Be Generous Around The Holidays, Even If You're Burdened With Student Loans

Making administrative professionals happy and setting yourself up for success at your firm will be well worth the expense.

The holidays can be a very stressful time for young lawyers.  Attorneys usually need to work hard toward the end of the year to fulfill annual billing requirements, and most must also attend a variety of awkward work-related holiday events.  In addition, attorneys burdened with student loans must usually shell out a tidy sum on holiday gifts to individuals who work at their firms, even though these lawyers are typically cash-strapped as it is.  However, it is important to not spare any expense when giving holiday presents to individuals at your workplace, since skimping out on this annual obligation can have a negative impact on your standing at your firm.

Many new attorneys must face the holidays only a few months after joining their firms.  It is oftentimes overwhelming to learn the customs surrounding the end of the year, especially since many new attorneys never worked a corporate job before becoming lawyers.  One of the biggest surprises I learned shortly after joining my first firm was that I would be expected to give a holiday present to my secretary.  This was something I had never previously considered, and since I never worked a “real” job before heading to law school, I knew nothing about office expectations around the holidays

The unofficial rule at my firm was that associates would pay their secretaries around $100 for each year that attorney was out of law school.  Since I was new to the firm, I was expected to provide my secretary around $100 as a holiday gift my first year as a lawyer.  I have been out of Biglaw for several years now, and I am not sure if this is still the standard!  As such, it is best to ask around before settling on a gift amount.  In any case, $100 was a large amount of money for me, especially since I was struggling with six figures of student loan debt.

However, I made sure to pay this amount, and I encourage everyone to follow whatever tradition your workplace has about providing gifts to support staff.  Administrative professionals are great people, and they are extremely important to your success at a firm.  Making sure your secretary likes you is well worth whatever amount of money you need to spend on a holiday gift.  Also, if you do not provide your secretary with an adequate present, they will justifiably talk badly about you with other administrative professionals, and this will make your job much more difficult.  It is of course hard to part with this money when these funds could be used to pay down student loans.  However, making administrative professionals happy and setting yourself up for success at your firm will be well worth the expense.

At my first firm after leaving Biglaw, the gifting tradition was that every attorney gave a holiday present to both their secretary and their paralegal.  The gift amount was pretty much set at $50 for both your paralegal and secretary no matter how long the attorney had been at the firm.  Since I witnessed in Biglaw how much administrative staff appreciated holiday gifts, I made sure to provide even more than this amount to my secretary and paralegal.  I could tell that they were really thrilled to receive more money from me than others had gifted, and I think that this gesture made these administrative professionals appreciate me more than my colleagues.  Even though providing larger presents was a bigger expense, the increased commitment I received from these individuals because of my gifts was well worth the cost.

Even though I had student loans to deal with, I also gave presents to other professionals at my firm who had helped me throughout the year.  When I was working my first gig after leaving Biglaw, I relied on the office manager and the billing coordinator to provide me with information about the clients I originated and whether our firm had been paid by these clients.  As I mentioned in a prior article, I made money through originating business during my first job after leaving Biglaw, and I used this extra money to pay off my student loans.  I could not access much information about the bills sent out to these clients, but support staff at my firm would always tell me when a bill had been paid and when I could expect my commission.  I really appreciated this information, and I made sure to provide these individuals with holiday gifts too, since they were helping me out and would hopefully continue to do so in the future.

In sum, it is important to be generous around the holidays even if you are struggling with student loans.  Not living up to expectations about holiday gifting could negatively impact your standing in the workplace, and making administrative professionals happy will be well worth the expense.  In addition, I encourage everyone to also provide presents to other administrators around the office who have helped you throughout the year.  Although these gifts might set you back when tackling student debt, the benefits you will receive will be well worth the cost.

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Jordan Rothman is the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a personal finance website discussing how he paid off all $197,890.20 of his college and law school student loans over 46 months of his late 20s. You can reach him at Jordan@studentdebtdiaries.com.

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