Secretary Christmas Gift Forum

[clshopeful]

So do senior associates really give $700 a year?

Can't imagine that. I think TLS is just being TLS.

That means a partner is supposed to give like a thousand dollars worth of a gift to a secretary. That's insane.

[jkpolk]

Firmly anti-gift as a matter of course (if you're not a partner - who should legit gift a non-negligible portion of the secretary's yearly salary). If you really like your secretary (or any other coworker), sure, give them something, but fuck this mandatory subsidizing of my cheap ass employer.

[QContinuum]

Well, I guess I’m rich! Nobody told me. Wish I knew.

Also, characterizing it as a tip is egregious. It’s a Christmas gift/bonus. I bet many of you consider yourselves quite liberal, but when it comes to redistributing a tiny potion of your wealth to your secretaries who make a fraction of your income, it’s absurd!

Y’all just cheap.

Feel free to replace every use of the term "tip" in my previous post with the term "gift." I stand by my reasoning.

I note you don't dispute the fact that junior associates often (even usually) have lower net wealth than their secretaries.

You should feel free to "redistribute" $500, $700, $1000, or however much of your income you want to your secretary. Kudos to you on being a "good liberal," I guess?

Can't imagine that. I think TLS is just being TLS.

Oh, I'm sure there are senior associates who give that much. But I'm pretty sure it's not anywhere near the "do-it-or-you're-an-asshole" "requirement" that many posters ITT would have you believe. I'd go so far as to say that associates who give that much are exceptions to the rule.

If you really like your secretary (or any other coworker), sure, give them something, but fuck this mandatory subsidizing of my cheap ass employer.

Mostly agreed, except: I don't even think legal secretaries are paid that badly. Most have relatively cushy jobs these days, with electronic calendaring and call forwarding and every lawyer having their own cell phone. They generally get generous benefits - often above and beyond what associates get, notably 401(k) matching and plenty of vacation days and overtime pay and no billable hours targets. They usually get to clock in and out on schedule, Monday-Friday. It's really not bad pay for the work.

Mandatory tips - excuse me, gifts - made more sense decades back when secretaries were busier and often expected to provide personal services like fetching coffee and cigars and whatnot.

[nixy]

So do senior associates really give $700 a year?

Can't imagine that. I think TLS is just being TLS.

That means a partner is supposed to give like a thousand dollars worth of a gift to a secretary. That's insane.

I’ve definitely seen it elsewhere - I first came across the “$100 x class year” thing completely unrelated to TLS. However, only in the NYC traditional biglaw context. Really I think people need to know what’s expected at their own office and that that varies by office (I also think the cushiness of legal secretary jobs DEFINITELY varies, and whether the legal secretary has been around a while and has a nest egg or has more assets than the associate making 2-3x what the secretary makes is completely irrelevant to whether an gift is appropriate, but that’s just me).

[Anonymous User]

Well, I guess I’m rich! Nobody told me. Wish I knew.

Also, characterizing it as a tip is egregious. It’s a Christmas gift/bonus. I bet many of you consider yourselves quite liberal, but when it comes to redistributing a tiny potion of your wealth to your secretaries who make a fraction of your income, it’s absurd!

Y’all just cheap.

Feel free to replace every use of the term "tip" in my previous post with the term "gift." I stand by my reasoning.

I note you don't dispute the fact that junior associates often (even usually) have lower net wealth than their secretaries.

You just graduated law school as a junior associate. You're using a skewed metric if you look only a "net wealth," given the majority of junior associates have sizable debt from law school, but you without a doubt have a much larger earnings potential as an attorney. The "net wealth" of a secretary in a high COL city is entirely earned by many years of work. I would assume most, if not all, can't afford to live in the city where you work. It's a tradeoff, but don't pretend like junior associates deserve sympathy compared to the support staff at a legal office. You don't. Talk to them more if you want a sense for what they can afford on their salaries.

FWIY, as a BigFed and prior paralegal in a high COL area before law school, all junior associates at firms need experience doing both before critiquing the pay of lower-paid professionals. The $100/class year seems really high, but don't lose sight of just how good you have it. You make a lot of money at a firm. Like, a laughable amount compared to the salaries of junior attorneys working for the government. Also a tradeoff with its own benefits, and certainly not deserving of sympathy, but come on.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

$100 x class year caps out. It’s firm dependent but at my firm we have a pool and it capped out at $300.

But if you’re complaining about the norm of giving a secretary $100 out of a $190k (minimum) salary, you are cheap.

Say it with me. You are cheap.

Just own it. This thread is basically every piracy thread in the last two decades where pirates make allllll sorts of justifications for piracy. You know why I used to pirate? I was cheap. I always owned that. Y’all should too.

[cavalier1138]

Say it with me. You are cheap.

Pretty much this. The other stuff just sounds like "Well, if I give $10 a month to Amnesty, why shouldn't I just take a vow of poverty and go live in the wilderness?"

[QContinuum]

Really I think people need to know what’s expected at their own office and that that varies by office

Agree with the above. The expectations can (do) vary significantly from firm to firm, office to office.

$100 x class year caps out. It’s firm dependent but at my firm we have a pool and it capped out at $300.

That's what me and a few of the other posters ITT were driving at: The absurdity of a rigid, uncapped, "mandatory" $100 x class year formula. You'd get to ludicrous tips - excuse me, "gifts" - pretty fast.

Glad to hear you agree with us.

Say it with me. You are cheap.

Just own it. This thread is basically every piracy thread in the last two decades where pirates make allllll sorts of justifications for piracy. You know why I used to pirate? I was cheap. I always owned that. Y’all should too.

Why are you so focused on attacking other posters as "cheap"? This smacks of some kind of insecurity. Me and the other posters arguing for more reasonable gifting practices aren't attacking the enthusiastic "wealth redistributors" as reckless overspenders, even though there's a good argument to be made for that label. So why are you so focused on name-calling?

Also LOL at equating a refusal to pay enormous tips (okay, "gifts") to piracy.

And you know what, if you want to attack me as "cheap" - so be it. I'd much rather be cheap than a reckless overspender living beyond my means. I'm proud of being fiscally responsible. I'm proud of working hard toward building a decent net worth so I won't end up on the dole should something bad happen. I'm proud I don't spend as if I'm going to make BigLaw dollars for the rest of my life.

Pretty much this. The other stuff just sounds like "Well, if I give $10 a month to Amnesty, why shouldn't I just take a vow of poverty and go live in the wilderness?"

Oh, so now the argument is that "redistributing wealth" to legal secretaries is the equivalent of donating money to Amnesty?

My very first secretary - a great secretary whom I actually tipped generously, believe it or not - lived a far cushier life than moi. She lived a few blocks away from our Manhattan office, drove her own car, and parked in a pricey valet garage directly across the street. She never failed to come in without her favorite drink, a venti Frappuccino, in hand. She almost always ate out for lunch (and I don't mean McDonald's). Meanwhile I commuted in from much farther away via public transit, packed my own lunch, and relied on the rickety coffee machine in the breakroom for my java fix. Pardon me for not pitying that secretary.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

The fact that people are responding so negatively to me calling them cheap smacks of me hitting a truth.

I’m sorry, if spending 0.0526315789474% of a first year’s gross income (not including bonus!) is “overspending”

You

Are

Cheap

Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t deny it, don’t fight it. It’s okay, I wouldn’t care so much if you would just admit it! Being “responsible” and “saving yourself from “the dole” lmao.


As I said above, in just *two years* of biglaw I paid off $125k of my own student loans, $10k of my wife’s, maxed out my 401k, live in an expensive part of town in high COL city, eat at fantastic restaurants, and go on dope vacations. And I pay for most things - my wife isn’t a lawyer or six figure professional.

My life is fuckin’ fantastic. We make A LOT of money. The $100-500 to your secretary will not move the needle...because it’s literally one half of one percent of your income.

[BasilHallward]

The fact that people are responding so negatively to me calling them cheap smacks of me hitting a truth.

I’m sorry, if spending 0.0526315789474% of a first year’s gross income (not including bonus!) is “overspending”

You

Are

Cheap

Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t deny it, don’t fight it. It’s okay, I wouldn’t care so much if you would just admit it! Being “responsible” and “saving yourself from “the dole” lmao.


As I said above, in just *two years* of biglaw I paid off $125k of my own student loans, $10k of my wife’s, maxed out my 401k, live in an expensive part of town in high COL city, eat at fantastic restaurants, and go on dope vacations. And I pay for most things - my wife isn’t a lawyer or six figure professional.

My life is fuckin’ fantastic. We make A LOT of money. The $100-500 to your secretary will not move the needle...because it’s literally one half of one percent of your income.

I really question the bolded. Were you starting at 250k?? I'm assuming you started at 180k or even 160k, depending on start year. This amount of living high on the hog just does not seem feasible, unless your high COL city is Dallas or the like.

[Anonymous User]

My very first secretary - a great secretary whom I actually tipped generously, believe it or not - lived a far cushier life than moi. She lived a few blocks away from our Manhattan office, drove her own car, and parked in a pricey valet garage directly across the street. She never failed to come in without her favorite drink, a venti Frappuccino, in hand. She almost always ate out for lunch (and I don't mean McDonald's). Meanwhile I commuted in from much farther away via public transit, packed my own lunch, and relied on the rickety coffee machine in the breakroom for my java fix. Pardon me for not pitying that secretary.

I'm an anon from above. Your anecdote here is comical. You were likely making 4x this secretary's salary. Hats off to him/her for making that lifestyle work on that salary, but surely you realize this isn't common. Right?

As background, as a paralegal who was making more than the secretaries in my office, I made $42k plus a yearly bonus working at a firm in DC. It was a plaintiff's firm so the bonus was substantial one year (~$10-15k) when we had a big year but was closer to around $1k other years. How does that compare to your salary in BigLaw? Please give us the act. I'm not even responding to the Xmas gift anymore because I actually don't really have much to say about that. This attitude is just really grating. You have it good, by way of salary, in BigLaw. You don't deserve sympathy for making $160k+ in your 20's/early 30's, no matter how you choose to save and spend your money.

[clshopeful]

The fact that people are responding so negatively to me calling them cheap smacks of me hitting a truth.

I’m sorry, if spending 0.0526315789474% of a first year’s gross income (not including bonus!) is “overspending”

You

Are

Cheap

Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t deny it, don’t fight it. It’s okay, I wouldn’t care so much if you would just admit it! Being “responsible” and “saving yourself from “the dole” lmao.


As I said above, in just *two years* of biglaw I paid off $125k of my own student loans, $10k of my wife’s, maxed out my 401k, live in an expensive part of town in high COL city, eat at fantastic restaurants, and go on dope vacations. And I pay for most things - my wife isn’t a lawyer or six figure professional.

My life is fuckin’ fantastic. We make A LOT of money. The $100-500 to your secretary will not move the needle...because it’s literally one half of one percent of your income.

But gifts shouldn't be completely dependent on YOUR income. If it was all about paying what is relative to YOUR income, then I'd expect you to tip servers like $40 for lunch, since it's just pennies to you.

And another point why $100 per class year seems unreasonable: If I were a secretary, I wouldn't expect to receive that amount.

In other words, you shouldn't focus on what you should give relative to your salary, you should give what is reasonably expected or warranted. Just because you make 190, are you going to tip the valet guy $30? Or are you going to tip what is the norm, such as $5? He certainly isn't expecting a $30 tip, but going with your reasoning, it should be relative to your income. If someone with a regular income tips 15%, since you make roughly 4x the regular, you should tip 4x what a normal person tips?

[nixy]

You're moving the goalposts. No one has said "pay according to your income" or "pay more than is expected because you make more." People have said:

1) "$100 x class year is what's expected" [NB: I'm not claiming this is invariably the case, just that people have suggested this as a standard]
2) "that's an outrageous amount of money"
3) "you make a lot more than secretaries do and you can afford it"

Saying that someone can afford to pay a particular expectation because of how much they make isn't the same as saying that you should tip the guy at Starbucks based on how much you make.

(I also have no idea why you think you'd know how much you'd expect if you were a legal secretary. I would imagine that if you were a secretary you'd find out how much is the standard bonus where you're working and you'd expect to get that.)

As to the rich secretary anecdote: she probably had family money. Regardless, what you give as a gift at holidays shouldn't be based on *pitying* someone. It's not about pity.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a midlevel. I tip $100 per class year to my secretary and give an extra $100 to the secretaries of the two partners I work with most. I acknowledge that it is a generous tip, but it: (a) is the right thing to do; (b) is less than 0.2% of my compensation; and (c) gets them to go the extra mile for me when I need them to. I am all for being frugal and responsible (I drive a used car, buy most of my clothes at holiday sales, do most of my routine home maintenance, etc.), but it's never a good look to stiff someone on a tip, particularly when you work with them year in and year out.

[BlackAndOrange84]

The fact that people are responding so negatively to me calling them cheap smacks of me hitting a truth.

I’m sorry, if spending 0.0526315789474% of a first year’s gross income (not including bonus!) is “overspending”

You

Are

Cheap

Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t deny it, don’t fight it. It’s okay, I wouldn’t care so much if you would just admit it! Being “responsible” and “saving yourself from “the dole” lmao.

Breathless rationalizations aside, TITCR.

[QContinuum]

The fact that people are responding so negatively to me calling them cheap smacks of me hitting a truth.

I’m sorry, if spending 0.0526315789474% of a first year’s gross income (not including bonus!) is “overspending”

You

Are

Cheap

Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t deny it, don’t fight it. It’s okay, I wouldn’t care so much if you would just admit it! Being “responsible” and “saving yourself from “the dole” lmao.

Wow, okay. Sorry for triggering you. I guess you're "not cheap." I guess you're a "good liberal." Happy?

As I said above, in just *two years* of biglaw I paid off $125k of my own student loans, $10k of my wife’s, maxed out my 401k, live in an expensive part of town in high COL city, eat at fantastic restaurants, and go on dope vacations. And I pay for most things - my wife isn’t a lawyer or six figure professional.

Presumably your "two years" don't include your stub year, first year, or second year. Because if they do, your math doesn't add up. There is simply not enough cash left over after taxes and basic living expenses to do everything you claim you did. And if you did have that much cash left over, that suggests you had (significant) additional source(s) of income beyond your BigLaw salary, which not every associate has.

My life is fuckin’ fantastic. We make A LOT of money. The $100-500 to your secretary will not move the needle...because it’s literally one half of one percent of your income.

So if your life is "fuckin' fantastic," why are you idling away on TLS attacking other posters like a dog with a bone?

My very first secretary - a great secretary whom I actually tipped generously, believe it or not - lived a far cushier life than moi. She lived a few blocks away from our Manhattan office, drove her own car, and parked in a pricey valet garage directly across the street. She never failed to come in without her favorite drink, a venti Frappuccino, in hand. She almost always ate out for lunch (and I don't mean McDonald's). Meanwhile I commuted in from much farther away via public transit, packed my own lunch, and relied on the rickety coffee machine in the breakroom for my java fix. Pardon me for not pitying that secretary.

I'm an anon from above. Your anecdote here is comical. You were likely making 4x this secretary's salary. Hats off to him/her for making that lifestyle work on that salary, but surely you realize this isn't common. Right?

As background, as a paralegal who was making more than the secretaries in my office, I made $42k plus a yearly bonus working at a firm in DC. It was a plaintiff's firm so the bonus was substantial one year (~$10-15k) when we had a big year but was closer to around $1k other years. How does that compare to your salary in BigLaw? Please give us the act. I'm not even responding to the Xmas gift anymore because I actually don't really have much to say about that. This attitude is just really grating. You have it good, by way of salary, in BigLaw. You don't deserve sympathy for making $160k+ in your 20's/early 30's, no matter how you choose to save and spend your money.

I did not assert that all legal secretaries are living the high life, merely that it's laughably incorrect to categorize all associates as wealthy and all secretaries as poor. As I noted earlier ITT, many junior associates have negative net wealth. Their wealth is less than $0! If they were to die as a junior associate, Heaven forbid, they would literally have no money to leave to anyone. They would die as paupers. People can argue, "but they're making a high salary!" But that doesn't make them wealthy.

And as the anecdote above illustrates, not all secretaries are poor. The noblesse oblige rationale for giving large holiday tips to one's secretary is rickety enough, but the rationale completely disintegrates in the case of a poor associate-rich(er) secretary, which I would assert is not at all an uncommon scenario.

I don't think BigLaw associates "deserve sympathy." (I also don't think BigLaw secretaries "deserve sympathy" - IMO it's decent pay for a decent job.) But I also don't think BigLaw associates should have some kind of moral obligation to throw around $500+ holiday gifts a'la the Great Gatsby.

As to the rich secretary anecdote: she probably had family money. Regardless, what you give as a gift at holidays shouldn't be based on *pitying* someone. It's not about pity.

Oh, I absolutely agree. As I noted above, I did not pity that secretary (had no reason to do so). I gifted her generously because she was a great secretary and I liked her.

Lost in many of the above posts is that no one ITT is arguing for a blanket "no gifting" rule. No one! The only difference is between those who think holiday tipping should be A) reasonable in amount and B) based on good job performance, and others who think holiday tipping should be lockstep based on seniority, regardless of job performance, and tantamount to a moral obligation because all associates are apparently wealthy.

[TAD]

The fact that people are responding so negatively to me calling them cheap smacks of me hitting a truth.

I’m sorry, if spending 0.0526315789474% of a first year’s gross income (not including bonus!) is “overspending”

You

Are

Cheap

Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t deny it, don’t fight it. It’s okay, I wouldn’t care so much if you would just admit it! Being “responsible” and “saving yourself from “the dole” lmao.


As I said above, in just *two years* of biglaw I paid off $125k of my own student loans, $10k of my wife’s, maxed out my 401k, live in an expensive part of town in high COL city, eat at fantastic restaurants, and go on dope vacations. And I pay for most things - my wife isn’t a lawyer or six figure professional.

My life is fuckin’ fantastic. We make A LOT of money. The $100-500 to your secretary will not move the needle...because it’s literally one half of one percent of your income.

I really question the bolded. Were you starting at 250k?? I'm assuming you started at 180k or even 160k, depending on start year. This amount of living high on the hog just does not seem feasible, unless your high COL city is Dallas or the like.

tbf, even if his wife does not make six figures, a combined income could make it feasible.

[lavarman84]

This thread is very weird. Why did are people trying to make this about being "liberal" or "redistributing the wealth?" I'm not sure why this is political. It's about generosity. Generosity has nothing to do with politics.

[QContinuum]

This thread is very weird. Why did are people trying to make this about being "liberal" or "redistributing the wealth?" I'm not sure why this is political. It's about generosity. Generosity has nothing to do with politics.

Frankly that puzzles me too. I agree tipping/gifting should be about generosity. I have been trying to push back on assertions that tipping/gifting should be about a moral obligation to redistribute wealth as a liberal. I think that's a pretty weird way of looking at it. It's the "white man's burden" all over again with the noble law firm associate cast as the savior of the benighted secretary.

[Anonymous User]

A data point for those wondering whether anyone gifts at the higher end of the scale, or what partners should gift: I'm a junior partner in non-NY biglaw.

During the senior associate years, I gave $250-350 to my assistant as an end of year gift, often via Visa gift card, sometimes a mix of gift card and substantive gift. While the conventional wisdom is that assistants would prefer cold hard cash, I often got the feeling she wouldn't have minded at all if I'd been creative enough to come up with well-chosen actual gifts as a substitute for part of all of the gift card (FWIW). Beyond that, she always seemed perfectly happy with the amount, which was the same or above what many of my colleagues were giving. The year I made partner, I wanted to give a larger gift (think, in the $900 range), as we have had a close working relationship for years and I see her as an invaluable part of my work life. She actually declined, saying she felt it was too large for her to accept. Sure, she's a class act, but it still caught me off guard after years of reading the TLS/ATL "conventional wisdom" on this and low-key wondering for years whether my assistant might believe in the same scale.

[nixy]

This thread is very weird. Why did are people trying to make this about being "liberal" or "redistributing the wealth?" I'm not sure why this is political. It's about generosity. Generosity has nothing to do with politics.

Frankly that puzzles me too. I agree tipping/gifting should be about generosity. I have been trying to push back on assertions that tipping/gifting should be about a moral obligation to redistribute wealth as a liberal. I think that's a pretty weird way of looking at it. It's the "white man's burden" all over again with the noble law firm associate cast as the savior of the benighted secretary.

No one but you has actually characterized the gift like this at all. Saying “associates can afford it and make more than secretaries” is, as I already noted, not the same as saying “therefore you’re obligated to distribute the wealth in a noblesse oblige gesture.” It’s simply saying that *if* the expectation is $100 x class year, that’s not an outrageous expectation in the grand scheme of associates and secretaries (even if individual circumstances may vary).

Also this

So if your life is "fuckin' fantastic," why are you idling away on TLS attacking other posters like a dog with a bone?

is not very productive.

[QContinuum]

No one but you has actually characterized the gift like this at all. Saying “associates can afford it and make more than secretaries” is, as I already noted, not the same as saying “therefore you’re obligated to distribute the wealth in a noblesse oblige gesture.” It’s simply saying that *if* the expectation is $100 x class year, that’s not an outrageous expectation in the grand scheme of associates and secretaries (even if individual circumstances may vary).

Au contraire...

Also, characterizing it as a tip is egregious. It’s a Christmas gift/bonus. I bet many of you consider yourselves quite liberal, but when it comes to redistributing a tiny potion of your wealth to your secretaries who make a fraction of your income, it’s absurd!

That's where the liberal wealth redistribution justification for Christmas tipping/gifting initially entered this thread.

Then there was this gem, asserting that tipping one's secretary is akin to donating to Amnesty (building on the same argument of secretaries needing a generous associate to "rescue" them):

The other stuff just sounds like "Well, if I give $10 a month to Amnesty, why shouldn't I just take a vow of poverty and go live in the wilderness?"

Of course, the funny thing is that LaLiLuLeLo themselves subscribes to a rule saying that third-years and up gift no more than $300. So even the most avowedly "anti-cheapness" poster ITT rejects (at least for themselves) the "$100 x class year" expectation. IMO, LaLiLuLeLo's personal rule - a $100 tip as a first-year, increasing to a maximum of $300 - is eminently reasonable.

The $300 cap is also generally in line with at least one other poster's personal experience:

During the senior associate years, I gave $250-350 to my assistant as an end of year gift

[cavalier1138]

Then there was this gem, asserting that tipping one's secretary is akin to donating to Amnesty (building on the same argument of secretaries needing a generous associate to "rescue" them):

I was actually equating the argument that "I can't afford to give my secretary $100" to the argument that people use to avoid giving to charity. It's not to argue that holiday gifts are akin to charity for the poor, nor should they be.

If you go back to the initial asshole who started this, the contention was "I can't afford to give my secretary a Christmas present, because I only have $30k of disposable income." Regardless of whether you think the $100-300 range is appropriate for a secretary's gift, that's a bullshit excuse for being cheap. You can argue that it's excessive, but you can't argue that it's not affordable.

[QContinuum]

If you go back to the initial asshole who started this, the contention was "I can't afford to give my secretary a Christmas present, because I only have $30k of disposable income." Regardless of whether you think the $100-300 range is appropriate for a secretary's gift, that's a bullshit excuse for being cheap. You can argue that it's excessive, but you can't argue that it's not affordable.

To some extent affordability can vary based on an expenditure's rationale. For example, I donate to charity & religious organizations and consider those donations affordable. But as much as I love Frappuccinos, I don't consider a daily venti affordable, because I think the same money can be put to much better use elsewhere. Technically, of course I make enough to buy a daily Frappuccino, but that would mean I'd have to cut spending elsewhere by an equivalent amount to balance the books. I don't have enough "f*** everything" money to spend that much on coffee and do everything else I want to do. Hence, "not affordable."

[nixy]

This is lawyering the shit out of the issue to the point of absurdity. Yes, if you have $30k disposable income you can afford to pay your secretary $100 at the holidays. You just don’t want to. That’s fine, it’s your choice, but you can afford it.