Biglaw Firm Lets Bob Cratchit Take Christmas Eve Off
Wait... this was even in question?
Biglaw has a nasty tendency to bring out the worst in people. Combine the perfectionist mindframe of the legal profession with the pressures of a corporate machine and you can easily end up with some serious Scrooges. The grind never stops and lawyers are more than prone to drag everyone else down into the pit of their own dismal obsession.
Into this world, Sheppard Mullin has decided to shine a little bit of light:
Sheppard Mullin decided to give a little bonus to the staff by turning Christmas Eve into a paid holiday. It’s a small gesture but one our staff is pretty excited about.
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On the one hand, good for Sheppard Mullin. Nobody needs to be working on Christmas Eve. Even in a law firm with a global reach, clients understand that nothing’s getting done that day so why force the staff to sit there all day to make their living wage.
On the other hand, “little bonus”? This kind of sounds like Stockholm Syndrome. It’s not really a bonus to tell people not to work on Christmas Eve. It’s literally the request that Ebenezer Scrooge denies in A Christmas Carol that signals to the reader, “Man, this guy is a total dick.” The fact that the staff is treating this act of basic courtesy as a gift says something terrible about how we all relate to our jobs.
Yet even worse is the fact that at least some Biglaw firms out there aren’t even capable of offering this kindness. Stay strong out there.
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
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