Reply to How to change Big Law culture?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DH has been in big law for thirty years.  There was a time before email and blackberries (which were the big change to weekend and evening work) where big law was more family-friendly.  Things changed around 2003-4 with the changing technology and really ramped up from 2005-2020.  That was the worst period.  With the advent of Zoom and the changes of the pandemic, I feel that big law has gotten much less crazy than it was in the mid-2010s.  DH definitely does not ride his associates the way he was coming up.  You cannot make the same demands anymore.  When he was an associate, he pulled all-nighters a couple times and week, worked every weekend, and on all our vacations.  He would get in trouble with the firm for expecting that of his associates today.  Until the pandemic, there was no work from home ever.  I actually really appreciate how things have gotten more humane for big law families post-2020. [/quote]

Lol there was always “work from home” pre-pandemic- but it was work you were expected to do from home on the weekends/nights/holidays. That’s what I find tremendously ironic about law firms fulminating about WFH: they DEPEND on people working from home![/quote]

Sure, but there is a difference between commuting to an office and wasting two hours in transit to sit in your office everyday and then coming home and working for a few more hours and working from home for the whole day and getting those two hours back.  When DH goes to the office, he never eats dinner with us because he comes home at 8:30, helps with bedtime, and then works a few more hours.  He did this routine for years pre-pandemic.  When he works from home, he still works 8:30am to 8:30 pm, but he eats dinner with us, says hi to the kids after school, is more relaxed because of no commute, and then logs back on for a couple of hours.  We joke that the firm actually gets more hours out of him on work from home days because he works through what would have been his commute.  WFH has definitely improved our family life and he only works from home two days a week.  [/quote]

Oh I agree with you! I find it ironic and toxic that some firms are still resisting WFH. It’s like: “you may not WFH from 9-5 but you MUST WFH from 8-midnight, weekends, and holidays if the client needs you.”[/quote]

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