Asking for time off during first six months BigLaw? Forum

[Anonymous User]

My wife wants to drive to see family out of state for Christmas, which would require me to be MIA for a couple days while we're driving there and back. My plan coming into my first year was not to take any time off at all unless I had to, and I'm hesitant to ask for it. I'll ask a slightly more experienced associate in my group what they think, but was wondering what the TLS consensus on this was.

[Ultramar vistas]

My wife wants to drive to see family out of state for Christmas, which would require me to be MIA for a couple days while we're driving there and back. My plan coming into my first year was not to take any time off at all unless I had to, and I'm hesitant to ask for it. I'll ask a slightly more experienced associate in my group what they think, but was wondering what the TLS consensus on this was.

No answer is true for all forms and groups.

If you’re in a V20 M&A group and you pick up a deal that’s pretty active at that time, you can put your foot down and take the days off but you will likely upset some people and it’s up to you whether you want to take that reputational damage so early on.

On the other hand, some firms have a certain number of vacation days like any other business, and you should just ask as soon as possible to make sure you won’t be disrupting anything.

If it’s the first situation, I’d just tell your wife that this is going to be the first of a thousand weekends and vacations where she’s welcome to plan all she wants, but you won’t be able to commit until the last minute and if something material comes up, you’re out. Best get used to it.

[malibustacy]

Why is flying not an option? Can your wife drive?

I mean it really depends on what you're staffed on, and whether they'll be okay with you finding coverage if you're on an active deal. First years are generally replaceable, but biglaw isn't the kind of job you kinda decide to be completely out of pocket on a whim a few weeks before with no advanced planning.

[Sackboy]

I'd probably just ask some juniors you've worked with to provide coverage for you during those two days and then I'd communicate to any relevant internal parties on your deals that they'll be covering for you for those days. I'd also have your wife drive so you can respond to emails/make calls if necessary. That should cover the important bases. Generally, if your group has a good culture, it shouldn't be a big problem, because they will know that you're good for coverage in the future.

Also, I do think that being 2 months into the job is a bit early for official vacation, but make sure you use 3-4 weeks of vacation as a 1st year. At my V10, we encourage our first years to use their vacation time. This can be an exhausting job. Slogging through it without any real, formal breaks will both make it worse and shorten your lifespan in this type of work.

[dyemond]

Few things -- all of this is coming from the perspective of a transactional practice:

a) Fly unless you can't for some reason (medical, etc.). Save yourself the pain now.

b) Depends on what kind of group you are in. If you're in transactional, most big shops/v10 will expect people to be around, on-call to help out with EOY deals. At least in my shop right now, everyone at every level--from first years to senior equity partners--is putting in heavy hours, and it's a universal experience, so trying to skip out is likely to upset people. If you're at a busy shop in a transactional practice where everyone is slammed right now, wouldn't think people are going to be forgiving about coverage, because everyone is busy, and everyone has families, spouses, kids, etc.

c) IMO, if you're both in a core transactional practice (m&a, finance, cap markets) and you want to slog it out for 4-5+ years, now might be the time to level set with your family. It's a culture shock for non-biglaw folks but December 20-24 and 27-31 is the end of the EOY sprint and people expect teams to be around and working. My spouse is really cool about it and gets that in Jan/Feb we get to decompress, travel, etc., and that we're just off-schedule from a lot of other people, but you have to set expectations.

d) If your group/office has a different vibe and work is more manageable right now, or you're in a lit or specialist practice or something, disregard the above and feel out the right answer from a good midlevel.

[bob311]

I’m in lit, so I can’t answer on the transactional side, but I lost my holidays completely to prepare for a trial I was going to have no part in my stub year. The expectation then, and now as I’m getting more senior, is that it’s the juniors, aka you OP, are who needs to be available and ready to work during the holidays. The partner on that trial and the senior associate wanted to take Christmas Day off, so that meant my butt was in the office prepping trial exhibits. That is what this job is your first few years - you are an overpaid paralegal expected to be available at the drop of the hat, regardless what day it is.

More broadly, the expectation at my old biglaw firm and now at my lit boutique is that the first few year associates are the ones that need to be available during the holidays. Lit is a little different in that we can usually know if there is something coming up ahead of time, but that’s not always the case. I feel for you and for the family, as I personally don’t feel safe flying yet. But the truth of the matter is that you are in biglaw and you are a junior, which means you get all the stuff people don’t want during the holidays. If a stub year asked me to be out of pocket for 3-4 days during the holidays and we had the need for work, I would be pissed. But at least in lit we can generally foresee the future versus corporate.

[Anonymous User]

OP here, thanks for the replies. I am in lit, but this basically confirms my thoughts. I do not at all want to go on this trip or do anything that would push the envelope when I’ve only been here three months. I guess I’m just realizing that a big piece of the stress for me in BigLaw is trying to manage family expectations. Trying to get someone to believe who doesn’t understand that it’s not worth even asking for time off sometimes is a pain.

[emc91]

Just fly. With WFH, this is a great chance to see family for the holidays without having to be physically out of the office. I would take the trip and fly so I don’t have to be MIA at all.

[sophie361]

Corporate rather than lit, but my (senior associate) view is that people don't take kindly to juniors expecting time fully off/coverage over the holidays. EVERYONE wants to be off, and it is basically impossible to get coverage, so a junior saying they will be out of pocket or unavailable for extended periods is essentially them saying that I need to do their work. Which is annoying, because I too would like to not work and see my family.

This is very different from a team wide conversation about specific days or events that may be harder for people to be available (flying, specific family gatherings that are super important) and a group effort to make sure someone is around at all times but everyone is for the most part able to get pockets of time. It is all about messaging and treating it like a team/collaberative effort to get the work done and protect people's personal time when possible. Approaching it from the perspective of I will of course be mostly available but I need X afternoon if possible, can we discuss how that may work without inconveniencing the team etc. is different than I will be basically out of pocket for 3 days and expecting coverage, bc that coverage is very unlikely to be forthcoming and will end up being your senior.

[attorney589753]

Corporate rather than lit, but my (senior associate) view is that people don't take kindly to juniors expecting time fully off/coverage over the holidays. EVERYONE wants to be off, and it is basically impossible to get coverage, so a junior saying they will be out of pocket or unavailable for extended periods is essentially them saying that I need to do their work. Which is annoying, because I too would like to not work and see my family.

This is very different from a team wide conversation about specific days or events that may be harder for people to be available (flying, specific family gatherings that are super important) and a group effort to make sure someone is around at all times but everyone is for the most part able to get pockets of time. It is all about messaging and treating it like a team/collaberative effort to get the work done and protect people's personal time when possible. Approaching it from the perspective of I will of course be mostly available but I need X afternoon if possible, can we discuss how that may work without inconveniencing the team etc. is different than I will be basically out of pocket for 3 days and expecting coverage, bc that coverage is very unlikely to be forthcoming and will end up being your senior.

+1 from same POV. If specific time period or event that is important, OK/good to proactively signal that.

[lolwutpar]

Everyone suggesting flying knows there's a little thing called COVID-19 spreading like wildfire right now, right?

[Anonymous User]

Everyone suggesting flying knows there's a little thing called COVID-19 spreading like wildfire right now, right?

I acknowledged in my post that some people don’t feel comfortable flying, including myself due to covid. OP- as I am in lit unlike the rest of the posters, 2 additional thoughts.

1- what does your case load, etc look like? Do you have a brief due on Jan 2 that you are assisting on research or are you doing a huge doc review with a tight timeline? That schedule isn’t outcome determinative but should give you a sense of what is coming. However, emergencies in lit do happen and over the holidays it’s expected you will be available to assist.

2- if you do drive, and not fly, which is understandable, I would require 2 things to do it. 1- make sure your wife is driving so you are available. 2- have a mobile hotspot in the car so you can be online and be doing work. I would have no problem with one of my juniors doing a doc review in a car, a plane, or a spaceship for all I care. What I do care about is the stuff getting done when needed in the time needed. I would ask your firm for a mobile hotspot and buy a converter for your car.

edit - this is Bob311, accidental anon. My bad.

[papercutter]

I'm also in lit, and I think this may be an area where lit and corp are different. I agree with bob that there are times in lit that will eat the holidays--I've been through that with trial prep, expert crunches, and other looming deadlines--but almost all of those are known in advance. Unless you're dealing with those types of situations, or you have a case that has a lot of unpredictable fire drills, I think you can reasonably check in with whoever you're reporting to about a road trip over the holidays. Your partners' or senior associates' comfort level may vary, but I wouldn't have a problem with someone asking. If things are fairly calm and this isn't going to impact any of your regularly scheduled work, my reaction would probably be: sure, I may have to call you if we need something only you know (which is unlikely that you're pretty new), but otherwise have a good vacation. I don't need you to defer a vacation at Christmastime based solely on the possibility that something unexpected might come up, unless I have a strong reason to think that we'll have an all-hands situation.

There might be a reason you're not aware of to think something will come up such that we'll need some emergency capacity, but in that case I'm not going to blame you for asking, as long as you frame it as 'is this ok?' rather than 'I am going to be unavailable." If this is going to be a problem for your firm or your group, a senior associate should be able to clue you in.

[EliteFlyer]

From the title of the thread and the opening post, I think OP is dealing with two issues that should be distinguished from each other:

1) Taking time off in your first year: The biggest mistake I see junior associates make is NOT taking vacation in their first year. That's one of the first things you should put on the calendar during your orientation/early weeks at a firm and should be treated like any other important work habit. Finding coverage (or asking the staffing partner to find coverage for you) will only get harder as you grow more senior, so learn the skill now!

2) Taking time off over the December holidays: This is a completely separate issue that will be highly fact-dependent on your firm and practice group. In some instances, absent an emergency, there simply won't be enough staffing coverage to let people take time off during this period, but you won't know unless you ask.

If you want to take the time off, then take it, but don't go off on a road trip assuming all will be quiet over the holidays, unless you want to be disappointed. A deal or issue requiring junior assistance can strike at a moment's notice.

[emc91]

From the title of the thread and the opening post, I think OP is dealing with two issues that should be distinguished from each other:

1) Taking time off in your first year: The biggest mistake I see junior associates make is NOT taking vacation in their first year. That's one of the first things you should put on the calendar during your orientation/early weeks at a firm and should be treated like any other important work habit. Finding coverage (or asking the staffing partner to find coverage for you) will only get harder as you grow more senior, so learn the skill now!

2) Taking time off over the December holidays: This is a completely separate issue that will be highly fact-dependent on your firm and practice group. In some instances, absent an emergency, there simply won't be enough staffing coverage to let people take time off during this period, but you won't know unless you ask.

If you want to take the time off, then take it, but don't go off on a road trip assuming all will be quiet over the holidays, unless you want to be disappointed. A deal or issue requiring junior assistance can strike at a moment's notice.

Is it acceptable to be out of office as a junior but still 100% available for work around the holidays? It’s not an issue this year with WFH, but next year I’d like to at least fly to see my family, even if I’m working most of the time and can’t actively hang out with them. I always thought it was fine to just work remotely during the holiday season, but this thread has me thinking otherwise.

[addie1412]

Somewhat tangential question, but how do people work on planes? I flew United recently and it said the wifi couldn't be used for VPN, which I believe is how remote access works. I didn't actually try to connect, though, so it may have worked regardless.

[sophie361]

Somewhat tangential question, but how do people work on planes? I flew United recently and it said the wifi couldn't be used for VPN, which I believe is how remote access works. I didn't actually try to connect, though, so it may have worked regardless.

Always assume your plane won't have functioning wifi and proceed accordingly. If it works, bonus!

Generally if you want to minimize issues, for long/international flights try for red-eyes or weekends and for short flights, take the earliest flight in the day if you have to fly during the week.

(the above is the case if you're trying to not take days off - if you're taking a vacation day you can of course use that to be on a plane. in those cases, I am happy when my plane does not have wifi)

[Anonymous User]

Everyone suggesting flying knows there's a little thing called COVID-19 spreading like wildfire right now, right?

1- what does your case load, etc look like? Do you have a brief due on Jan 2 that you are assisting on research or are you doing a huge doc review with a tight timeline? That schedule isn’t outcome determinative but should give you a sense of what is coming. However, emergencies in lit do happen and over the holidays it’s expected you will be available to assist.

2- if you do drive, and not fly, which is understandable, I would require 2 things to do it. 1- make sure your wife is driving so you are available. 2- have a mobile hotspot in the car so you can be online and be doing work. I would have no problem with one of my juniors doing a doc review in a car, a plane, or a spaceship for all I care. What I do care about is the stuff getting done when needed in the time needed. I would ask your firm for a mobile hotspot and buy a converter for your car.

edit - this is Bob311, accidental anon. My bad.

OP here. My case load is currently non-existent.I've billed about 40 hours over 11 weeks, while doing pro-bono etc to try and stay busy. And that's our plan on the driving end. I think I will communicate this to HR and see what they say first, then talk to a mid-level in my group.

[bob311]

Then I would say as long as you tell your teams that you will be traveling but will generally be available (with the wife driving or willing to switch if your phone dings and having a hotspot for the laptop) then I think go have fun at the in-laws and no one is going to care in the slightest at your firm. Enjoy!

Edit: and for anyone else reading this thread- my comments in this post are bracketed for lit. I know you corporate folks have year end closings and stuff and I would completely disregard my advice.

[lolwutpar]

Everyone suggesting flying knows there's a little thing called COVID-19 spreading like wildfire right now, right?

1- what does your case load, etc look like? Do you have a brief due on Jan 2 that you are assisting on research or are you doing a huge doc review with a tight timeline? That schedule isn’t outcome determinative but should give you a sense of what is coming. However, emergencies in lit do happen and over the holidays it’s expected you will be available to assist.

2- if you do drive, and not fly, which is understandable, I would require 2 things to do it. 1- make sure your wife is driving so you are available. 2- have a mobile hotspot in the car so you can be online and be doing work. I would have no problem with one of my juniors doing a doc review in a car, a plane, or a spaceship for all I care. What I do care about is the stuff getting done when needed in the time needed. I would ask your firm for a mobile hotspot and buy a converter for your car.

edit - this is Bob311, accidental anon. My bad.

OP here. My case load is currently non-existent.I've billed about 40 hours over 11 weeks, while doing pro-bono etc to try and stay busy. And that's our plan on the driving end. I think I will communicate this to HR and see what they say first, then talk to a mid-level in my group.

Don't talk to HR. This honestly has nothing to do with them. Vacation/time off/being out of pocket is really just between you and the people you work for and work with.

Talk to a mid-level and just ask what people do around the holidays, then mention a long drive because of COVID and see what they say.

[cocobyrum]

Then I would say as long as you tell your teams that you will be traveling but will generally be available (with the wife driving or willing to switch if your phone dings and having a hotspot for the laptop) then I think go have fun at the in-laws and no one is going to care in the slightest at your firm. Enjoy!

Edit: and for anyone else reading this thread- my comments in this post are bracketed for lit. I know you corporate folks have year end closings and stuff and I would completely disregard my advice.

Agreed. Also in lit, also took some time off for the holidays my first two years (didn't last year because I was preparing for trial). Especially if you're not busy, shouldn't matter at all.

Definitely do not talk to HR about vacations; you notice and then take vacations, you don't ask for permission.

[emc91]

From the title of the thread and the opening post, I think OP is dealing with two issues that should be distinguished from each other:

1) Taking time off in your first year: The biggest mistake I see junior associates make is NOT taking vacation in their first year. That's one of the first things you should put on the calendar during your orientation/early weeks at a firm and should be treated like any other important work habit. Finding coverage (or asking the staffing partner to find coverage for you) will only get harder as you grow more senior, so learn the skill now!

2) Taking time off over the December holidays: This is a completely separate issue that will be highly fact-dependent on your firm and practice group. In some instances, absent an emergency, there simply won't be enough staffing coverage to let people take time off during this period, but you won't know unless you ask.

If you want to take the time off, then take it, but don't go off on a road trip assuming all will be quiet over the holidays, unless you want to be disappointed. A deal or issue requiring junior assistance can strike at a moment's notice.

Is it acceptable to be out of office as a junior but still 100% available for work around the holidays? It’s not an issue this year with WFH, but next year I’d like to at least fly to see my family, even if I’m working most of the time and can’t actively hang out with them. I always thought it was fine to just work remotely during the holiday season, but this thread has me thinking otherwise.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Elston Gunn]

From the title of the thread and the opening post, I think OP is dealing with two issues that should be distinguished from each other:

1) Taking time off in your first year: The biggest mistake I see junior associates make is NOT taking vacation in their first year. That's one of the first things you should put on the calendar during your orientation/early weeks at a firm and should be treated like any other important work habit. Finding coverage (or asking the staffing partner to find coverage for you) will only get harder as you grow more senior, so learn the skill now!

2) Taking time off over the December holidays: This is a completely separate issue that will be highly fact-dependent on your firm and practice group. In some instances, absent an emergency, there simply won't be enough staffing coverage to let people take time off during this period, but you won't know unless you ask.

If you want to take the time off, then take it, but don't go off on a road trip assuming all will be quiet over the holidays, unless you want to be disappointed. A deal or issue requiring junior assistance can strike at a moment's notice.

Is it acceptable to be out of office as a junior but still 100% available for work around the holidays? It’s not an issue this year with WFH, but next year I’d like to at least fly to see my family, even if I’m working most of the time and can’t actively hang out with them. I always thought it was fine to just work remotely during the holiday season, but this thread has me thinking otherwise.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Depends on your practice and the people you work with, but as one anecdote, at my firm (which was more toward the pro-face time side), it was totally fine to be working remotely around Christmas.

[TigerIsBack]

From the title of the thread and the opening post, I think OP is dealing with two issues that should be distinguished from each other:

1) Taking time off in your first year: The biggest mistake I see junior associates make is NOT taking vacation in their first year. That's one of the first things you should put on the calendar during your orientation/early weeks at a firm and should be treated like any other important work habit. Finding coverage (or asking the staffing partner to find coverage for you) will only get harder as you grow more senior, so learn the skill now!

2) Taking time off over the December holidays: This is a completely separate issue that will be highly fact-dependent on your firm and practice group. In some instances, absent an emergency, there simply won't be enough staffing coverage to let people take time off during this period, but you won't know unless you ask.

If you want to take the time off, then take it, but don't go off on a road trip assuming all will be quiet over the holidays, unless you want to be disappointed. A deal or issue requiring junior assistance can strike at a moment's notice.

Is it acceptable to be out of office as a junior but still 100% available for work around the holidays? It’s not an issue this year with WFH, but next year I’d like to at least fly to see my family, even if I’m working most of the time and can’t actively hang out with them. I always thought it was fine to just work remotely during the holiday season, but this thread has me thinking otherwise.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

As you noted, not an issue at all this year since no one is in an office, but by next year hopefully you've built up some credibility in your group and this would be ok with sufficient advance notice.

That said, it's still going to be group and firm dependent and hopefully by this time next year, you have a sense of what's typical in your group. At my old firm this would've been "allowed" but frowned upon, but at my current firm, this would be totally normal and many people in the group spend the holidays working remotely near their families. It's bad enough that we have to work straight through even the most major holidays, it's at least nice being at a place where I can do that work from home so if I get a break I can spend it with family.

[emc91]

Man, it's nuts that some firms frown upon not coming into the office around Christmas. I hope COVID and WFH changes that a bit, with firms seeing that associates can be just as productive from home.