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I do not mind working til whenever, but I don't like to spend all my time in the office. Which firms in the V30 and above are best for letting you work at home (I.e. Will let you work at home sometimes without hassle)?

rgn122000 wrote:I do not mind working til whenever, but I don't like to spend all my time in the office. Which firms in the V30 and above are best for letting you work at home (I.e. Will let you work at home sometimes without hassle)?

Haven't started yet, but many associates have told me that my future firm is flexible about this (and that they often go home at a reasonable time, say 7pm, and work from home). Idk about other offices but it's WilmerHale. Which markets are you looking at? And lit/corp/other? There are a lot of factors.

You better check the leaked 2017 Vault rankings. You don't want to take a job at what used to be a V30 and find out it's now a V40

Anonymous User wrote:

rgn122000 wrote:I do not mind working til whenever, but I don't like to spend all my time in the office. Which firms in the V30 and above are best for letting you work at home (I.e. Will let you work at home sometimes without hassle)?

Haven't started yet, but many associates have told me that my future firm is flexible about this (and that they often go home at a reasonable time, say 7pm, and work from home). Idk about other offices but it's WilmerHale. Which markets are you looking at? And lit/corp/other? There are a lot of factors.

Probably transactional. Looking into banking and finance but still undecided there.

Most firms, in general, are fine about working from home. It just depends on if you get stuck working for a partner who doesn't operate that way.


In my experience it's easier to work from home in lit (I'm corp). They have bigger chunks of time devoted to single things than transactional associates, which seems more amenable to working remotely.

This is pretty partner dependent. Some will want you in the office whenever they are there. Some don't care as long as they can reach out. Probably will have to feel it out.

I dont start until the fall but everything I've heard indicates that you're gonna wanna be real cautious about this in the first year or so. Facetime is a thing and even if you're busy, you want to be on the radar of seniors and midlevels.

rgn122000 wrote:I do not mind working til whenever, but I don't like to spend all my time in the office. Which firms in the V30 and above are best for letting you work at home (I.e. Will let you work at home sometimes without hassle)?

There are some firms that are nice about it, but, as everyone has said above, it's partner dependent. I would, however, advise not to go down this road as a first year, I wouldn't even ask people in the office, unless it's for something very pressing. You do not want to be the first year who's not around and is sending out emails saying that you're working from home, I think it rubs people the wrong way and gives the wrong impression (and you may not yet have developed a sense of timing with regards to employing this perk). It will also probably cause you to miss out on some work opportunities.

With that said, I would still suggest you look into the firms that are better about it, because (a) if you end up in a firm with a strong facetime requirement and some jerk midlevel/senior associates, they will lord it over you and try to control your life, these firms suck and (b) although maybe not terribly relevant as a junior, the ability to work from home will become nicer and more accessible as you gain seniority. Note, however, that this little perk is not as exciting as you might think, when you are busy and in the middle of a deal, you will likely have to be in the office until obscene hours anyways.

rgn122000 wrote:I do not mind working til whenever, but I don't like to spend all my time in the office. Which firms in the V30 and above are best for letting you work at home (I.e. Will let you work at home sometimes without hassle)?

Arnold & Porter is really great about this.

I've noticed a definite correlation between age and opinions on this. Not many associates care about anything other than work product and whether they like you. The two caveats are (1) if you aren't hitting your hours and you're leaving early you're probably going to get screwed and (2) people get really pissed when they pull an all nighter, and someone goes home at midnight. You could likely be fine working from home every night so long as you pull the all nighters when other people do. My observation is staying those extra three hours till everyone leaves even if you're not doing any work is worth more than a week.

It is very hard if you are a junior transactional associate to work from home. You have a better shot of it if you have a professional-quality printer/scanner in your house - without that, its virtually impossible - but even with that there will be plenty of nights where you are ordered to stay or you leave and someone expected you to stay and is pissed you're gone. This is not driven by firm culture - it is legitimately slower to work when everyone is remote, and sometimes when we're under a tight deadline I'll make everyone sit in the same conference room because my personal experience is that it makes things go materially quicker than letting everyone stay in their office, let alone work from home. But that is a special case only used for the most important deadlines.

In some Southern offices, there is also a difference in perceived propriety about working from home depending on the requestor's gender.

wons wrote:It is very hard if you are a junior transactional associate to work from home. You have a better shot of it if you have a professional-quality printer/scanner in your house - without that, its virtually impossible - but even with that there will be plenty of nights where you are ordered to stay or you leave and someone expected you to stay and is pissed you're gone. This is not driven by firm culture - it is legitimately slower to work when everyone is remote, and sometimes when we're under a tight deadline I'll make everyone sit in the same conference room because my personal experience is that it makes things go materially quicker than letting everyone stay in their office, let alone work from home. But that is a special case only used for the most important deadlines.

Would generally disagree that it's difficult to work from home as a junior. Agree with the posters who say just get your shit done (and done well), be responsive, keep your hours up and know your team. Some people (like the person above) will keep you in the office, others don't care.

From my perspective, if you are working on my stuff, and I need you to do something, and you are "unreachable" or slow to respond at an urgent time...I will be pissed

So if you can be as responsive, etc., from home, cool. But in my experience in a transactional practice that's rarely the case.

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California offices

jbagelboy wrote:California offices

shhhhh let's keep this (and other advantages CA has) a secret...

jbagelboy wrote:California offices

I wish.

Tiago Splitter wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:California offices

I wish.

New york based firms are generally more facetime based

But ca based firms and some ca offices of other firms are known for less of a facetime emphasis

For first years I'd imagine this is pretty meaningless since you're expected to show up regardless. I wouldn't trust me to work from home.

jbagelboy wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:California offices

I wish.

New york based firms are generally more facetime based

But ca based firms and some ca offices of other firms are known for less of a facetime emphasis

For first years I'd imagine this is pretty meaningless since you're expected to show up regardless. I wouldn't trust me to work from home.

It's definitely better in the evening compared to NYC. Leaving at 6 is no big deal. But during business hours it feels weird to not be available.

Like everyone I work with is married with kids so they all peace at 6 and log back on. Makes working from home in the evenings as a matter of course really easy.

In two years as a corporate associate, I haven't stayed later than 6:30. You have to be smart about picking days to work from home, though.

jbagelboy wrote:California offices

My office is totally empty after 6. People are hitting their hours, but nobody gives a shit where you are working. Compared to a NY office, a huge proportion of associates are married with kids, so people are generally more understanding, and lots of the work is inter-office anyway, so it makes less difference where you are.

Anonymous User wrote:In two years as a corporate associate, I haven't stayed later than 6:30. You have to be smart about picking days to work from home, though.

Market?

I'm in CA and yeah, turns to a ghost town by 6. I shifted my schedule earlier and bounce at 4, and as long as I'm available by email and stay late for filings as needed it doesn't really matter. I can sit in the office all week working with people in my office the whole time and manage to never actually see them so it hardly matters. Can't tell you the last time I laid eyes on the partner I work with daily.

I don't work from home for entire days much at all now that my off-hours commute is better, but people do it a lot. If I feel kinda sickly I just work from home. The (east coast) HQ suggested starting once weekly work from home days for associates and our office's reaction was funny because people here just work from home when they feel like it.