Transcripts of Real-Life Conversations (Latest in a Series)

[lawnrrd]

Setting: Me, in my office, on my second day of work in the patent department at $BIGLAW in New York City, talking to a successful, well-regarded senior associate in the department.

Me:	So, as long as I have you in my office, I have a couple of questions about how things work around here.
The Senior Associate:	Shoot.
Me:	What's the policy on how late you have to stay before you can order dinner and bill it to the client?
The SA:	I don't know. I don't eat dinner here.
Me:	Uh, OK, I guess I'll just ask around. Well, what about when you're in the office on a weekend? Do you have to make arrangements to have the air conditioning turned on?
The SA:	I don't know. It's never come up.
Me:	. . .

Comments

[wishiwas.livejournal.com]

Wow, all that sounds promising, in the, 'yes, you can have a life AND be sucessful here' kinda way.

[rosemarymint.livejournal.com]

Make it easy on yourself. The cut-off is 6pm.

I didna know you could bill dinner to the client

[lawnrrd]

Well, the general idea is that if you have to work through dinner, you get an allowance for dinner, and it's billed to the client. To prevent abuse of the system, though, most firms have some kind of rule about what "work through dinner" means.

Considering what law firm billing rates are (I bill $270/hour, for example), 30 bucks for dinner isn't really going to make a big difference.

[rosemarymint.livejournal.com]

So how often does that happen?

[lawnrrd]

At my old firm, I ate dinner at the office at least twice a week, usually more. Enough people did, in fact, that the firm began holding communal dinners in a large conference room, which was usually quite crowded. (You had to sign in and indicate which client and matter you were working late on.)

I don't know what it's like at the new place yet. I'm beginning to suspect that it's not quite so bad in the patent department, although I don't know what it's like in the rest of the firm.

[genders.livejournal.com]

Aaah, that takes me back to the days, nights, weekends...holidays...in the office when I worked in investment banking, heh.

[evangelisa.livejournal.com]

fucking awesome!!

i was thinking for a moment that maybe you should make this a friend's only since you mention law firm, and then after laughed really hard when i realized these folks would *never* be on lj:)