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Shamelessly looking for a bit of personal advice in hopes that someone has been in a similar position in the past. Here are the relevant facts:

I'm a first year transactional biglaw associate in a decently-sized satellite office on the west coast. My fiance is currently pursuing a doctorate degree, and part of her program requires her to take a position in a flyover state for a year (July-June). Both of us will be working full-time, although admittedly my schedule will be more hectic, as expected being a biglaw associate. I'm trying to figure out how to go about being a plane ride away and managing expectations in terms of how often we are going to be able to visit one another. Both of us are willing to fly to the other's location for the weekend (maybe every other month each, that way we see each other monthly), but I'm not sure how realistic it is to expect to be able to get out of town for a weekend working in biglaw. It's not fair for me to always expect her to fly every time, and I would like to do my part and make an effort. As it is now, I would say I work on about half of weekends, but the work can usually be done remotely, barring a fire drill. Problem is, I usually don't know until Friday or even Saturday if I will have to work that given weekend.

Does anyone have any advice, either from experience or anecdotal, about how to best go about this? Is is appropriate to tell those I'm working with that I'll be out of town for the weekend, but am more than willing to work remotely if need be? The mid-level/senior associates and partners in my group are pretty laid back, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes or be seen as a slacker. If I'm traveling, should I not say anything, and if called upon to work, explain that I'm out of town but happy to work remotely?

I don't have any aspirations to be a partner or anything, but I don't want to create a bad reputation for myself around my firm if I inconvenience my team, and I don't want to be shown the door before I'm ready to leave.

Any thoughts/advice much appreciated. Thanks!

Hello,

I have been in a long distance relationship during school and law practice.

It dépends on your firm's mentality and values.

In my opinion, it is doable on the personal side, as long as you communicate with your significant other the constraints work imposes on your schedule. From experience, long distance relationships are hard, but they are totally doable. Communication is paramount, so Skype or FaceTime calls, texts messages and emails with your significant other will help relieve the lack of "presence".

On the office side, I would be transparent with the partners you work with, because telling them you are out of town the day they call could have a negative impact and even put them in trouble if they counted on you to complete an assignment and deadlines are tight.

It's best to plan in advance with your partners / senior associates, so files, assignemnts, deadlines and projects can be adjusted accordingly and at least they'll know they might have to call someone else to do the work on weekends you're out of town.

So, I think, provided you : plan in avance with your partners / senior associates, always deliver work on schedule, that the frequency of you being away is occasional and not excessive, and that despite being out of town, you show availability to work remotely, I do not see why they would use this to show you the door.

However, you should be aware that the partner's expectations and the burden of showing you can effectively deliver quality work on-time may be higher, since your face time will be descreased by the fact you are sometimes out of town.

In other words, if you really deliver quality work on time, they should be confident that you'll be able to still deliver when they call you, even if out of town, and since you will have planned your trip in advance with them, they'll probably take that into account in their planning.

corp wrote:Hello,

I have been in a long distance relationship during school and law practice.

It dépends on your firm's mentality and values.

In my opinion, it is doable on the personal side, as long as you communicate with your significant other the constraints work imposes on your schedule. From experience, long distance relationships are hard, but they are totally doable. Communication is paramount, so Skype or FaceTime calls, texts messages and emails with your significant other will help relieve the lack of "presence".

On the office side, I would be transparent with the partners you work with, because telling them you are out of town the day they call could have a negative impact and even put them in trouble if they counted on you to complete an assignment and deadlines are tight.

It's best to plan in advance with your partners / senior associates, so files, assignemnts, deadlines and projects can be adjusted accordingly and at least they'll know they might have to call someone else to do the work on weekends you're out of town.

So, I think, provided you : plan in avance with your partners / senior associates, always deliver work on schedule, that the frequency of you being away is occasional and not excessive, and that despite being out of town, you show availability to work remotely, I do not see why they would use this to show you the door.

However, you should be aware that the partner's expectations and the burden of showing you can effectively deliver quality work on-time may be higher, since your face time will be descreased by the fact you are sometimes out of town.

In other words, if you really deliver quality work on time, they should be confident that you'll be able to still deliver when they call you, even if out of town, and since you will have planned your trip in advance with them, they'll probably take that into account in their planning.

OP here - Thank you for your input, it's incredibly helpful. I figured it would be better to let senior associates/partners know ahead of time, I guess I'm just dreading having to tell them semi-regularly that I plan to be out of town, despite being willing to work remotely. I have a pretty good relationship/reputation with the senior associates and partners in my group, and I really don't want to diminish it.

In your experience, have you had (m)any issues with the way that senior associates/partners have responded? Obviously if it's a true fire drill, I'd be willing to cancel a trip last minute, but I'd hope that doesn't happen too often.

Also, you mentioned that the frequency of being away should be occasional and not excessive. Would you think once every other month is acceptable?

Thanks again!

Sounds hard all around, but in response to the last question you should absolutely let them all know ahead of time. If the people like and trust you but you're away a lot your hours may suffer, but there'll be work available to you when you're available. If they count on you and you let them down it's much likelier they'll never want to work with you again. You have too take a long term outlook, and by long term I mean, how will this impact you in 3 months from now?