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Dude (or dudette). It’s PRESIDENT’S day. In big law, holidays like this don’t matter. In big law, you’re sometimes working on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you don’t like it, then this is not the career for you.
I understand doctors are doing more important work, but imagine if they took the same position. You understood the parameters of the job when you signed up for it. Deal with it — or quit.
Mentor
Tier 1 - Thanksgiving, Christmas and **IF** openly and deeply religious, Easter, Yom Kippur, Eid, etc. Sacrosanct. Only to be disturbed for the absolute most important and urgent needs and even then people will be rightfully mad. All parties have an obligation to actively avoid these conflicts.
Tier 2 - New Years Day, Easter and other major religious holidays for parents that aren’t super religious enough to be Tier 1. Strong expectation to take the whole day off, probably with specific plans. Truly urgent and important matters can partially interfere without major resentment, minor matters will likely be ignored and if forced to do them, earn well-deserved resentment. Even email traffic without specific asks should be limited.
Tier 3 - New Year’s Eve, July 4th, and for parents specifically, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. Same as Tier 2 but only applies to part of the day/specific celebrations, not the whole day.
Tier 4 - Memorial Day, Labor Day, Halloween night for non-parents, Easter etc. for non-parents, Veterans Day if you’re a veteran, Juneteenth if you’re black. Urgent, important matters can freely interrupt these. People can and should try to avoid routine work, a “will do first thing tomorrow” is a reasonable response and if they insist on non-urgent work anyway that’s a faux pas but not as bad as tiers1-3. Email traffic isn’t a problem unless it comes with work demands.
Tier 5 - President’s Day, Columbus Day, MLK Day, Veterans Day (non-veteran), Juneteenth (non-black). Respected about as much as a normal weekend day, which is to day only slightly. Even routine work asks are fine as long as it’s not excessive and the sender pretends to be slightly apologetic or loose with turnarounds.
Frankly would just bucket these into three tiers but the general ethos is correct
It’s not an official holiday at a lot of firms. Full office services, etc.
I’m at a big law firm and only received one non-urgent email today. So, its semi respected depending on your team and how urgent your matters are. For example, if you have an upcoming closing, filing, etc. nobody cares and you will work. Otherwise, typically no. I won’t do any non-urgent work on a firm holiday
Yea it’s business like usual
Mentor
I’m in house and it’s not a company holiday here. A bunch of people are using Floating Holidays/PTO but that’s it.
I am at a midlaw firm with a client’s transaction closing tmrw and my associate said they are out for part of the day. All other associates are offline.
I remember when I hated people like me, but the transaction has a drop dead closing date for tomorrow.
I wasn’t a great associate but wouldn’t have disappeared regardless of circumstance, particular for this holiday (no offense to the spirit of the holiday but it’s widely not been a major holiday in the U.S.).
lol what… did they give you a heads up in advance that they were taking the time off? Is it a firm holiday? Otherwise I can’t imagine saying this to my partner, especially for an active deal with an immediate closing