Getting Married in BigLaw Forum

[cambriabold]

I'm joining a big firm in a non-NYC market this fall as a 1st year litigation associate, and I've been thinking that I might be getting married sometime in the next couple of years. Is there anything I should know about choosing the date for the wedding and getting time off for it? How do people normally go about it and how much time do they generally take?

[Anonymous User]

I'm joining a big firm in a non-NYC market this fall as a 1st year litigation associate, and I've been thinking that I might be getting married sometime in the next couple of years. Is there anything I should know about choosing the date for the wedding and getting time off for it? How do people normally go about it and how much time do they generally take?

Don't plan your wedding around work, period. Let work plan around your wedding. Just pick the date you want and roll with it. Any firm worth working for will be respectful of that.

I'm at a V20 home office and I let my teams know about my wedding about 4-6 months in advance via an out of office email. I told them (didn't ask them) that I'd be taking an entire month off for my wedding and honeymoon, and nobody batted an eye. If you're in lit and your time off might interfere with something big like the close of fact/expert discovery or a trial then you might want to give more lead time, but 4-6 months is more than enough time for a team to re-staff if needed. It worked out great for me - I only had to respond to one email during the entire month I was out (and that was because I saved someone like a day worth of work by just pointing them in the right direction).

I think there's maybe only a handful of exceptions here. If you did income tax work, for example, I wouldn't plan your wedding for March/April. And if you know something like a trial date far in advance, I'd avoid scheduling your wedding on that exact date without talking to someone on the team (though those get pushed anyway). But regardless, no matter how important you think you are to a team, you are always fungible. If you give them enough lead time they can adjust for anything. Same thing goes for parental leave.

[Anonymous User]

I'm joining a big firm in a non-NYC market this fall as a 1st year litigation associate, and I've been thinking that I might be getting married sometime in the next couple of years. Is there anything I should know about choosing the date for the wedding and getting time off for it? How do people normally go about it and how much time do they generally take?

Don't plan your wedding around work, period. Let work plan around your wedding. Just pick the date you want and roll with it. Any firm worth working for will be respectful of that.

I'm at a V20 home office and I let my teams know about my wedding about 4-6 months in advance via an out of office email. I told them (didn't ask them) that I'd be taking an entire month off for my wedding and honeymoon, and nobody batted an eye. If you're in lit and your time off might interfere with something big like the close of fact/expert discovery or a trial then you might want to give more lead time, but 4-6 months is more than enough time for a team to re-staff if needed. It worked out great for me - I only had to respond to one email during the entire month I was out (and that was because I saved someone like a day worth of work by just pointing them in the right direction).

I think there's maybe only a handful of exceptions here. If you did income tax work, for example, I wouldn't plan your wedding for March/April. And if you know something like a trial date far in advance, I'd avoid scheduling your wedding on that exact date without talking to someone on the team (though those get pushed anyway). But regardless, no matter how important you think you are to a team, you are always fungible. If you give them enough lead time they can adjust for anything. Same thing goes for parental leave.

100% this. At my firm most associates got married in the past few years. Even for the busy ones, everybody went out their way to cover for these associates, so it always ended up fine. Just indeed, give some heads up to the partners you're working with and the associates you're on a matter with.

[Anonymous User]

Weddings are basically in their own tier in terms of vacation importance. You can freely block out a wedding and honeymoon as a fully dark period and even biglaw psychopaths will respect that (generally speaking).

I have multiple colleagues who have taken a full month - 4-5 consecutive weeks - off for wedding/honeymoon. Unlimited PTO firm. They are both senior associates though.

[DiligentSage]

I'm sure there are biglaw partner psychopaths who have tested this assumption but your wedding and honeymoon are generally held to be 100% inviolable by your firm. Be out of touch, worry about your wedding.

[Anonymous User]

I took 5 weeks off for mine and didn’t get a single email requiring a response. At one point went 3 days without opening my mail app. Literally the only time in my biglaw career where absolutely everyone just fully adapted to and accepted my absence no questions asked. I half want to get divorced and remarried just to get another vacation like that again lmao.

[Anonymous User]

Man, reading these responses is making me think I should have gone bigger. Current 1st year who is taking 2.5 weeks off this year for a wedding/honeymoon.

[Anonymous User]

Man, reading these responses is making me think I should have gone bigger. Current 1st year who is taking 2.5 weeks off this year for a wedding/honeymoon.

Can't you tack some extra time on now? How far out are you?

Out of my month off, 1 week was for pre-wedding, 2 weeks were for honeymoon, and another week or so was just chilling with my wife at home before we started work again. You can always get more work in at the firm, but you'll never have that newlywed experience again.

[Lacepiece23]

Man, reading these responses is making me think I should have gone bigger. Current 1st year who is taking 2.5 weeks off this year for a wedding/honeymoon.

Is it too late? Why not just tell everyone you're taking another 1.5 weeks off?

[Anonymous User]

How are people taking 4-5 weeks off? Are these just for unlimited vacation firms?

[Anonymous User]

How are people taking 4-5 weeks off? Are these just for unlimited vacation firms?

Technically I only have 4 weeks, but nobody checks. That said, I came in over 2700 hours even with my month and the December holidays off, so that could have had something to do with it.

[Anonymous User]

How are people taking 4-5 weeks off? Are these just for unlimited vacation firms?

I was the anon who posted this, and I'm at an unlimited PTO firm. I've never seen someone take more than 2.5 weeks at a time max, except for wedding/honeymoon. Like I said before, I think weddings are just seen as more important than all other types of vacations and partners/the firm treat them differently.

[Anonymous User]

How are people taking 4-5 weeks off? Are these just for unlimited vacation firms?

I took 5 weeks. I don’t have unlimited, I just had banked 5 weeks (max bankable) so took it all at once. Considered not doing it since the banked vacation days also are like a payout when they ask you to leave, but eh.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW I’m in lit and got married last year. We were two months away from a big trial and I took two weeks off. People were not pleased and it made my work experience generally uncomfortable. Never mind you that I was consistently billing 250 hours a month before I took my time off…

[Anonymous User]

FWIW I’m in lit and got married last year. We were two months away from a big trial and I took two weeks off. People were not pleased and it made my work experience generally uncomfortable. Never mind you that I was consistently billing 250 hours a month before I took my time off…

This is objectively awful and not common - I've literally never heard of someone having this experience. How much of a heads up did you give your team?