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Not sure if Legal Employment or somewhere else is the best place to post this, but given that nearly all big firms do the whole seamless if you're working late thing, I thought we could get first hand takes on what the best option is in your respective dollar limits/how else you maximize that benefit.

Given that we have a critical mass of big law lawyers in NY/DC, I was curious to get input on where people stretch out their $30/35. I've heard of people doing various strategies: get two meals and eat the second for lunch, get various groceries/snacks for your office, stock up on energy drinks etc. Normally at 11pm I'm not thinking about maximizing efficiency in seamless orders. So what do you do (and where in the city are you ordering)?

Below are my go-tos for the financial district:
-Pita Press (two pitas and a salad comes in under the limit. Open on weekends which is not universal here).
-Quan (decent sushi, dependably fast)
-Greenstar foods (good grocery selection, so good place to stock up)
-Stamina (very fast, good place if you're on a diet of any sort)
-East Village Farm and Grocery (great grocery selection, but sporadic delivery times)

You make me feel lucky that I'm usually asleep way before 11pm.

I've debated the ethics of using the limit to get household items like detergent and paper towels. By debate, I mean going back and forth in my head. On a lot of cases it takes weeks to get the billing number onto Seamless, and instead of using my credit card will use another billing number. I only do this when I do work for that case, but it seems wrong to charge it to a client I'm doing 0.5 for and not the one I'm doing 10.5 for because billing is slow.

The worst is Bread and Butter on W31. They will straight up not deliver and lie about it. A $100 order for 3 people never came, and they said they had a janitor from the lobby bring it to us 44 floors up. The owner said the delivery guy never called because he doesn't speak English so it's standard practice to leave the food with a janitor. A day later the owner said we were more than 5 blocks away so they don't deliver, which is fine but they should still refund.

Anonymous User wrote:I've debated the ethics of using the limit to get household items like detergent and paper towels. By debate, I mean going back and forth in my head. On a lot of cases it takes weeks to get the billing number onto Seamless, and instead of using my credit card will use another billing number. I only do this when I do work for that case, but it seems wrong to charge it to a client I'm doing 0.5 for and not the one I'm doing 10.5 for because billing is slow.

The worst is Bread and Butter on W31. They will straight up not deliver and lie about it. A $100 order for 3 people never came, and they said they had a janitor from the lobby bring it to us 44 floors up. The owner said the delivery guy never called because he doesn't speak English so it's standard practice to leave the food with a janitor. A day later the owner said we were more than 5 blocks away so they don't deliver, which is fine but they should still refund.

I'm just checking in case I misunderstood. You are making a biglaw salary and want to charge your client for your detergent and paper towels.

You are billing the wrong client for your meal because it takes too long to get the number into the system.

You debate the ethics of this with yourself. Is that about right?

Tls2016 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I've debated the ethics of using the limit to get household items like detergent and paper towels. By debate, I mean going back and forth in my head. On a lot of cases it takes weeks to get the billing number onto Seamless, and instead of using my credit card will use another billing number. I only do this when I do work for that case, but it seems wrong to charge it to a client I'm doing 0.5 for and not the one I'm doing 10.5 for because billing is slow.

The worst is Bread and Butter on W31. They will straight up not deliver and lie about it. A $100 order for 3 people never came, and they said they had a janitor from the lobby bring it to us 44 floors up. The owner said the delivery guy never called because he doesn't speak English so it's standard practice to leave the food with a janitor. A day later the owner said we were more than 5 blocks away so they don't deliver, which is fine but they should still refund.

I'm just checking in case I misunderstood. You are making a biglaw salary and want to charge your client for your detergent and paper towels.

You are billing the wrong client for your meal because it takes too long to get the number into the system.

You debate the ethics of this with yourself. Is that about right?

Yes that big law salary which famously goes so far in NYC. This seems perfectly reasonable to me I guess I don't understand the hate.

Current firm has $20 Seamless limit. Really sucks. Old firm had $30 limit which opens up a whole new world of culinary possibilities in NYC. With my old firm, it was a catch 22. The higher limit meant that I could order 2 sandwiches and keep the second one for lunch the next day, or I could order a whole bunch of breakfast items and eat them over the course of the week. The problem is that my old firm would post the full seamless info on the client bill, including restaurant name and what was ordered. So that sunk my plans to order in bulk like that. New firm I don't have that issue, but with $20 limit, I almost always go over and end up having to pay a portion.

ImNoScar wrote:

Tls2016 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I've debated the ethics of using the limit to get household items like detergent and paper towels. By debate, I mean going back and forth in my head. On a lot of cases it takes weeks to get the billing number onto Seamless, and instead of using my credit card will use another billing number. I only do this when I do work for that case, but it seems wrong to charge it to a client I'm doing 0.5 for and not the one I'm doing 10.5 for because billing is slow.

The worst is Bread and Butter on W31. They will straight up not deliver and lie about it. A $100 order for 3 people never came, and they said they had a janitor from the lobby bring it to us 44 floors up. The owner said the delivery guy never called because he doesn't speak English so it's standard practice to leave the food with a janitor. A day later the owner said we were more than 5 blocks away so they don't deliver, which is fine but they should still refund.

I'm just checking in case I misunderstood. You are making a biglaw salary and want to charge your client for your detergent and paper towels.

You are billing the wrong client for your meal because it takes too long to get the number into the system.

You debate the ethics of this with yourself. Is that about right?

Yes that big law salary which famously goes so far in NYC. This seems perfectly reasonable to me I guess I don't understand the hate.

It's not hate. I don't agree that anyone should bill clients for stuff like laundry detergent you use at home, which the poster hasn't done, or to bill one client for dinner when you are working late on another matter. Just my opinion. Not sure how the partners or the client would view it.

Anonymous User wrote:Current firm has $20 Seamless limit. Really sucks. Old firm had $30 limit which opens up a whole new world of culinary possibilities in NYC. With my old firm, it was a catch 22. The higher limit meant that I could order 2 sandwiches and keep the second one for lunch the next day, or I could order a whole bunch of breakfast items and eat them over the course of the week. The problem is that my old firm would post the full seamless info on the client bill, including restaurant name and what was ordered. So that sunk my plans to order in bulk like that. New firm I don't have that issue, but with $20 limit, I almost always go over and end up having to pay a portion.

So what's your approach with the new firm? The itemized bill sounds like a real problem.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Current firm has $20 Seamless limit. Really sucks. Old firm had $30 limit which opens up a whole new world of culinary possibilities in NYC. With my old firm, it was a catch 22. The higher limit meant that I could order 2 sandwiches and keep the second one for lunch the next day, or I could order a whole bunch of breakfast items and eat them over the course of the week. The problem is that my old firm would post the full seamless info on the client bill, including restaurant name and what was ordered. So that sunk my plans to order in bulk like that. New firm I don't have that issue, but with $20 limit, I almost always go over and end up having to pay a portion.

So what's your approach with the new firm? The itemized bill sounds like a real problem.

New firm doesn't have itemized bill and client doesn't see restaurant or order contents. But with only $20 bucks, its not enough to get something extra. As is I almost always go over once you include tax and tip.

ImNoScar wrote:

Tls2016 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I've debated the ethics of using the limit to get household items like detergent and paper towels. By debate, I mean going back and forth in my head. On a lot of cases it takes weeks to get the billing number onto Seamless, and instead of using my credit card will use another billing number. I only do this when I do work for that case, but it seems wrong to charge it to a client I'm doing 0.5 for and not the one I'm doing 10.5 for because billing is slow.

The worst is Bread and Butter on W31. They will straight up not deliver and lie about it. A $100 order for 3 people never came, and they said they had a janitor from the lobby bring it to us 44 floors up. The owner said the delivery guy never called because he doesn't speak English so it's standard practice to leave the food with a janitor. A day later the owner said we were more than 5 blocks away so they don't deliver, which is fine but they should still refund.

I'm just checking in case I misunderstood. You are making a biglaw salary and want to charge your client for your detergent and paper towels.

You are billing the wrong client for your meal because it takes too long to get the number into the system.

You debate the ethics of this with yourself. Is that about right?

Yes that big law salary which famously goes so far in NYC. This seems perfectly reasonable to me I guess I don't understand the hate.

Big law salary goes far enough to buy freakin laundry detergent no matter what city you are in, and if it doesn't, then you need to seriously reconsider your spending habits.

ETA: Just my $0.02, if someone gives me money to buy food when working late, i am going to use that money to buy food when working late. Anything else should be purchased with the salary the firm pays.

It's really more that when I'm working late enough to use Seamless I don't have time to run errands. It's also not clear what Seamless is. Is it a fringe benefit as this thread suggests, or is it solely there to help you work on the matter that you're working on?

The which client to bill thing may have been misunderstood. What I mean is it's rare I'll be at the office till midnight due to only one matter. I'm often working on 3 or 4 things simultaneously. Also, if you get 2 assignments at 9 AM, and work on one assignment from 10 AM-6 PM and another from 7 PM-11 PM, is it really fair to charge dinner to the 7-11 client when the 10-6 client is why you're there until 11? These philosophical questions keep me up at night.