Glover's out of office is so hilarious given the email to his associates, it must be satire.

Triple-dipped t***pots! Surely no amount of money is worth being treated like that? 

Everyone is expected to have their laptop with them wherever they are (this is a general expectation when on holiday not just for this)!!!  What the hell????

This isn't anything new. That team and every other team there is the same and always has been. You are expected to work at all time even on holiday and even when sick and respond to all emails within the hour. Countless examples of people not being well, wanting to take days off etc and still being asked to work and then turn documents. No appreciation or grace given. This sort of messaging simply shows how associates here are just cogs in wheels and cash cows for the partners. 

The usual Christmas speech from partners - we had a similar one at our firm.

You can guarantee each and every partner will be having a jolly all Christmas whilst collecting their £1mil+ a year. They get paid more, by their logic they should be in every waking minute. 

They say it’s ’put us in difficult positions’ - tough - you’re a partner, deal with it.

Time for associates to unionise, mass walkouts etc. Would be nice to see partners earn their money for once.

Every time I read stories like this I initially get annoyed at the partners and then realise that 25 year olds are being paid 158k. Fully accept that's a miserable way to work but I just couldn't be bothered to complain about stuff like that if I was an NQ because your salary will always be used to justify that. 

Poor person’s Travers Smith.

But I think STB NQ's are paid a fair bit more than that these days... 
 

Not that I would work there either, but frankly its refreshing that Partner's are honest about what they think of their associates and the expectations, rather than pretending to care about work life balance and sending fire drills on Christmas day anyway. Easier to make peace with/plan your life around those golden slave chains when you're not getting mixed messages I suppose. 

Angry associate doesn't understand law firms 

Probably why they are an associate

Not a partner 

Chained to the laptop.  Comes with the big bucks.  Work-life balane?  Forget it.

This is the reality if you’re selling time to earn those numbers. If you don’t want to sell time, go to an investment bank or become a doctor or something. But in law, this is the trade for the highest income. There are plenty of other firms where one can earn incredibly well (but admittedly NOT STB or K&E well), still have holidays and some decency from partners.  Most MC firms are pretty good; the international firms (Ashurst, Norton Rose, DLA, HogLove etc etc) or even non-white shoe US firms are very good too.  In my team at a silver circle firm, I have to say that I am earning well, I take my kids to school most days, I can have time off when I’m sick and flexibility on workplace location is genuinely flexible. It’s never perfect anywhere but what are these guys complaining about? Give us £158K as an idiotic NQ with no training, clients or judgment and then NOT expect to be available anywhere, anytime? If I were them, I’d put up with it for a few years, make my house deposit and then shunt off to a lower paying (but still highly remunerated) firm not run by complete psychopaths. There’s so much focus on these PE-driven law firms that we lose sight that most legal work is done very well, at very high rates, by very financially comfortable elsewhere. Happy Christmas.

I will be working the 3 working days next week. The UK has never shut down entirely between Christmas and NY. Younger lawyers may not know that but it is so. There are 3 business days next week.  Also people should plan their holiday leave in advance and not try to carry it over.  I don't think the basic message is that wrong and if NQs at age 24 or 25  are on £158k it is the price they pay for the high salary albeit the state takes vast amounts of it in tax, NI and student loan.

Does the laptop have to go the toilet/in the shower with you?

Asking for a friend

The collapse is coming any day now... any day! 

We all remember how Skadden imploded earlier in the year and is just a crater in the earth now, because it was insane enough to imagine that £150k+ was enough to justify obliging people to come into the office. The same fate is just around the corner for Simpson Thatcher! Any day, you mark my words! 

You think that pimply snot-nosed little postgrads can be expected to work every hour in return for just £158k a year? You haven't understood the New Normal! They'll be off for similar wedge at a nice cuddly firm that lets them be their authentic selves at home working in front of the TV all day every day. Any minute now, you'll see!

When private equity paper shufflers think they're dealmakers. 

The Faustian pact won't cover them when a PI claim comes in and the issue is fatigue. Even their bulge bracket mates know that.

The wellness agenda of the recently hired Matt McPartlin might have travelled as well as Notts Forest.

Whenever I read stories like this, I congratulate myself for having decided against working with firms like this and instead moving in-house. I don't get paid 158k (though am not far off that) or get million dollar bonuses (probably never) but I don't have to work with tits like that or assume this grotesque 24/7/365 working culture is normal or the tone of these emails acceptable.

In the military or the Catholic church one expects to sign away one's time and ability to make unimpeded personal decisions but those are professions where the service element is 100% and the hierarchy fixed, baked in and clear.

Law firms on the other hand - f*** that. With Christmas emails like those, the partners are almost asking for a swift punch in the face...(metaphorically, of course, I'm not advocating an actual assault here).

Entitled STB lawyers complaining - you have no concept of reality. Only a person from a certain social class and gender would take issue. You work for an elite PE US law firm and are paid more than 99% of people on earth, let alone 99% of solicitors. The salary comes with demands and directness, if you don't like it, move to a more tactful firm.

I don't know about anyone else but I am battered after a very long year - its probably not helped my health or the quality of my work. 

So having a break is not just a nice to have; its pretty essential to being fit and able to do your job properly. No one wants advice from a knackered old donkey.

Glad I will be out of the profession within the next 20 months. 

Reminds me of a firm I once worked for, Bells in Farnham. Expected staff to go in over Christmas but partners and the practice mis-manager disappeared for two weeks, Hi Dermot, Kathy, Jeremy if you read this 

Office Drone - why not?  A smack in the face would do them the world of good.

Blacklisted, never in a million years instructing a firm behaves like this. 

Everyone knows there needs to be a bit of cover but either people know they have to keep their matter going, the matter is paused because everything is closed or the matter has died. 

And mandatory office attendance between christmas and new year? what the actual fcuk is that, these mad old duffers look more and more petulant everytime they try to push back the tide. (and I hate work from home! but you can see from space that the world has changed) 

Obviously a tone deaf, corporate email but no holiday cover at this time of year isn't unfair in itself.

My team's practice is that you can take holiday as you please at this time of year subject to you still being responsible for anything urgent on your own files that needs done.

It's not unreasonable imo - wouldn't really be fair to dump everything on whatever poor sod happens to be in over the holidays. 

Utter lols at the shambolic so-called management. How are fee earners to know when others are taking leave? That is a manager's responsibility to, you know, manage their teams. In my last shop we had to submit any requests for xmas leave by a certain date and holiday cover was agreed. It was a pain but it worked well and was fair. Partners throwing their toys out the pram because they can't manage their teams or their workloads? I wonder how many partners will be in the office on those "core days" next week? pppffft!

The salary is about 20k higher than that btw…

I do have a degree of sympathy for the "cover your own matters" over Xmas point. It's not really fair (and doesn't really work) for most of a team to be off and the one or two who are working to take over everyone's matters for a few days. 

Maybe Glover’s just p***ed he’s having to stick around for another year now. Barratt and O’Shea ruined his plans; now it’s his turn to ruin our Christmas.

If you don't like it work somewhere else for less pressure and less money.

Cry me a river… for heavens sake, what do you expect when you’re paid inflated wages?? They own you. Suck it up or leave. 

£178k*

Holy moly these associates need to grow up. NQs  get £180k+bonus to sit in a nice office all day, with free food and drink, and read a couple emails or draft a few agreements. Yet they can’t handle a partner saying that they are irritated by the fact they have mismanaged their holidays. 

You earn 5x the national average salary at the age of 25 and can’t handle a bit of honesty. Go back to mommy and suckle on her teet, child. 

It really is a faustian pact working for these firms.  I might get paid half their NQ salary, but I can WFH whenever I like (not just the Thursday before Christmas - what a concession!) and the partners' emails are saintly in comparison to these.   It must be an awful existence working for these people - I hope the money is worth it.  

What a top draw w*****.  The price one pays for the large salary on offer at STB can't be worth it. When accounting for net take-home, you can earn similar amounts with a profoundly more enjoyable life elsewhere. Grim. 

Poor management but then again the NQs are paid enough to work hard and to cover holidays.   But surely the question is why wasn't holiday managed better in advance?   Last time I checked Christmas usually - in fact invariably - falls at the same time every year.  It's not a surprise.  

NQs are paid £158k. In reality, what did they expect they were signing up for?!?

They're being paid £158k and up. Absolutely zero sympathy. 

NQs get 178k now, that makes this ok, right? That makes it ok right? 

If you get paid 158k on day one after qualification - more than some salaried partners in smaller city firms - there's bound to be a price to pay.  

Is 'firstly' even a word? 

You realize the 158k is just the entry salary, right?  At 7 PQE (so 31/32) with bonus you'll be raking in 400k...which you will never hit. 

The out of office - says it all. 

"Do as I say, not as I do".  

The OOO message from Glover just says it all

I do enjoy the bare face of the OOO

He can do whatever he wants and his little people will never say anything

If they leave, he can just get another load of public school drones in eager to impress mummy and daddy 

If they stay, he takes his pound of flesh 

As a partner in a smaller city firm I have to be nice to people and actually manage them, he doesn't. Must be nice. And he earns probably 10x what I do 

"Gawd bless us one and all," said Tiny Tim.

Perfect example of MPs and SPs treating their staff literally like T-*-*-Ts while they go off for fun in the sand or snow, city break sans laptop.

Hope that leads to an exodus, though leavers should be prepared to answer City panel interview  Q's  such as: "Why are you leaving [name of firm]?"

For WLB I'd be happy with one-third of the NQ salary at STB. I've never been close to earning £53k p.a. anyway, but still.

Boo-hoo. Poor babies. 

Do a week in the  NHS at 2am and then get real. 

Snowflake generation. At least 20 years ago people were realists. 

This guy has an out of office whilst sending the email...talk about ego tone deaf! Wow! STB has the most churn per associate - whilst he takes tens of millions in. He's really out of touch...

A proper collection of gonads.  I bet they are outraged that somebody has leaked this and exposed them.  
Witch hunt underway. 

Requiring people to work whilst on leave means that those on leave are not actually on annual leave. Bunch of chancers. Anywhere else, this would likely result in complaints, tribunal claims, but given the huge mega salaries being paid, they are betting against this happening… perhaps anyone leaving should think about whether they have a claim here!

Also - manage their time better?! This view beggars belief and is typical of management with their heads up their own tailpipes.. Juniors associates paralegals work like hell for most of the year and are likely not able to use their holidays up during times of the year when transactions are busiest (most of the year). So what F*g cheek for these nonsense justifications about time management. If it smells like bullshit and looks like bullshit… If your juniors have lots of holidays amassed at the end of the year, it’s a sign that you’ve been beasting them for 11.5 months.. morons. 

I have some sympathy for this missive (and I am not connected to STB). You cannot just expect others automatically to cover if you book a holiday for the 27th - 31st December.    We used to try an annual rota system, but that didn’t work as people joined and left in between.  Also stacking up unused holiday entitlement to carry over causes issues, because extended holidays in the next year have to be covered.   STB partners may have been a bit clumsy but it sounds to me like they are just trying to do the right thing.  And don’t for a minute expect that, despite his OOO, the partner is not checking emails regularly.     

It's not entirely unprecedented to expect people to cover their own matters over Christmas. At my (UK) firm, at least two teams do exactly that every year. It's usually much of a muchness, given that workflow slows down dramatically at this time of year, and it avoids the few solitary folk who are working (usually because they're Muslim, Jewish etc.) from being absolutely slammed.

That being said, expectations regarding availability at STB are absurd. Junior lawyers there regularly work through their holidays and turn documents around at weekends. It's not healthy and I doubt it results in better results for clients either.

The STB partnership is a bunch of clowns.  They take no ownership of problems they have created themselves at the firm, instead trying to blame all of the associates.

I love the fact that they genuinely look like they could play the bad guys in some corporate crime movie. The type who’d put out a hit on Michael Clayton to secure their megabucks 

I think many of us wouldn’t want this situation. At the same time, as many have said, this is a choice and one of the factors you have to consider when accepting that salary level. You can’t expect to have perfect work life balance and just work 9-5 for that. Many of us (lawyers and support staff alike) work very long hours and sacrifice for far less. I’m not a lawyer, but I have worked almost every day of my holidays this year due to people leaving and high workloads. Do I love it? No. Do I want to do it every year? No. But I also accept the trade off in return for a salary I know I would not get at a much smaller firm or a different industry.

While there’s plenty of never made it sour grapes on here, fact is the partners in these types of firm are unckecked psychos. I know for a fact they are happy to see associates average 20 hours a weekend and 120 a week to cover the third home and yacht. Caveat emptor in taking their lucre. 

‘’I have some sympathy for this missive (and I am not connected to STB).’’

It’s still a terrible stance to take for ER. Sadly many firms will be guilty.  

‘’You cannot just expect others automatically to cover if you book a holiday for the 27th - 31st December.’’

Yes you bloody well can. Whenever holidays are booked, cover arrangements are considered by those granting it. That’s what team Christmas plans are supposed to be for. Someone is on leave, someone else covers. If there is not sufficient cover, either the whole firm shuts and clients are told no cover, or the holiday isn’t granted, or a Partner steps in to cover (Yes, it’s called being nice at Christmas). 

‘’We used to try an annual rota system, but that didn’t work as people joined and left in between.’’

It can work - sounds like management just gave up at your firm.

‘’Also stacking up unused holiday entitlement to carry over causes issues, because extended holidays in the next year have to be covered.’’

Yes but likelihood is these individuals will have been denied leave during the year at other busy times - not all holiday accrual is the employee at fault. Employer just as likely to blame. 

‘’STB partners may have been a bit clumsy but it sounds to me like they are just trying to do the right thing.’’

Sledge hammer to a walnut with the eloquence of a drunk football fan. The message they sent doesn’t convey ‘the right thing’ to their employees. 

‘’And don’t for a minute expect that, despite his OOO, the partner is not checking emails regularly. ‘’
Of course, but they’ll have the right to ignore anything they want and not have to jump onto a laptop for ongoing transactions… 

Bottom line - this was not a good move.  

Even without leavers and joiners, Xmas rota systems often don’t work as some people having caring responsibilities. Making rota exceptions annoys people but exceptions end up having to be made, because telling an associate they need to work and must arrange the childcare to do so as it is ‘their year’ and then have that associate discover it was pointless as there was little work to cover, is equally not great. And yes, I agree that leave or no leave, partners will be working throughout if there is work requiring it. So I also have some sympathy, (and I’m not an STB partner and nor do I have dependants).

People are delulu if they think cover over Christmas is a good idea. That happened at my previous firm and meant we had to take turns to have Christmas off. Better that everyone covers their own matters over Christmas, in most years there is no work over Christmas so it works out. 

Absolutely zero sympathy - they're literally paid to work like this.  Don't like it? Leave

The United Kingdom needs to copy California's law in this regard.   In California, vacation hours are considered wages, and cannot be forfeited (as in "use it or lose it").    

In fact, since the firm has two offices in California, would the London lawyers have any grounds claiming that they are being discriminated against on the basis of national origin?

Weren’t they telling the staff off for NOT taking hols throughout the holiday year? And changing the rules so that they would do so in future? 

Seems sensible and justified to me! 

I liked your email very much and I hope you had a nice holiday in Dubai Tom. 

Own your own firm, and tell these tossers to shove it.  I took 7 weeks vacation last year. 

Don’t know why everyone assumes you’ll be in your 20s when you’re an NQ particularly in US firms a lot of trainees will be 30 when they start.

Is the juice really worth the squeeze as a lawyer in your 20s and 30s at a time where you’re at the time where you’re most youthful? 

To be fair, if you get paid 158k as an NQ that basically knows nothing, what do you expect? You know you are going to get beasted. That is the choice you make!

I suspect part of this arises out of the firm's resentment at paying US salaries while still having to offer UK holiday allowances.

Can you have it all? Well yes you can. I've banked $120k in fees in January already. But then i work for myself and don't have to deal with all this Managing Partner Biglaw guff. Own if you can. Don't be a wage slave. 

What a miserly, horrible sounding, hypocrite, laced with a swollen sense of greed. Sad really.