, it makes it difficult to maintain or nurture, let alone begin (if you're single), meaningful relationships. And those are the good days. You can only cancel or reschedule so many times before people simply stop extending invitations. You can't be counted on. When your boss/client becomes your biggest priority, oftentimes unintentionally, it can't be surprising that your wife feels like the neglected mistress.

For me, it hit home, when I was at the ER on a Friday evening with some unexplained bleeding in my throat and I'm blackberrying furiously because we have another load of diligence coming in and a purchase agreement to turn over the weekend. I'm getting oncologist recommendations from the doctor and I'm more worried that the diligence won't be done properly while I focuse on the PA. I leave the ER around midnight and am in the office the next morning (Sat) at 7 to catch up on where we are on the diligence. My junior had a hard time with it and I'm getting ripped by the partner (who is one of the better partners I've ever worked with) for not taking care of this the night before. I explain to him that I'd been stuck in the ER the night before (I sent him a message from the ER, just didn't give the details to explain why I wasn't in the office when the diligence showed up at 8:30 pm) and about my prognosis---could be nothing, but might be cancer. He felt pretty bad about it, but I was still running 14-20 hour days because the deal was scheduled to close the next week. I put off oncology consults for a deal closing. And everyone on the deal, including myself, thought that was totally reasonable and the right thing to do--I was even congratulated by two partners for being so stalwart. It was at that moment, I realize what an incredibly crazy, messed up environment biglaw is. When you work with crazy people with crazy values, it's very hard to not become crazy yourself.

Then you add in all the divorces you hear of (there are several a year in my office), all the colleagues you know that are on anti-depressants or someone is entering rehab again. And these are the people actually seeking help. I can't imagine how many more are out there suffering in silence, or rage. Suicides like that poor woman at STB don't shock me, and that's a sad statement in itself.

It becomes obvious that the only real option is to stop playing the game. Even when you win, you still lose. There is no winning in that game.

Third-year litigator at relatively small (by BIGLAW standards) litigation-focused firm. We make lots of money. We win lots of cases. And we are staunchly anti-face time. Nobody at my office gives a shit where you are; when you come to work; and when you go home. All that matters is you get shit done. If you need to take a deposition, then you better be there on time. If you need to meet a client in the office, then you better be there on time. But if you're writing a research memo.... nobody gives a shit where you do it and when - if ever - you show up in the office.

I go to my office Tuesday-Thursday. On Monday and Friday, I work from home or a near-by coffee shop. My boss is too smart, too rich, too successful, and too with-it to write such a bullshit memo.

@245--I won't even ask how morale is over there, or whether you guys have enough work to stay busy; if the managing partner takes an hour to play hall monitor (aren't you guys split across two buildings now?) at a time when he should, per his own stupid-ass email, be at his desk, available to be relied upon and communicated with, the answer to both questions is evident. Do you have to hang a red tag over the back of your chair if you're there but in the bathroom, or does he cruise the stalls as well?

230/257,

What was the prognosis?

106 wrote:
"Partners, clients and other associates should not have to chase you down (whether by email or various phone numbers) to find you when you are needed (this is very selfish and narcissistic). What do you do if a client calls you and needs a letter drafted immediately, an important question answered quickly, or a provision in a document analyzed in 10 minutes? It is unprofessional (and very frustrating for the client) if you are not available during office hours."

Your comment evinces a clear failure to recognize the state of technology in modern practice, undoubtedly to the detriment of your clients, who can only find you the 6 hours a day you're in your office.
It is hardly unreasonable to expect to be contacted by the voodoo called email. And we all have call forwarding -- call my office extension, and you WILL talk to me. I'll be at my computer. At home. Logged into the Firm. Working. With tools far more powerful than the Firm has given me.
What do I do if a client calls me and needs a letter drafted immediately?
I draft it and email it to them.
an important question answered quickly?
I answer it.
A provision in a document analyzed in 10 minutes?
I analyze it, performing research online without having to depend on the Firm's tenuous connection to the internet and without suffering the delays 5 internet filters cause.

You might want to join us in this century before you completely lose all your clients. To me.

106,

What if a client needs something turned around in 10 minutes and you in defending a deposition? Should we prohibit associates from leaving the office?

260 --- Thankfully it ended up only being a scare. Some random infection in a blood vessel that caused a bleed (very unusual apparently) and not a cancerous tumor. But I don't need a real tumor to learn that lesson again. Life is too short.

258, lol. Talk to us when you are 8 years out.

258 = Boies Schiller.

261, what do you do when a partner stops by to pick your brain on an idea for a case you're working on? Or is walking by your office and stops by to see if you want to work on the case he just landed? Or calls from the conference room where he is meeting with a client to ask you to stop by to go over a few things with them? I'm a California MoFo associate and all three of these things have happened to me within the last 3 weeks. I sometimes work from home and/or come in late (esp. if I have stayed late). But I find that being physically present has real tangible value to my practice as a mid-level associate. It's not face time--I am working--but spending time in the office has helped, rather than hurt, my career.

I don't think it is unreasonable that the firm expects us to be physically (rather than merely technologically) available most of the time. Note: this email has not been distributed in my office (not sure about other offices).

238 (third-year litigator at relatively small litigation-focused firm) and anyone else:

Your firm is exactly the type of firm I am looking for. Not because of the anti-face time approach (I'm not concerned with that either way, really) but because you are working with a smart and successful partner who also seems to run a tight ship. Can anyone offer some advice on how to seek out such a firm? Hopefully, you are still reading this thread.

266,

You are a MOFO partner, not an associate. Blow it out of your ass.

Consider switching sides. I left my big law firm a few years ago after making "non-equity" partner, because I realized I didn't want to get trapped in that life forever. I'm much happier. I now work at a "small" class action firm. I work when I need to, occasionally late at night or early in the morning, but usually about 9 hours a day. My clients rarely call me, certainly not at 8 a.m. I handle complex cases, and we make plenty of money. The named partners hardly ever bother me, because we work independently of each other, handling our own cases. I get to spend time with my family, take vacations, and enjoy my life. And I'm no longer defending institutional clients that are being sued for defrauding the public.

It's a good life.

257 - Thank you for the follow-up

229/257,

Did you actually leave Biglaw? (I couldn't tell from your comments.) If so, what sort of corporate practice do you have? (Are there corporate practices outside of Biglaw?) Do you mean that you are currently corporate at Biglaw but looking to transition away from Biglaw?

What are/were your billable hours at Biglaw?

@266,

What if you were in the library doing research? Or in court? Or at a long-scheduled doctor's appointment? You wouldn't be in your office either at the very moment the partner comes by. Why couldn't the partner pick your brain or ask you to work on his case over the phone? Is your physical presence needed to think or talk?

As for meeting with a client, so you wouldn't be able to go to the conference room if you were out of the office. Did the partner tell you the client would be in? That the discussions with the client might relate to something you knew and you might be called in? If you had notice, then, yes, you should have been around. But otherwise, I doubt the client would care if you were only available by phone. There are plenty of times when, during a meeting in New York, we decide that a partner in DC has useful knowledge and call him out of the blue. Does anyone care that he is not actually in the room? For all we know, he might be sitting in his bedroom in his pajamas.

I often come into the office after 9:30. That's because when I get up at 6:30-7, I go through emails that came in overnight and often do work that I didn't finish the night before. I might work until 10 am at home, billing 3+ hours, and then head to the office. During that entire time, I am completely available by email and will answer any calls to my home. It's just silly to treat that worse than if I was sitting in my office surfing the web.

@266,

What if you were in the library doing research? Or in court? Or at a long-scheduled doctor's appointment? You wouldn't be in your office either at the very moment the partner comes by. Why couldn't the partner pick your brain or ask you to work on his case over the phone? Is your physical presence needed to think or talk?

As for meeting with a client, so you wouldn't be able to go to the conference room if you were out of the office. Did the partner tell you the client would be in? That the discussions with the client might relate to something you knew and you might be called in? If you had notice, then, yes, you should have been around. But otherwise, I doubt the client would care if you were only available by phone. There are plenty of times when, during a meeting in New York, we decide that a partner in DC has useful knowledge and call him out of the blue. Does anyone care that he is not actually in the room? For all we know, he might be sitting in his bedroom in his pajamas.

I often come into the office after 9:30. That's because when I get up at 6:30-7, I go through emails that came in overnight and often do work that I didn't finish the night before. I might work until 10 am at home, billing 3+ hours, and then head to the office. During that entire time, I am completely available by email and will answer any calls to my home. It's just silly to treat that worse than if I was sitting in my office surfing the web.

they want people in because that's the time that SAs have to be there and they want to make it look like there are people in the office

Judging by the number of grammatical and spelling errors contained in his memo, Mr. Kerr might consider getting into work a little later each day, and using his early mornings to enroll in a literacy class.

The really absurd thing about this Kerr memo is that at the end of the day, when it comes time for MoFo management to decide who stays and who goes, who gets a raise or bonus and who doesn't, they aren't going to care one bit what time someone arrives at his or her desk each day. They'll look at billable hours and collections, full stop. Someone with low hours isn't going to protect his job with early morning arrivals, and someone with lots of hours isn't going to place his job at risk by getting in after 9:30AM. This is reality.

258, please post your law firm's name so the rest of us can slam them with resumes. Thanks.