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The only difference is that with unlimited PTO the firm doesn’t have to pay you out for unused PTO days when you leave.
That’s pretty dope and I hope it applies to us
EDIT - bummer, looks like it doesn’t from a practice note. Apparently the defendant in that case put pressure on the employees to limit their vacation time to no more than six weeks and also never formalized them “unlimited” policy in writing. At least for my firm, we have a written policy, and that we are too busy to make use of it probably wouldn’t persuade any court.
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The court found that EF could not avoid section 227.3 by leaving its vacation policy “undefined.” Based on the particular facts of the case, section 227.3 indeed applied to EF’s purported “unlimited” paid time off policy. Simply calling a paid time off policy “unlimited” while in practice limiting the amount of vacation an employee can take does not absolve the employer of the vacation payout requirement under section 227.3. In effect, EF’s vacation policy robbed employees of their end of employment payout. It is important to note that the decision is narrowly tailored to EF’s vacation policy and does not necessarily apply to all legitimately unlimited vacation policies. Employers should examine their vacation policies in practice and in effect to determine whether their policies are legitimately unlimited.
I always get the feeling that unlimited PTO leads to people taking less, as there's no set allowance that they need to use up...
Coach
A3: I would take full 4 weeks (Biglaw standard for firms that offer vacation) if I were at an unlimited PTO firm.
Unlimited PTO is a scam when it comes to big law. You are expected to rarely take vacation as an associate regardless if it’s given or not, so when they do unlimited if you take more than 2 weeks in a year they think you’re slacking v. If you had 3 weeks and took 2 it seems reasonable. As someone else said you also don’t get paid out for vacation days. I never took a vacation in 3 years at my firm other than the occasional Friday to make a long weekend or a sick day, and I won’t get paid out for any of it when I leave.
also came here to say it’s an absolutely scam
Coach
No effect. I take as much vacation as I can while still hitting my hours goals. As others mentioned, it just means I can get paid for excess vacation if/when I leave the firm.
The vacation policy has no impact on billable requirements.
I thought so too, but I learned on here the other day that some firms credit unused pto toward the billable requirement (though not the bonus requirement). Makes me wonder what happens at those firms if they don't hit billable requirements, at my firm it's a note in your file until you're consistently off from the rest of your group