Big Law - HR meeting out of the blue

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Not sure how the firm handles performance issues or “fake performance issues”. I know of one case where an associate was told at his performance review for the year that he had low hours and there is no “business case” for him to make partner. He quit shortly after and went to a new firm.

Well it’s not fake performance issues. You said you’ve had low billings. You know you’re not meeting your hours.

That's not a performance issue unless OP's group is busy. Partners bring in the business and associates do the work. If partners don't have enough business, associates get laid off. That's not firing for performance, and if it was claimed to be, it's called a stealth layoff. Anyone who lived through 2008 knows all the different permutations of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Not sure how the firm handles performance issues or “fake performance issues”. I know of one case where an associate was told at his performance review for the year that he had low hours and there is no “business case” for him to make partner. He quit shortly after and went to a new firm.

Well it’s not fake performance issues. You said you’ve had low billings. You know you’re not meeting your hours.

This is true, unfortunately. The way firm economics are set up is that poor quality high billing associates are profitable, but excellent quality low billing associates are not. So when firms talk about "performance" and "meeting performance", they mostly mean hours targets.

The poor quality associates eventually get pushed out, either because as they get more senior they need to be better quality, or because a recession rolls around and their hours fall as partners have the choice to use better associates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

No, that's not true. Unless you want a reputation, you have to give associates coming back from parental leave time to ramp back up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I'd start networking tomorrow, OP. In the firm and with recruiters. If you can do it financially, being a fed is family friendly in most cases.

If they don't have billable hours for you, they are going to cut you loose.

Negotiate to stay on the website and keep phone number and get career placement services, much easier to land a job if you appear employed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

No, that's not true. Unless you want a reputation, you have to give associates coming back from parental leave time to ramp back up.

Nope, this is a fantasy. No one cares about “reputations”. Look at the last downturn in law. As soon as the economy picked up, people were clamoring to work at all the big firms that had just treated their associates like crap.

It’s pretty black and white when you’re talking about billing targets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

It does not exempt you. But it is so typical and expected to need 2-4 months coming back from leave to get back on hours track, that firms would be firing 80% of moms after leave if they didn't give them an informal pass. And that would get noticed.

Funny story but a super star associate on my team was promoted to partner last year and also had his first kid. Firms all give gender neutral leave now to new moms and dads, so he took his 2 or 3 months with interspersed working - but was pretty checked out for a while, in a good way. Over the 6 months, he's been in a bad mood - lots of complaining about how there aren't enough institutional supports when you transition from associate to partner, you're basically thrown to the wolves to find clients and partners stop sending you stuff (none of which is true in our firm or practice group - people LOVE this guy and have very long term plans for keeping him busy). Turns out a lot of this anger was because for the first 3 months after leave, he was freaked out about how little work he had and that no one was instantly fixing the problem. The men were all "hmmmm that's a challenge that we should support you on". The women were all "yeah, no sh*t, welcome to our lives". We'd all had kids, we'd all had years were we were freaked out for 12+ months where we weren't hitting target that we would get fired, and we'd all been denied bonuses those years. We all had complained to each other and firm management, who did nothing. Including not pay us our bonuses. Apparently, men did not know this was a thing.

Interestingly, last year our firm announced some kind of new adjusted hours target for bonuses for years impacted by leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

No, that's not true. Unless you want a reputation, you have to give associates coming back from parental leave time to ramp back up.

Nope, this is a fantasy. No one cares about “reputations”. Look at the last downturn in law. As soon as the economy picked up, people were clamoring to work at all the big firms that had just treated their associates like crap.

It’s pretty black and white when you’re talking about billing targets.

No, another biglaw attorney here who disagrees with you. It is EXTREMELY rare to come anywhere close to meeting hours targets when you come back from maternity leave. Accordingly, a firm that followed your protocol would be firing most women coming back from maternity leave. Those firms would get eaten alive for doing that - both internally and externally. Firms in 2024 are very concerned about equity and very concerned about promoting women, and at this point, most firms' senior ranks have some pretty strong numbers of strong, smart women who would not stand for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

No, that's not true. Unless you want a reputation, you have to give associates coming back from parental leave time to ramp back up.

Nope, this is a fantasy. No one cares about “reputations”. Look at the last downturn in law. As soon as the economy picked up, people were clamoring to work at all the big firms that had just treated their associates like crap.

It’s pretty black and white when you’re talking about billing targets.

We're not talking about firms' reputations about firing associates for not hitting targets.

We're talking about firms' reputations about firing female associates for not hitting targets within three months of returning from leave. People of both genders would not be clamoring to work there, because that's a whole different level of nastiness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

No, that's not true. Unless you want a reputation, you have to give associates coming back from parental leave time to ramp back up.

Nope, this is a fantasy. No one cares about “reputations”. Look at the last downturn in law. As soon as the economy picked up, people were clamoring to work at all the big firms that had just treated their associates like crap.

It’s pretty black and white when you’re talking about billing targets.

No, another biglaw attorney here who disagrees with you. It is EXTREMELY rare to come anywhere close to meeting hours targets when you come back from maternity leave. Accordingly, a firm that followed your protocol would be firing most women coming back from maternity leave. Those firms would get eaten alive for doing that - both internally and externally. Firms in 2024 are very concerned about equity and very concerned about promoting women, and at this point, most firms' senior ranks have some pretty strong numbers of strong, smart women who would not stand for this.

Guess OP’s firm is pretty rare then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

Like you said, if there’s not enough work, they’ll fire people. If OP is not meeting their target, then they’ll be in the pool to be fired. Coming back from leave doesn’t exempt you from billing targets unless you have an accommodation that could reduce the target.

No, that's not true. Unless you want a reputation, you have to give associates coming back from parental leave time to ramp back up.

Nope, this is a fantasy. No one cares about “reputations”. Look at the last downturn in law. As soon as the economy picked up, people were clamoring to work at all the big firms that had just treated their associates like crap.

It’s pretty black and white when you’re talking about billing targets.

We're not talking about firms' reputations about firing associates for not hitting targets.

We're talking about firms' reputations about firing female associates for not hitting targets within three months of returning from leave. People of both genders would not be clamoring to work there, because that's a whole different level of nastiness.

Hopefully OP updates this thread tomorrow after her meeting. Perhaps it’s just a warning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

I've also never known a partner to join such an HR meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd update your resume and put out some feelers to recruiters, OP.

How were your billables?

Low billables. But the market has been slow for our group in general.

I wouldn’t keep riding on the good performance review from last year.

How does your firm normally handle performance issues? Is it multiple warnings/a PIP? Or immediate separation?

Law firms aren't like this. If there isn't enough work to support the associates on staff, they will fire some until there is a better matching of supply/demand. You can be totally competent, even well liked associate. But if there's not enough work, and the firm predicts the downturn will last, then you still have a high chance of layoff. Firms took too long in 2008 to react to the sudden downturn, and figured out they needed to be quicker - so now assume they will make firing decisions within 3 months of a slowdown. They'll do this even if you're a good lawyer - but they'll pick the least busy associate to lay off, because that is just a general indication of how much partners need/like the associate.

If you're a bad associate, you also don't get a warning - they will just let you go with severance.

OP - i would be surprised that they wouldn't give you more of a 3 month runway to come back after leave and get your feet back on the ground. It's very normal to take a while for work to pick back up. And it's not good optics to fire new moms. But how were your hours before leave? Had you been cruising a bit and already seen as one of the lesser focused associates?

BUt with all that said, in my 17 years in biglaw, I have never heard of an associate or non-equity partner having a meeting asked for by HR where it wasn't to be let go.

This might be a new dad and not a new mom (I read parenting leave).

[Anonymous]

This is op. I may have a stroke before the meeting tomorrow I’m terribly anxious. If I somehow live through it, I’ll be sure to post an update.

[Anonymous]

Sending you good vibes, OP.