Large adjustments hardly ever occur shortly at Biglaw companies. Even earlier than the rank-and-file associates catch wind of something, there’s often a lot dialogue and evaluation happening on the administration stage. So when the world’s richest legislation agency, Kirkland & Ellis, made a change to straightforward overview assessments, it received tongues wagging.
Kirkland lately despatched out their affiliate overview questionnaires. And tipsters on the agency seen a brand new addition to this yr’s kind, which requested:
Work Schedule: As a reminder, Agency Coverage on in-office attendance is Tuesday by way of Thursday every week. For the Affiliate Overview, please present a common description regarding your in-office attendance throughout the previous overview interval in order that the Committee can take into account this data when reviewing any in-office knowledge studies and knowledge.
Again in 2022, Kirkland rolled out their three days-a-week mandate, however in 2025, increasingly more companies are pushing for associates to be within the workplace 4 and even 5 days per week. Now that the agency is asking questions on attendance, tipsters are questioning precisely what that’s foreshadowing. As a insider informed Above the Legislation, “For the primary time, they’re now asking about in workplace attendance which appears to be the preliminary step to demanding extra in workplace attendance.”
However, after all, this may very well be a prequel to one thing much more punitive. Whereas it’s removed from the trade norm, a number of companies have threatened (and even gone by way of with) docking affiliate bonuses in the event that they flout the in-office necessities.
…Or perhaps the agency is simply attempting to take associates’ temperature and seize knowledge on how the coverage is figuring out. That’s a reasonably Pollyanna take, but it surely COULD be true.
In case your agency makes any adjustments to their workplace attendance plans at your agency, please e-mail us (topic line: “[Firm Name] Workplace Attendance”) or textual content us at (646) 820-8477. We all the time maintain our sources on tales nameless. There’s no have to ship a memo (if one exists) utilizing your agency e-mail account; your private e-mail account is ok. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure you embrace it as proof; we wish to submit full memos as a service to our readers. You’ll be able to take a photograph of the memo and fix as an image in case you are frightened about metadata in a PDF or Phrase file. Thanks.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Legislation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Pondering Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are one of the best, so please join along with her. Be at liberty to e-mail her with any ideas, questions, or feedback and observe her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
