Perks / Fringe Benefits

Law Firm Perk Watch: Who Wants a Free iPad?

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The iPad: much cooler than a Crackberry.

The recession is officially over, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But don’t just take NBER’s word for it; there are other signs, too.

Like the return of law firm perks. Sources report that Edelson McGuire — a Chicago-based boutique with some high-profile clients, like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich — is giving away iPads to everyone at the firm. The lucky recipients include attorneys, administrative staff, and even some law students who are working for the firm part-time.

This is not ordinary behavior — the trend among law firms is still to roll back perks, not to expand them — but Edelson McGuire isn’t an ordinary firm. How many firms have conference room tables that convert to ping-pong tables? Or have a neat firm website, where each attorney profile contains such fun facts as daily coffee consumption, favorite time of day to work, and “pre-court ritual”?

Is giving away iPads a new law firm trend? Edelson McGuire isn’t the first firm to do this in 2010….

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Retirement Benefits for Partners: How Does Your Firm Handle Them?

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'And then I told him I'd file a motion to compel his a**....'

It’s important to think about — and not just think about, but save for — your retirement. This is especially true now that Social Security is looking less than alluring. (When I see that money taken out of my paycheck, I just kiss it goodbye, forever.)

When it comes to providing for associates and other employees, most large law firms take a fairly straightforward approach: they offer 401(k) accounts, but no matching employer contributions. One of the few Biglaw firms that provided a match, K&L Gates, stopped that policy back in 2007.

With respect to retirement provisions for partners, there’s more variation from firm to firm. Some shops provide for retired partners in very generous fashion. For example, retired partners at Wachtell Lipton can receive annual seven-figure payouts for many years after leaving the firm (although sources at my former firm tell me some of this money represents a return of capital to the retired partners, and as such will vary from partner to partner).

A million-dollar retirement benefit is no doubt very pleasing. But at other firms, aging partners are less content with their arrangements….

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Biglaw Perk Watch: A Follow-Up on Google’s Gay Gross-Up

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If you’re a gay employee and have a domestic partner who receives health benefits through your employer, you have to pay more in federal income tax — about $1,000 a year, on average. This is because federal law, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages. As a result, the feds treat employer-provided health benefits for domestic partners as a form of taxable income (if the partner is not considered a dependent).

(Note, however, that this could change. A federal judge in Boston recently struck down part of DOMA. Stay tuned to find out what happens on appeal.)

Earlier this month, we wrote about a perk that Google extends to its gay employees who find themselves in this situation. As reported by the New York Times, Google “essentially [covers] those costs, putting same-sex couples on an even footing with heterosexual employees whose spouses and families receive health benefits.” Google makes an extra payment to gay employees to make up for the increased tax burden — a perk that we dubbed “Google’s gay gross-up.”

We asked you, our readers, if any legal employers also offer this benefit. As it turns out, several do.

Find out which employers provide this perk — and vote in a poll on its fairness, which was hotly debated in the comments to our prior post — after the jump.

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Biglaw Perk Watch: Google’s Gay Gross-Up

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It’s good to be gay at Google — or a “Gaygler,” as they call themselves. And not just because the company sometimes has a float in the San Francisco Pride parade.

The New York Times recently reported:

[Last] Thursday, Google [began] covering a cost that gay and lesbian employees must pay when their partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax that heterosexual married couples do not pay. The increase will be retroactive to the beginning of the year.

“It’s a fairly cutting edge thing to do,” said Todd A. Solomon, a partner in the employee benefits department of McDermott Will & Emery, a law firm in Chicago, and author of “Domestic Partner Benefits: An Employer’s Guide.”

Why do gay and lesbian employees pay more in taxes to begin with?

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Career Center: Firms With Benefits

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Welcome to the next in our series on the results of the 2010 ATL/Career Center Associate Satisfaction survey.  We’ve used the survey results to revamp the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link, with completely updated profiles and each week, we are highlighting insider information that Members shared about their firms in the eight key areas of associate satisfaction covered by the Career Center.  Today, what’s in it for you – Benefits.  

  • This West Coast firm, specializing in representing high tech and life sciences clients, offers its associates the opportunity to participate in an investment partnership fund that invests in select clients.
  • This Midwestern firm, known for its work for Major League Baseball, lacks an on-site cafeteria or gym but makes up for it with "on-site massage and yoga classes."
  • This firm, known for its strong IP and technology practices, keeps its associates satisfied (calorie-wise) with bi-weekly attorney lunches, monthly "wine-and-cheese" hours, free soda, and "free pizza and beer every other Friday" in select offices. 
  • Associates at this New York-based firm, well-known for its bankruptcy and restructuring, litigation and private equity practices, receive a $750 annual subsidy to cover gym membership fees.  

More fun perks — perhaps your firm should adopt them? — after the jump.

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The Perks of Small Law: Tuesday Masseuse and Tagging Events

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While there are a few offbeat Biglaw firms out there (think Venable and rooftop bocce ball), the quirkiest firms tend to be the small ones. Childress Duffy Goldblatt is a litigation shop that does insurance recovery work. Its Chicago office just moved to a new location where it’s rolling out new perks.

One quirky perk? From RE Journals:

A massage table remained in a small office on Wednesday. Childress explained that a masseuse typically visits the office on Tuesdays.

“She just grabs you if you look like you need a massage,” Childress said.

If there’s going to be spontaneous grabbing at the office, it’s best done by a professional. (Speaking of, does Sidley still offer chair service?)

There are some other interesting aspects of this new location: no walls, a roof deck, and an upcoming “tagging” event — attorneys will be let loose with spray cans to decorate…

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Schulte Nixes Seamless Before 8:30

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Most Biglaw New York lawyers would die of malnutrition without SeamlessWeb. Malnutrition, people! Because nobody has time to run down 50 floors to grab a bite to eat after hours.

Given the recession, charging 6:30 steak dinners to clients is no longer cool. But Schulte Roth & Zabel could be taking its anti-Seamless policy a bit too far. Here’s the email Schulte attorneys received last night:

The Firm cafeteria goes to great lengths to provide menu choices that reflect your preferences, and we are constantly looking for new ways to improve those offerings and keep the cafeteria operating as efficiently as possible. Attorneys and legal assistants working in the office on a client-related matter past 7:30 p.m. are encouraged to patronize Café 23, which is open for dinner Monday through Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Beginning April 5th, 2010, you will not be able to place orders through SeamlessWeb until 8:30 p.m. on weekday evenings.

We recognize that this change will cause some of you to rethink your dining options and, to that end, we ask you to let us know what types of food you would like the cafeteria to provide at dinnertime and then give Café 23 a try. Please email your comments and suggestions to [Redacted], Director of Food Services. Thank you.

Screwing around with SeamlessWeb is one sure way to piss off everybody that works for you. And boy are Schulte associates pissed …

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Biglaw Perk Watch: Lactation Rooms

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We continue our series profiling the perks or fringe benefits of life at a large law firm. This one may be the breast one yet. From a (male) tipster:

A friend of mine ran across this Simpson Thatcher perk: “The Firm maintains a lactation room for new mothers in each of its New York, Los Angeles and Palo Alto offices to facilitate their transition back to work.”

I have a hard time seeing candidates asking about it during interviews, so I thought I’d pass it along. I’m not a chauvinist or anything! I just have a childish sense of humor…

You’re not alone. We’d note that this perk may have broader appeal than our correspondent might think. See here.
Also, we’d suggest to STB that they regularly sweep their lactation rooms for spycams. Remember this guy?
Update: Jeez, some of you are oversensitive. With respect to the photo, here’s what happened. To avoid copyright issues — hello, Nixon Peabody! — we use pictures primarily from royalty-free, stock photography sites. People upload pics to these sites that they allow others to use for free.
Our favorite such website, to which we have contributed many photos of our own, is stock.xchng. For this post, we went to stock.xchng and ran a search for “breastfeed.” The pic we used was one of three images that came up. That’s all.
Flexible Working Arrangements [Simpson Thacher & Bartlett]
Male lactation [Wikipedia]

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