Biglaw: How often do you work from home? Forum

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Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Never
12
15%
Once in a while when I need to
37
46%
Once a week
18
23%
Few times a week
13
16%
 
Total votes: 80

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Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:00 pm

How often do you stay and work from home instead of coming into the office? Hows your firm feel about it?

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:01 pm

My firm is very very big on facetime. I only work from home after 6, Christian and Jewish holidays, the day before/after major holidays (e.g., tomorrow), and when I'm sick or really just can't bring myself to go in. That ends up being around 20 days a year, and almost every evening. That is totally fine. If I worked from home once a week, there would be problems.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by smokeylarue » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:09 pm

Same, my office is all about facetime, people don't work from home unless they're really ill. Office is pretty empty by like 7 pm though (west coast)

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:19 pm

My firm is big on ft too, but how can people even tell if you're working from home. I keep my door closed and have a work phone at home. I barely ever see anyone.

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jkpolk

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by jkpolk » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:21 pm

i dont go in if i have nothing to do. that's reasonably rare but it happens. no one gives a shit.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:06 am

only a stub but facetime is basically zero so long as you have steady work at my west coast office. So many offices empty. People largely come in because it’s simply more productive than being at home or they have meetings occasionally

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by oblig.lawl.ref » Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:39 am

I work from home most nights after 7, the day before major holidays and the occasional slow Friday or even weekday. Slow weekdays are rare though, especially these days. I would say I probably end up working from home about 15 days a year. I'm in a bay area corporate heavy firm. I will say I think the firm has been getting more lax about face time since I've been here. Morale is low and hours are crushing so they gotta give us something.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:50 am

Anonymous User wrote:My firm is very very big on facetime. I only work from home after 6, Christian and Jewish holidays, the day before/after major holidays (e.g., tomorrow), and when I'm sick or really just can't bring myself to go in. That ends up being around 20 days a year, and almost every evening. That is totally fine. If I worked from home once a week, there would be problems.
Same. Fairly sure we are at the same firm. Some juniors really push that line though.

ETA: although I rarely work nights at home, I don't go into the office on weekends unless absolutely necessary.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:47 am

Chicago Biglaw associate, at my office there is definitely a divide between corporate and litigation. I am corporate and I have worked from home 3 times in 2 years, whereas some of my litigation classmates work from home 3 times a week. But unless it is a fire drill, I always work from home after 6 and before 9 am.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:11 am

NY Corp biglaw. Probably one to two times a month when I just don't feel like going in and know there won't be any face-to-face meetings I need to attend. My group is very big on facetime, though, and it's noticed when people work from home. The partners are almost always in the office and like to have in-person meetings. Group is fairly small too, we are all housed on one half of one floor of the building, so it's pretty obvious when someone isn't there.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by toast and bananas » Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:48 am

Is this only work from home and not go in at all or just work from home period? As a newbie, the former is almost never, but the latter is many times a week.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by SmokeytheBear » Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:52 am

Anonymous User wrote:only a stub but facetime is basically zero so long as you have steady work at my west coast office. So many offices empty. People largely come in because it’s simply more productive than being at home or they have meetings occasionally
Same. There are a handful of sad souls in my office who having nothing else to do and who like the social scene of the office, so they're in all the time.
First years come in all the time, as they should.
But otherwise there are a good number of midlevels and seniors who only come in as needed.

I work from home a couple days a week, but as noted, I'm more productive with my two screens and no kitchen at work.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:08 pm

toast and bananas wrote:Is this only work from home and not go in at all or just work from home period? As a newbie, the former is almost never, but the latter is many times a week.
OP here. Yea this thread is about working from home instead of coming into the office on a work weekday. It's a given that we remotely log in at all hours of the night/weekend when necessary.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by toast and bananas » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:20 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
toast and bananas wrote:Is this only work from home and not go in at all or just work from home period? As a newbie, the former is almost never, but the latter is many times a week.
OP here. Yea this thread is about working from home instead of coming into the office on a work weekday. It's a given that we remotely log in at all hours of the night/weekend when necessary.
Yeah I guess I didn't know if you were a big law associate or if this was one of the many threads where some hopeless 3L is trying to divine just how miserable their life is going to be.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by glitched » Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:42 pm

No one would even notice if I worked from home, except maybe I'll sound different when I answer the phone as calls feed to my cell phone. We were told though that we are of course allowed to work from home when it's necessary, but the firm said we should be in the office when we can. An example they gave was when the cable guy is coming in so necessary appears to be defined fairly loosely. I once worked from home for three days straight because I knew it was going to be super slow. No one said anything about it. I prefer coming into the office though when I have something to do. It's just way more efficient here because of the computer/monitor situation. Plus free coffee and food.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:51 pm

Anonymous User wrote:only a stub but facetime is basically zero so long as you have steady work at my west coast office. So many offices empty. People largely come in because it’s simply more productive than being at home or they have meetings occasionally
Same here. On an average day, I would say at least half of the offices are empty. Better showing among junior associates than seniors and partners, but still. And the office is almost totally empty before 9 and after 6.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:15 am

Anonymous User wrote:Chicago Biglaw associate, at my office there is definitely a divide between corporate and litigation. I am corporate and I have worked from home 3 times in 2 years, whereas some of my litigation classmates work from home 3 times a week. But unless it is a fire drill, I always work from home after 6 and before 9 am.
This is what I'm curious about now that I'm a few months in. I'm in lit in an office that's majority lit (in DC) and it seems like a lot of my first- and second-year colleagues are working from home once a week or more. But the associates who are a couple years more senior seem to do it less often - other than in the evenings, of course. Guessing this is completely a firm- and office-dependent question, but interesting to see the different takes.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 05, 2019 11:30 am

My firm emphasizes that it doesn’t give an eff about facetime when recruiting. Then the first week of work (after graduating from law school - not during the summer program) they tell you you should be there every day 9-6 even if you have no work lol. But FWIW, I know third years and above who spend lots of time at home and no one seems to care.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by objctnyrhnr » Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:04 pm

At my small practice group in my giant firm, nobody has ever said anything about a work from home policy. That said, there’s a culture of partners dropping by offices (and correspondingly associate’s drooping by partners’ offices with questions and juniors dropping by mid levels offices with questions). Resulting from that is (at least what I feel as) a need to ask or at least inform partners when working from home during business hours. Due to that, there’s this tacit pressure not to do it too much, and to have a real reason for it when you do (even if the reason isn’t super compelling). It’s possible I’m overthinking it, but the other associates in this group tend to adhere to what I described. I lateraled in so I’m trying to pick up cues.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:19 pm

my firm has no facetime requirement. I work from home about a full day a week, and then of course evenings and weekends as necessary. But I'll often go in around 10:30 or leave early to go to the gym and then continue working from home or whatever; I have a full monitor/docking station set-up in my home office. Its fairly flexible unless we have a filing or client meetings or something.

I would suffocate if I had to work in my office during regular work hours every day. I enjoy being treated like an adult who can manage his own schedule. But there are trade-offs: I have very little separation between work and non-work hours. Part of that is the nature of my practice, but its also a product of the blending of working from home and working from the office and work travel.

The way my firm's no-facetime functions would not be possible absent modern technology. Which is of course both a blessing and a curse.

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Re: Biglaw: How often do you work from home?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:54 pm

Most associates here work in the office unless it’s the week of thanksgiving or christmas. Senior Associates and counsels, it’s a mix, some work in the office everyday, some stay home on Friday, some never show up.

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