Biglaw goodbye emails

[Anonymous]

Any thoughts? I sometimes cringe when I receive these because they feel overwrought or forced. But as I face my own impending departure, I see the practicality and wonder if I should send one.

If it matters, I’m a senior associate leaving to pursue a totally new (non-law) endeavor, but wish to keep my professional connections.

[Anonymous]

If you want to keep connections, you have to tell people how to find you. You can keep it short - "Today is my last day at Firm. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to know you and I hope you keep in touch. You can reach me at ..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want to keep connections, you have to tell people how to find you. You can keep it short - "Today is my last day at Firm. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to know you and I hope you keep in touch. You can reach me at ..."

[Anonymous]

I always appreciate the ones that thank support staff by name. They aren’t cringe.

[Anonymous]

They serve a purpose, and they don't have to cringe. The best ones are short and sweet, expressing gratitude and telling people how to find you.

[Anonymous]

I agree that goodbye to the whole office is overkill. There's nothing wrong with a brief email to your closest associates and friends. Basically just say that you enjoyed working with them and would like to keep in touch and give an email or phone contact. They'll appreciate that you thought of them.

[Anonymous]

It’s kinda pointless. They can always ping you on LinkedIn…

[Anonymous]

I found it worthwhile to send. I got some very lovely notes, even from people I did not expect to hear from.

I worked in law over a decade ago but I just had a former colleague from that time reach out to me to present me with an opportunity as I now work in a different field. I was very pleasantly surprised, we did not work together directly at the time but I had many good reviews from others. So you never know....

[Anonymous]

They’re nice when not written in purple prose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s kinda pointless. They can always ping you on LinkedIn…

I don’t use LinkedIn so I prefer the email.

[Anonymous]

"Goodbye. You are the weakest link"

[Anonymous]

I didn’t send to the whole firm or whole office, but basically to everyone I had ever worked with. (This was a huge office of a huge firm, so my note went to maybe 100 people, but whole office including support staff would have been like 400.)

I kept it fairly short, but went out of my way to praise support staff, including calling out specific departments who no one appreciates, like duplicating. And I got tons of responses from attorneys, not even people in those support roles, telling me how much they appreciated me using my note to thank the staff. So although it wasn’t my purpose in doing it, it helped my reputation in that sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s kinda pointless. They can always ping you on LinkedIn…

I don’t use LinkedIn so I prefer the email.

Same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t send to the whole firm or whole office, but basically to everyone I had ever worked with. (This was a huge office of a huge firm, so my note went to maybe 100 people, but whole office including support staff would have been like 400.)

I kept it fairly short, but went out of my way to praise support staff, including calling out specific departments who no one appreciates, like duplicating. And I got tons of responses from attorneys, not even people in those support roles, telling me how much they appreciated me using my note to thank the staff. So although it wasn’t my purpose in doing it, it helped my reputation in that sense.

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In my firm, everyone bends over backwards to thank support staff in their goodbye emails. I find this cringe because it’s pretty transparent they are trying to look like a good guy. I also hate when people call out specific attorneys for praise.

[Anonymous]

I used to work for the COO of a large big law firm. They hated the all-office goodbyes. I was young and impressionable so I took their lead and when I left I sent an email to about 40 people that I hand picked and let them know they could share my info. 20 years later, I think that was the way to do it.