Biglaw, Perks / Fringe Benefits

Biglaw Firms Offer Second-Class Benefits To Staff

Is Your Firm Screwing Over Your Staff?

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Photo via Getty Images

Photo via Getty Images

It’s Administrative Professionals Day today — not that this matters anymore, since somewhere along the line this occasion of gratitude got expanded to Administrative Professionals Week. Seriously, how did that happen and Love Your Lawyer Day is still only 24 hours long? Who do the admins have lobbying for them? I need someone with unparalleled government insight to help us get to the bottom of this spectacular instance of holiday mission creep!

But I digress.

We continue to honor the law firm staff members who keep firms rolling in the face of the psychotic breakdowns of attorneys working on their last frayed nerve after pulling their fourth consecutive 20-hour day. Earlier this week, we noted that Fried Frank offered its staff a little mid-year bonus on top of their annual discretionary bonus. We’ve not heard of many other firms joining suit, but we’d like to think someone out there is stepping up to the plate.

However, lower pay and missing bonuses aren’t the only way that law firms relegate their staff to the have-nots. No one expects staff to be paid the same as attorneys — they don’t have the intensive, costly degrees, and on balance (though there are certainly exceptions), they work fewer hours under less stress than lawyers. Which is why the more serious site of staff disregard comes in the form of benefits.

Because everyone needs benefits, now more than ever assuming the current government follows through on its pledge to erode the paltry protections guaranteed today, and yet your firm may well be stiffing the staff on benefits. It’s more common than you’d think and in every case we’ve heard, attorneys don’t even know it’s happening.

How many weeks of maternity or paternity leave would one enjoy as an attorney? At several Biglaw firms it’s more than a staff member would under the same circumstances. We’ve heard tell of a Biglaw giant that offered up to 18 weeks for associates and 6 weeks for staff. That’s one hell of a discrepancy.

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No one expects attorneys to take all their vacation time — unless you work at Bartlit Beck or something — but attorneys still likely collect more vacation time every year. And in a system that pays lawyers for unused vacation days, they may not extend the same courtesy to the staff.

The argument for this sort of imbalance is that the market for high-caliber attorneys requires offering a Cadillac package. No firm can afford to slip behind the firm next door or risk losing some precious Law Review all-star. That’s certainly a good argument on paper. But with salaries starting at $180K, law school graduates aren’t fretting about their benefits. Most attorneys don’t even know the outer bounds of their benefits until they have to call up HR to use them. MoneyLaw scale and a history of market bonuses are all a firm needs to lock down the top recruits. Firms could offer back-alley cholesterol screenings for all the associates care. Dollar dollar bills, y’all.

Paid maternity leave too short? A lawyer could happily take an extra two weeks unpaid. They have that luxury. Staff don’t generally. And yet the benefits regime tends to privilege the parent who needs the benefit the least.

Look, no amount of corporate motivational speaking bulldink about “teamwork” is going to change the fact that law firms are hierarchical. Firms may be the most hierarchical working environments that don’t involve Apache helicopters. But do we really have to exacerbate these gaps by creating second-class citizens when it comes to benefits?

We’ve heard about some of a number of discrepancies from tipsters over the years, but we want more feedback. If your firm is shortchanging the staff on benefits, let us know! Leave a tip — we’ll keep you anonymous — by emailing us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Benefits”).

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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