For many people in the legal profession, the holidays are usually “the most horrible time of the year.”  There are many factors that make the holiday season so awful for people in the legal field, including last minute efforts to meet annual hour requirements and the need to collect bills before the end of the year.  Office holiday parties are also one of the most dreaded parts of the holiday season for many legal professionals.

I have worked at several different firms both big and small since graduating from law school, and each firm at which I worked had different kinds of holiday parties.  Some of the firms had holiday parties that were more stressful than others.  From my own personal experiences, office politics is one of the main reasons why law firm holiday parties can be such awkward and stressful affairs.

As many attorneys are likely aware, office holiday parties can be a battleground for politics that are percolating around an office.  For many people who work at law firms, office holiday parties are the only times that attorneys see their bosses in a more casual setting.  And since office holiday parties are one of the few times that attorneys can rub elbows with their bosses, many attorneys try to use office holiday parties to score points with supervisors.

From my own personal experiences, attorneys usually strive to get into conversation circles with more senior lawyers at holiday parties, so that they can get noticed and score points with their bosses.  Sometimes, the efforts of attorneys to capitalize on opportunities to speak with their supervisors in a more casual setting is pretty overt.

One time, I remember talking with a senior associate at an office holiday party, and I thought we were having a pretty good conversation.  However, when the senior associate saw a partner nearby, he stopped talking to me mid-sentence, and turned around so that he could get into a conversation circle with that partner!  The senior associate probably realized that he could not score any points by speaking with a lowly first-year attorney, and I felt pretty down that a senior associate would only speak with me until he had the chance to speak with a partner.

Many attorneys also use holiday parties as an obvious way to curry favor with their bosses.  One of the best parts of office holiday parties is to people watch, and see attorneys ingratiate themselves to their supervisors.  At holiday parties, groups of junior attorneys usually circle around more senior lawyers, acting interested in old war stories, and laughing at jokes no matter how horrible they are.  Typically when I see this, I’m usually happy that office holiday parties have a large supply of free booze!

From my experiences working at several law firms, I think the amount of office politics at a firm has a huge impact on how dreadful office holiday parties are.  When I was working at a smaller shop, there wasn’t much office politics.  The attorneys weren’t paid too much money, and since no one expected to stay at this shop for too long, or owed much to their bosses, there wasn’t much politics around the office.

As a result, the holiday parties at this smaller firm were fun events that did not have an element of politicking.  Everyone had a good time, and once the office holiday party was over, most of us headed to after-parties that went late into the night (and early morning).  Indeed, the parties at this firm were a lot like the Above the Law holiday party that occurred last week, which was a lot of fun in case you missed it!  In any case, no one was really trying to score points at that smaller firm, so we just focused on having fun while attending office holiday parties at that shop.

However, when I was working at a Biglaw firm, there was a ton of office politics.  People knew that they owed their big paychecks to their bosses, and everyone wanted to score points to have a long-term career at the firm.  Accordingly, the amount of politicking at the office holiday party was off the charts.  The office holiday party at this shop was a stressful, tiring affair, since attorneys needed to be on their “game” and work hard to score points with the partners.

Of course, I understand why many law firms have holiday parties.  Attorneys sometimes spend more time with people they work with than their own families, and it is usually a good idea to interact with coworkers outside of work.  In addition, some might view office holiday parties as a time to relax and let loose.  However, the politics involved in some office holiday parties can really add to everyone’s stress around the holiday season.

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.