Qui Tam: Vacations

The best-laid vacation plans of Biglaw associates often go awry.

Don’t tell anyone where you are going. Don’t tell anyone you are going. Take Fridays here and Mondays there and pretend you are sick. Milk that mild depression diagnosis. Just let it all accrue and wait until you change jobs.  

A sampling of common advice on taking vacation as a Biglaw associate, but sometimes it doesn’t always work out….

LLP

Six years of really hard work.
Some five figure number of hours billed,
Well north of Gladwell’s marker.
You neglected your hobbies,
Ignored your friends,
And canceled your vacations.
Not much you can do about the first two at this point,
But at least you’ve got a couple months of vacation time banked,
Waiting for that inevitable day you walk out the door,
And off to greener pastures (or something).
A trip to Bali, stay at the Four Seasons,
Enough cash there to take some real time off between jobs,
Treat yourself.
That’s what I was thinking anyway,
Until all of a sudden chapter 7 came calling,
15 cents on the dollar paid years later.
Truth is the joke’s on me.
Serves me right to trust a group of lawyers,
To make good on their obligations.
Now I know what LLP really means:
“We can stay rich and fuck our employees”.
Turns out it was right there in section 15 of the DE Act,
All along.


Qui Tam, a weekly column of poetry about the legal profession, is penned by an arrogant T1 law graduate, former Biglaw associate, and current in-house lawyer. You can reach Qui Tam by email: quitammer@hotmail.com.

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