How much vacation time in big law??? Forum

[Person1111]

My firm does not have "paid days off." Theoretically you could take as many days off as you wanted and it would not impact your pay. You just have to make sure it fits with your work demands, your team's needs, and your trial schedule.

In practice, associates usually take two actual "vacations" per year where they go abroad and its well known that they will have limited email access and won't be completing tasks during that time. I'm talking 7-10 day though, not five weeks off the grid. Then people will take long weekends or do a little work from home instead of coming in, ect. Basically the lack of facetime overlaps with the flexible vacation policy. It works sometimes, other times it fucks people over because their unlimited vacation winds up being none.

I think its wrong to say vacation does not exist in biglaw. People take vacations, and the firms I've worked at try, at least, to respect them. But the overwhelming majority of the time you will be working.

For what it's worth, "unlimited" or "flexible" vacation policies typically don't result in more vacation days or more flexibility about when you can take vacation. It just means your vacation days don't get paid out if and when you leave.

[LurkerTurnedMember]

I notice a lot of people talking about formal vacation allotments. Sure, firms might give you 2-3 weeks of vacation, but the real question is how much of that are you "allowed" to take. If you take 2 weeks as a first or second-year associate, wouldn't that seem like you're slacking compared to the associate who takes a day or two at most? It's like maternity leave. Great, you have a policy. But let me see you get pregnant, take time off, and keep your job or same career trajectory. Didn't think so.

Edit: sorry. Read the first page of comments only. People did start discussing how much vacay you actually get to take on the second page. Lol. Carry on.

For whatever it's worth, this has not been my experience at my V100 firm - particularly with respect to maternity leave.

Maternity leave is in a different basket. My firm is extremely protective of maternity leave. (My firm is decent about vacation too, but you may have to reschedule or cancel a vacation because something unexpected came up. No one is going to ask you to reschedule the birth of your baby, of course. And, even after you have a baby and could theoretically come back to work, no one pressures you to do so.)

I didn't mean that people would explicitly react in a negative way. I meant it more in a passing way. Like how if an associate leavea before you and comes in after you consistently. There's nothing wrong with that per se and they won't get fired. But it passively/implicitly changes your view of them. Would I rather give the important work to Sarah, who's here every day all day working nonstop and always engaging with the projects, or to Jim, who's here a lot less and doesn't go above and beyond? It would go to Sarah, not because there's something wrong with Jim but come on, Sarah will do it right or work long enough until it is right. So if I take 3 weeks of vacation, especially if broken up into smaller chunks so it seems like I'm taking a lot of vacations, and someone else took maybe 2 days the whole year, I'm Jim and they're Sarah. Same thing with maternity leave. People won't explicitly go against it, but there will be people who'll say things, sexist things at that, like "Oh Sarah just had a baby. This is a long project so just give it to Jim."

[Npret]

I notice a lot of people talking about formal vacation allotments. Sure, firms might give you 2-3 weeks of vacation, but the real question is how much of that are you "allowed" to take. If you take 2 weeks as a first or second-year associate, wouldn't that seem like you're slacking compared to the associate who takes a day or two at most? It's like maternity leave. Great, you have a policy. But let me see you get pregnant, take time off, and keep your job or same career trajectory. Didn't think so.

Edit: sorry. Read the first page of comments only. People did start discussing how much vacay you actually get to take on the second page. Lol. Carry on.

For whatever it's worth, this has not been my experience at my V100 firm - particularly with respect to maternity leave.

Maternity leave is in a different basket. My firm is extremely protective of maternity leave. (My firm is decent about vacation too, but you may have to reschedule or cancel a vacation because something unexpected came up. No one is going to ask you to reschedule the birth of your baby, of course. And, even after you have a baby and could theoretically come back to work, no one pressures you to do so.)

I didn't mean that people would explicitly react in a negative way. I meant it more in a passing way. Like how if an associate leavea before you and comes in after you consistently. There's nothing wrong with that per se and they won't get fired. But it passively/implicitly changes your view of them. Would I rather give the important work to Sarah, who's here every day all day working nonstop and always engaging with the projects, or to Jim, who's here a lot less and doesn't go above and beyond? It would go to Sarah, not because there's something wrong with Jim but come on, Sarah will do it right or work long enough until it is right. So if I take 3 weeks of vacation, especially if broken up into smaller chunks so it seems like I'm taking a lot of vacations, and someone else took maybe 2 days the whole year, I'm Jim and they're Sarah. Same thing with maternity leave. People won't explicitly go against it, but there will be people who'll say things, sexist things at that, like "Oh Sarah just had a baby. This is a long project so just give it to Jim."

I've not seen women hurt by maternity leave, as long as when they come back they are managing everything. If you do good work you aren't going to get staffed differently when you return full time.

I do know people who waited until their partnership decision was made (one way or the other) before they had kids.

Have you seen this difference in work assigned at your firm?

[lolwat]

I didn't mean that people would explicitly react in a negative way. I meant it more in a passing way. Like how if an associate leavea before you and comes in after you consistently. There's nothing wrong with that per se and they won't get fired. But it passively/implicitly changes your view of them. Would I rather give the important work to Sarah, who's here every day all day working nonstop and always engaging with the projects, or to Jim, who's here a lot less and doesn't go above and beyond? It would go to Sarah, not because there's something wrong with Jim but come on, Sarah will do it right or work long enough until it is right. So if I take 3 weeks of vacation, especially if broken up into smaller chunks so it seems like I'm taking a lot of vacations, and someone else took maybe 2 days the whole year, I'm Jim and they're Sarah. Same thing with maternity leave. People won't explicitly go against it, but there will be people who'll say things, sexist things at that, like "Oh Sarah just had a baby. This is a long project so just give it to Jim."

It's difficult to determine how well these examples translate to real life because hypotheticals are too simplified. For your non-maternity leave example, let's accept that Sarah always comes in earlier than Jim and leaves later than him. But let's also say Jim gets everything done, and gets everything done right, and does it in fewer hours than Sarah does. In other words, Sarah has to work longer hours because she is just slower or inefficient. And you, as a partner, are constantly having to cut her time when you're sending the bills to your client because you know they'll get mad at an associate billing 15 hours on a project that could have been done in 10. If you're aware of these facts because you've given work to both associates on and off for a few years now, would you still give your project to Sarah over Jim just because she's in the office for more time, comes to you with questions, and appears to go above and beyond, when you're aware that in fact Jim can get the same thing done at the same quality in less time?

As an associate determining what vacation time you can take, this probably means you need to prove yourself for a couple years so you can't just disappear for 3 weeks during your first year at a firm when nobody knows you yet. You probably knew that already because everyone's either ultra-competitive trying to prove themselves early on (in which case they're not taking vacation because they don't want to appear like a slacker), or they've checked out already because they're expecting to coast for 2-3 years before going somewhere else (in which case they just want to do enough to not be fired). But I think stuff like that is hard to generalize. People here didn't get to where they are by being stupid and not being able to do their due diligence. I think it's easy enough to take a look around your firm and determine how much vacation time, if any, you can realistically take, given whatever goals you have.

[Person1111]

I notice a lot of people talking about formal vacation allotments. Sure, firms might give you 2-3 weeks of vacation, but the real question is how much of that are you "allowed" to take. If you take 2 weeks as a first or second-year associate, wouldn't that seem like you're slacking compared to the associate who takes a day or two at most? It's like maternity leave. Great, you have a policy. But let me see you get pregnant, take time off, and keep your job or same career trajectory. Didn't think so.

Edit: sorry. Read the first page of comments only. People did start discussing how much vacay you actually get to take on the second page. Lol. Carry on.

For whatever it's worth, this has not been my experience at my V100 firm - particularly with respect to maternity leave.

Maternity leave is in a different basket. My firm is extremely protective of maternity leave. (My firm is decent about vacation too, but you may have to reschedule or cancel a vacation because something unexpected came up. No one is going to ask you to reschedule the birth of your baby, of course. And, even after you have a baby and could theoretically come back to work, no one pressures you to do so.)

I didn't mean that people would explicitly react in a negative way. I meant it more in a passing way. Like how if an associate leavea before you and comes in after you consistently. There's nothing wrong with that per se and they won't get fired. But it passively/implicitly changes your view of them. Would I rather give the important work to Sarah, who's here every day all day working nonstop and always engaging with the projects, or to Jim, who's here a lot less and doesn't go above and beyond? It would go to Sarah, not because there's something wrong with Jim but come on, Sarah will do it right or work long enough until it is right. So if I take 3 weeks of vacation, especially if broken up into smaller chunks so it seems like I'm taking a lot of vacations, and someone else took maybe 2 days the whole year, I'm Jim and they're Sarah. Same thing with maternity leave. People won't explicitly go against it, but there will be people who'll say things, sexist things at that, like "Oh Sarah just had a baby. This is a long project so just give it to Jim."

(1) At least where I work, no one cares (much) where you are as long as you are reachable. There are associates who are in the office a lot who are not nearly as well-regarded as those who work from home a lot/are in irregular hours but who do great work and are immediately responsive via phone/email.

(2) Vacation is whatever. I wouldn't take more than a week off at a time before my first review, but YMMV.

(3) Maternity leave does not work the same as vacation. If you are a poorly regarded female associate and you come back from maternity leave, you may have trouble getting back up to speed - but it's not because you took maternity leave, but rather because you don't have a good reputation and a consistent stream of work from partners. By contrast, if you are a well-regarded female associate, you will usually be very busy upon returning from maternity leave. As a (very strong) general rule, no one will say "I would have given this person work but for the fact that she took maternity leave" or "I think this person is not as hard working because she took maternity leave." That is just not how it works here.

[Bluem_11]

I've seen a woman go back to back to back kids with 3 maternity leaves in a period of 4-5 years and end up making partner a few years later. Depends on firm culture. If they are strong believers they will be protective of women who do it.

[clshopeful]

Vacation in big law? Does such a thing exist?

a 30 year old man posting on internet forums

[jarofsoup]

Just arrange coverage and it works out. Cover those people when they take vacatioin

[kellyfrost]

Vacation in big law? Does such a thing exist?

a 30 year old man posting on internet forums

30?

[Bluem_11]

I remember a senior partner telling me I could take 4 months vacation as long as I got my work/billing done. Carefully crafted words there.

[Anonymous User]

My SA firm has 4 weeks paid vacation for first year associates. If I get an offer and work there, I plan on trying to take it

[Anonymous User]

My SA firm has 4 weeks paid vacation for first year associates. If I get an offer and work there, I plan on trying to take it

Cool.

[Galaxy101]

My firm has this. I would call these "No Vacation" policies. More charitable people call them "unlimited vacation" policies. They are terrible for employees, but great for employers. You don't ever acquire any hours of vacation and are given little guidance on how its is used.

[Anonymous User]

Three weeks of paid vacation at my generic V100 as a 3rd year, but no one keeps track. I took 5 days in 2017 and probably will take 10 days in 2018. Like at most places, for us it's not about how much vacation time you take but whether you can hit your billable target. Taking the full 3 or 4 weeks puts you behind so much you have to hustle that much more to meet your hours.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah. This is good reinforcement of the concept that biglaw is NOT a 9-5 job. One of the reasons you can be compensated so highly is that you're serving clients - whatever the deadline may happen to be. If you want to go into biglaw, be prepared to live at the mercy of your schedule.

That being said, I've never talked to any lawyers who claimed to work 80 hours per week, 52 weeks per year. But I'd imagine it's very hard to 'plan a vacation' in any meaningful sense, especially at the beginning.

This. Planning basically goes out the window. For example, you might be gearing up for trial only to have it continued---that would be the perfect time to take a vacation because you likely made room in your schedule for that trial and now it's been pushed to the side. By the same token, you might have planned a vacation--say to attend your cousin's wedding--months in advance only to have a fire drill right before the day you were supposed to be depart. While people might be apologetic, you're likely going to have to suck it up and either not go or spend your "vacation" stuck in your hotel room putting out the fire.

[Yardbird]

Better question to ask is how coverage works while you are on vacation. If you don’t get any coverage or if you get informal coverage from your teams, that isn’t as great as formally staffed coverage (e.g., someone is staffed to your deal to cover you for the time you are out). Also, do you get vacation days back if you do work a certain number of hours or are they lost once you use them? The last question to ask is how many days attorneys’ at each level (junior/mid/senior) actually take. Some firms have 4 weeks vacation but it’s much easier to take them as a junior than a senior. Some firms, even the junior won’t take all of their vacation - other firms, you are encouraged at all levels to take all of your vacation to avoid burnout.

[nealric]

I had no idea what the official vacation time allotment was in Biglaw. In practice, I usually took a few (2-3) long weekends and the week of Christmas off, or about 7 days total. It was just too difficult to hit hours and keep up with demands to take a real vacation.

When I left, I was pleasantly surprised to get a check for the 3 weeks of remaining vacation. Apparently, I officially had 4. I suppose that's one way that "unlimited" vacation is crummy for employees.