Goodwin Vacation Forum

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Miss-Bubbled

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Goodwin Vacation

Post by Miss-Bubbled » Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:21 pm

With the salary increases, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about the Goodwin vacation benefit. I’m not at Goodwin, but hoping someone could provide more details. Hopefully that becomes market too.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:09 pm

Basically, if you make hours in the preceding fiscal year (target is 1950, you get unlimited pro bono and some other stuff that counts), you get $5,000 (juniors, 2019-2021), $7,500 (midlevels, 2017-2018) or $10,000 (seniors, including counsel, 2016+) to spend on a vacay of your choice. Firm's travel agency will have suggested trips but can otherwise plan whatever you want. Can bring as many friends/family as you want, length is up to you, can get reimbursed for anything you want on the trip so long as it doesn't exceed your allowance (and to be clear, you can spend more, you just only get reimbursed up to the cap), etc. Probably will be some time to get more formal policies or else otherwise blowing $10K in Vegas on a fabulous weekend sounds amazing but that's the gist.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:19 pm

Goodwin associate here. Goodwin came out with a program called “Recharge on Goodwin” where, if you meet the 1950 billables for FY 2021 (and every year going forward), they will treat us to a one-week “all paid for” trip. In quotes because there’s an amount cap and it’s not necessarily all paid for, but still generous. They encourage us to take the whole week or more off.

Juniors = $5,000
Mid-levels = $7,500
Seniors / Counsels = $10,000

Allotted money can be spent how we see fit (e.g. buying spouse’s airfare).

The firm curated five suggested trips which include “no decision trips” (aka all inclusive resorts) and “some decision trips” (aka suggestions for local attractions, restaurants and activities). These five trips include island escape, urban exploration, etc. (I haven’t seen the actual five trips yet). Or we can “choose our own adventure” and let Goodwin’s travel services know what we want. All of these things are booked through Goodwin’s travel services.

I think it’s pretty dope.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:36 pm

This is awesome. I hope other firms match this or something similar.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:44 pm

More firms should do stuff like this. I don’t flinch if $10K gets deposited in my account. Tell me you’re going to take me on an all expense paid trip for a week at a 5* hotel? Now I’m interested.

I know it’s not rational, but I bet this has a lot more impact than a few thousand dollar special bonus.

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Tribble_47

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Tribble_47 » Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:22 pm

So when your vacation gets canceled the night before because a trial or closing date got moved, do you get a do-over on Goodwin's dime, or are you just SOL for that year? What about if you physically go on the trip, but end up having to bill 12+ hours per day for half of it? It's nice of them to foot the bill and all, but cost was never the real problem with vacations in biglaw.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:36 pm

Does Goodwin have anything like "recharge" days which are basically vacation days but you can count them towards your billables? Just wondering if the paid vacation is on top of anything else.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 22, 2022 4:22 am

Tribble_47 wrote:
Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:22 pm
So when your vacation gets canceled the night before because a trial or closing date got moved, do you get a do-over on Goodwin's dime, or are you just SOL for that year? What about if you physically go on the trip, but end up having to bill 12+ hours per day for half of it? It's nice of them to foot the bill and all, but cost was never the real problem with vacations in biglaw.
Exactly. Instead of paying for the vacation, it would be better to give 50 hours of billable credit to spend on a week long vacation, so you can actually enjoy it.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:01 am

Tribble_47 wrote:
Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:22 pm
So when your vacation gets canceled the night before because a trial or closing date got moved, do you get a do-over on Goodwin's dime, or are you just SOL for that year? What about if you physically go on the trip, but end up having to bill 12+ hours per day for half of it? It's nice of them to foot the bill and all, but cost was never the real problem with vacations in biglaw.
Goodwin person here. Never really had a problem with this in my career. Over 5 years, I’ve taken probably 20 weeks of vacation (I use max per year) and done maybe 20 hours of total work on them? Maybe a bit more, but only “project” I ever did was reviewing something for about an hour when I was a third year. There’s one person I work with who isn’t great on honoring them, but almost everyone else is

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:08 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 4:22 am
Tribble_47 wrote:
Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:22 pm
So when your vacation gets canceled the night before because a trial or closing date got moved, do you get a do-over on Goodwin's dime, or are you just SOL for that year? What about if you physically go on the trip, but end up having to bill 12+ hours per day for half of it? It's nice of them to foot the bill and all, but cost was never the real problem with vacations in biglaw.
Exactly. Instead of paying for the vacation, it would be better to give 50 hours of billable credit to spend on a week long vacation, so you can actually enjoy it.
Doesn’t Orrick do this? Fully agree that firms should offer real vacation benefits that count 8 hours a day toward billable targets.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:12 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:01 am
Tribble_47 wrote:
Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:22 pm
So when your vacation gets canceled the night before because a trial or closing date got moved, do you get a do-over on Goodwin's dime, or are you just SOL for that year? What about if you physically go on the trip, but end up having to bill 12+ hours per day for half of it? It's nice of them to foot the bill and all, but cost was never the real problem with vacations in biglaw.
Goodwin person here. Never really had a problem with this in my career. Over 5 years, I’ve taken probably 20 weeks of vacation (I use max per year) and done maybe 20 hours of total work on them? Maybe a bit more, but only “project” I ever did was reviewing something for about an hour when I was a third year. There’s one person I work with who isn’t great on honoring them, but almost everyone else is
Agreed, another Goodwin 5th year here who hasn’t had an issue with this. Especially since the pandemic rush has started, people have been really good about letting us actually disconnect and recharge.

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Re: Goodwin Vacation

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 22, 2022 4:31 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:12 am
Anonymous User wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:01 am
Tribble_47 wrote:
Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:22 pm
So when your vacation gets canceled the night before because a trial or closing date got moved, do you get a do-over on Goodwin's dime, or are you just SOL for that year? What about if you physically go on the trip, but end up having to bill 12+ hours per day for half of it? It's nice of them to foot the bill and all, but cost was never the real problem with vacations in biglaw.
Goodwin person here. Never really had a problem with this in my career. Over 5 years, I’ve taken probably 20 weeks of vacation (I use max per year) and done maybe 20 hours of total work on them? Maybe a bit more, but only “project” I ever did was reviewing something for about an hour when I was a third year. There’s one person I work with who isn’t great on honoring them, but almost everyone else is
Agreed, another Goodwin 5th year here who hasn’t had an issue with this. Especially since the pandemic rush has started, people have been really good about letting us actually disconnect and recharge.
Goodwin associate here. Never had this problem either. And, the partners in my group encourage at minimum 4 weeks vacation but also emphasize the fact that we have unlimited vacation and we should not be hesitant to use more than 4 weeks of vacation.

People are really good at not bugging while on vacation. One senior replied to an email during her vacation and the partner quickly emailed her back to tell her that we will handle and that she needs to enjoy her vacation (aka get off her phone).

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