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Mentor
This is not a 9-5, M-F job. Their salary is $215K in part because the job places a lot of demands on their time. While I do think mid levels and seniors should be considerate when reaching out for help from juniors or assigning them work, if their help is needed on work that is urgent, you shouldn’t feel bad about reaching out. Being too soft on this will result in you having to do more than you should.
I will be “available” on the weekend as far as I am at home and not otherwise occupied. If you ask me to work on an emergency project on the weekend, I’m not going to cancel plans to do so. I will tell people “I am busy from x to x time today, will get to this after that”. If that means I stay up late that night that’s fine, but no way am I going to miss an event/plan I already made unless someone’s life is on the line.
This is insane to me. On a weekend where I was otherwise not staffed to work on a deal over the weekend, I could be doing any manner of things on a Saturday afternoon / evening. Including a weekend trip, or a hike, or a concert, or going to have dinner with my family, or literally anything else. Drinking is definitely on the table. There is no amount of money in the world that warrants the kind of control over my life where I don’t get to enjoy my Saturday night without fear of being on call every weekend.
My wife would be calling a marriage counselor for some joint therapy if I took a call in the middle of a dinner out. That is just so beyond the pale. I might send a quick email saying that I will respond at X time, but no way would I leave a dinner…
Fwiw I’m a first year and I just assume anyone above me who asks me to do anything has the authority to do so
This is the correct assumption
Enthusiast
If the partner delegated the authority for you to staff juniors then you do have authority. When tasked to help juniors that’s essentially them letting you known you have that limited authority to guide them and delegate the work to them. I wouldn’t feel bad, but at the same time, I would have asked the partner if this is truly an urgent matter that had to be attended to before Monday.
I asked follow-up questions to make sure it was a Saturday night task (and couldn’t be done Sunday morning, or better yet, Monday). It was a true emergency. I guess I don’t know how to make it known to first years that I have the authority.. I get the sense that if the partner had emailed them they would have all cancelled plans and jumped online (not that it doesn’t suck, it really does).
Subject Expert
It’s also very easy to say no or ignore when you email the entire group. Individual emails will work better. However, I would not expect, even as a first year, to have sudden emergency work on the weekend on a matter I am not already staffed on, which is what this sounds like. I’d help out a favorite partner if they asked but they don’t ask (at my firm). If already staffed, that’s a different matter, whatever comes up is yours. It sounds like you were already staffed on this matter? Or at least the partner asked you individually?
So force people to work on weekends after a 50 hour week? Nice. THIS is why people are suicidal in big law and it’s so toxic because they can never unplug and are forced to work . It seems like the 100 or 200k salary is alot but not when you break it down AFTER taxes and into the amount of Hours it’s like 50 ish an hour at 2400 if you are at 200k. If you are at less, it’s peanuts and might as well open up your own shop and charge $100 an hour and work 2k hours on your OWN time.
Yeah I would’ve cc’d the partner on an ask like this.
Enthusiast
Would a phone call have been better in this scenario? Also, is this a practice group where this sort of thing is the norm (i.e., should they reasonably expect to be on call on a Saturday evening)? Tbqh, and this is probably unique to my own group, we never have Saturday night “truly” unexpected fire drills and if someone emailed or called me Saturday night there’s a 90% chance I am (1) not sober, or (2) with family far away from a computer. Different if we’re expecting the possibility of an incoming fire drill.
Mentor
Yeah I said this below. I’m a second year and generally fine with working weekends unless I’m at a wedding or something, but if someone emailed me at 7 pm asking for help with a matter/client I wasn’t even staffed on, and it wasn’t a weekend I was already working, I probably wouldn’t respond right away. If I’m between deals or my deals are moving slowly then I don’t really expect weekend work and am not checking my phone more frequently than once an hour or so. Basically, if there’s no reason for me to expect weekend work I’m probably at dinner or drinking or something and just not checking my phone frequently.
Also I’m in corporate so not really a chill practice area but if we aren’t near signing or closing it’s pretty rare to have an emergency needing immediate attention on Saturday night.
Also fwiw, I would not have responded on a Saturday evening (phone call or email). Nothing I work on has true emergencies though, just clients with unreasonable expectations. So pushing to deal with Sunday (which is when I would have answered) or Monday would not be a big deal.
I’m also a third year. I might have been more likely to respond sooner as a first year when I was still in the “trying to impress” mode.
First Year here:
9 times out of 10 I will do everything in my power to help the third year in this situation.
There are a couple third years/mid-levels though who are nightmares/bullies/assholes who frankly I won’t help unless absolutely forced to. And even then, I’ll do exactly the job asked and won’t take ownership of anything further. I’ll resist as much as possible. Not saying OP is this, but it’s not always the case that the Third Year is worth saving.
Again though, vast majority of the time I’ll get on it and try to help. I’ll also work proactively to alleviate the pressure I anticipate coming down the pipe.
Question: Do Partners know which mid levels are nightmares to their juniors?
Keep a partner copied on things like this!
I’m just happy to see someone care!!!!
This!! OP i would love to with with you
Mentor
I’m a second year and generally fine with working weekends unless I’m at a wedding or something, but if someone emailed me at 7 pm asking for help with a matter/client I wasn’t even staffed on, and it wasn’t a weekend I was already working, I probably wouldn’t respond right away. If I’m between deals or my deals are moving slowly then I don’t really expect weekend work and am not checking my phone more frequently than once an hour or so. Basically, if there’s no reason for me to expect weekend work I’m probably at dinner or drinking or something and just not checking my phone frequently. Sorry you were in this position.
There is zero chance I am taking an emergency matter off of an ask from a 3rd year. This should have been a partner email.
Something I try to do (that I think is actually working out pretty well), is to only reference timing/deadline in two circumstances: (1) it’s ASAP or (2) “not a huge rush” / “sometime today, could someone..” Just due to the general fast-paced/unpredictable nature of the M&A world, the majority of my requests need to get back to me within a couple of hours or around 9 or 10ish so I can review before I go to bed (depending on the type of assignment — am I asking for a couple of duped out joinders or an initial draft of a signing checklist). I’d like people to generally assume I want a reasonably prompt turnaround unless I specify otherwise because it saves me from having to be that annoying midlevel while also boxing them into a turnaround time that is actually less flexible than what I need or want and could end up with them rushing the work product
A25, same! If you don’t give me a timeline, the odds of me assuming you want it the same day are very low. Same week, maybe.