segundo!

Last year, Links was no. 2 on Vault's QOL list. This year, nowhere to be found. So no surprise here!

Linklaters sounds like a delicious breakfast sausage.

5:09 = Patrick

Sounds to me like links to this story do not need to be posted right now. You know, if you don't want to link now, you can link later.

from what i've heard from a friend who summered at links, i can't disagree more. my friend raved about the firm, the people, and the work. i chalk this up to a grumpy summer who probably wanted to be somewhere else from the start.

From what I understand, there recruitment for next summer has also been less than stellar. Everyone I know who did a screening interview walked away extremely disturbed by the attorneys they sat with.

from what i heard, the summer class of Linklaters NY in 2006 felt abused. my fav story: the summers were required to check their emails over the weekend. before they were issued blackberrys, they had to go into the office on saturdays (maybe sundays?) to do this b/c they couldn't do it remotely. sounded ridiculous to me.

this doesn't discourage me... Linklaters is still one of my top choices. Hopefully I can find out for myself if it's a good place to work...

wait...maybe that was clifford chance...can't remember...my bad.

Also you're not allowed to check your personal e-mail at work. Micromanage much?

Not being able to check personal email is standard at most big law firms - it's not about time wasting as much as computer virus and data control.

6:18. that's not Linklaters. Linklaters summers were not given blackberries; on any occasion they had to work on a weekend, they were given advance notice. But they were not "on call"

6:28: not being able to check personal email is NOT standard by any means - my first firm (magic circle in London) had that policy, but it drove me nuts, and my current firm (BigLaw in NYC) certainly has no such policy, nor does any firm where any friend of mine works. I think this may be a Britishism.

Frankly, it's a bit ridiculous. If you expect me to spend my entire life in my office, you have to be willing to let me run my life from my office, which includes personal email use.

7:15, hate to fuel a pissing contest, but I know of several Biglaw firms where checking personal email is not permitted and some firms firewall hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc., to ensure that people comply. At my firm, we are not "allowed" to check our personal email accounts, but I know that lots of people break this policy and I have a feeling that it is never actively enforced against someone, unless they cause the firm's computer systems to crash by opening a virus-infested attachment to a penis enlargement ad.

7:23 -- name those firms plz. This is an important criterion.

Checking your personal email is verboten at most NY firms, such as S&C. It's due to virus fears.

Both Linklaters and S&C also provide numerous internet-only stations where you may check your personal email (or surf porn) at your leisure.

At my Vault 5 firm, personal e-mail is officially not allowed but everyone does it and no one cares.

Viruses can be controlled easily other than by restricting access to personal e-mail sites. They obviously do it with the work e-mail system. If that's their excuse, they are blowing smoke up your ass.

If my firm restricted access to the site I use to retrieve my personal e-mail, I would tender my resignation immediately. I kid you not. There is a line, and that is it.

"Most" New York firms? If S&C restricts email, so be it, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that more than half of NY BigLaw does this. I agree with 9:09 (and reiterate my comment at 7:15): the line of acceptability is on the near side of restricting email access. No way.

*****
Lat-
This e-mail thing is important. Could you start a thread asking people to chime in about firms that restrict access to personal e-mail.

We love what you do. Keep it up. And how about offering t-shirts, coffee cups, mousepads, etc.

LAT=$1B

Hmm. Friend of my summered there this year and spoke highly of the experience.

The firm where I spent my summer (V10 New York) blocked free email sites and everyone there just seemed to have people email them at their work addresses. Unless you get daily porn updates, it is no big deal. Access to gmail is certainly not enough of a factor to influence the career choices of any rational human being.
On Linklaters - I know two 3Ls from my law school who spent their summers at Linklaters and they are both going to accept their offers - happily. I think Lat fell for BS from one disgruntled summer, or worse, from one jilted student who got rejected during fall recruiting.

Lat didn't "fall for BS from one disgruntled summer." He went to the firm and got official comment (which undermined the summer's story).

yawn, magic circle in NYC, same story every year... some douche didn't like lazing around eating free lunches and is re-interviewing...la dee freaking da! The real news is the number of foreign attorneys not even qualified to practice in NY...doh!

@9:52

"Access to gmail is certainly not enough of a factor to influence the career choices of any rational human being."

I could not disagree more. Restricting access to personal e-mail sites is paternalistic BS. You are a member of the bar and an officer of the court, but your firm doesn't trust your use personal e-mail? It's a sign of bigger issues. A firm that does this is a also a firm that will take issue with you working from home simply because they want to "keep an eye on you."

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt though - Lat can ask if firms wish to comment on their policies.

I bet Google and Yahoo would love to know what firms restrict access to their e-mail sites.

Some companies do and some don't restrict personal email. This can be handled by a firewall or a webfilter/proxy. Virus' aren't the issue, privacy is. All of the personal mail accounts mentioned (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail) all have antivirus in place. However, if you send confidential information out through these accounts, they have to bring in someone like me to root it out. I think it's a great idea to block that stuff. Lat, I would also like to read some policies from these firms (as mentioned above). Start a thread on it.

@12:54.... Restricting email access has nothing to do with being paternalistic - there's a lot more that goes into the consideration, such as liability risks, privacy, and network resources. And letting that influence where you work sounds like idiotic, self-righteous law student drivel. I work at a firm where web-based email access is restricted and I just stay in touch with my friends and family via work email. Work doesn't care, I don't care, and my friends and family don't care, not to mention that I can access it anywhere via blackberry.

Any firm (Linklaters included) would be better off not having any associate that makes decisions on his or her ability to access Gmail.

BTW, only ever heard good things about Linklaters.

Wipe my Magic Circle (11:12), how many foreign lawyer's cannot practice?

it can't be as shitty as cadwalader.

"Restricting email access has nothing to do with being paternalistic - there's a lot more that goes into the consideration, such as liability risks, privacy, and network resources. And letting that influence where you work sounds like idiotic, self-righteous law student drivel."

I don't see why it would be drivel. I've worked at 3 Top 50 firms in D.C. and I just did an informal survey of 6 others and none restrict their associates access to the Internet in any -- meaningful -- way. Undoubtedly there are some places I can't go, but I've never encountered any. While there may be gains to be gotten from restricting access to gmail and the like, the fact remains that many (most?) law firms are able to function without such restriction. As someone previously alluded to, given the number of hours I spend in the office, I want the firm to make it as comfortable as possible for me -- not being able to access my gmail account would make things uncomfortable. And no, I am not switching my entire life over to my work email account.

In short, yes, I would have considered whether I was able to access my personal email account in the office when deciding where to work and I don't see why that is irrational or drivel.

Some of you are just not hearing the point. So I will shout.

ALTHOUGH S&C AND LINKLATERS BOTH RESTRICT PERSONAL EMAIL ACCESS FROM YOUR OFFICE DESKTOP, AMPLE INTERNET ACCESS KIOSKS ARE LOCATED THROUGHOUT EACH FIRM TO ALLOW YOU TO CHECK YOUR EMAIL AT ANY TIME. THEY ARE PUT THERE SPECIFICALLY TO ALLOW LAWYERS TO ACCESS PERSONAL EMAIL.

"While there may be gains to be gotten from restricting access to gmail and the like, the fact remains that many (most?) law firms are able to function without such restriction. As someone previously alluded to, given the number of hours I spend in the office, I want the firm to make it as comfortable as possible for me -- not being able to access my gmail account would make things uncomfortable."

Wow! Talk about pretentious. Hahaha, heaven forbid you are the least bit uncomfortable at WORK. Believe it or not there are a lot of professions that are as office bound as you are. Difference between GenY and GenX I guess.

The only people I've ever heard of having their access to e-mail restricted are contract doc reviewers. No firm restricts real attorneys from accessing their personal accounts.

I've heard that as Linklaters' NYC office has grown, it's become more of a typical NYC biglaw firm, so the QOL has suffered substantially. It's totally lost the quirky "British-ness" it had.

Also, the word around campus is Linklaters will hire ANYONE (good news for Cardozo 2L). They're looking for warm bodies to fill overworked and understaffed groups, but don't expect to last more than a couple years.

5:45, 6:36, and 9:38 -- Betcha your IP addresses originate at a certain British firm that likes the color pink.

Plants!

Firms in NYC where I know you can check email all you damn well please:

Simpson Thacher
Cleary
White & Case
Alston & Bird
Skadden
Orrick
Clifford Chance
Thacher Profitt

...that's just from looking at people from lawschool who are on gchat right now.

"Internet access kiosks"??? Right. So every partner in your group can see that you are not billing. Fabulous.

I love Old Guy's attitude -- if someone, anyone, is worse off than you, then that immediately nullifies any complaints you may have, regardless of whether everyone else in your given profession is treated differently. A company man, through and through he is.

Internet kiosks? Please. What is this the airport? I honestly thought that was a joke at first. But of course, the firm knows associates are going to bill that time, so it's really a win-win situation for the partners.

Speaking of policies that would prevent me from working at a firm - my friend at Holland & Knight in DC said all summers and student law clerks got drug tested by the firm. A thread should be started on this topic as I wouldn't want to even bother interviewing with a firm that invades employee privacy like that. Anyone know any other firms that have compulsory drug testing?

I've heard the brits who come over think they're better than their US counterparts.

I just finished my summer at linklaters and had a great experience - first, i got to spend half my summer abroad and got paid new york salary to have an awesome time in a foreign office, then i got to work on interesting assignments in new york and genuinely liked the vast majority of people. Most of us felt the same way, and the few who are reinterviewing seem to be doing so for personal reasons - like wanting to move to a different US city - rather than because they had a negative experience. Compared to everyone else I've spoken to at other firms in NY, I feel like I had comparatively the best experience.

The first comment on this thread asked ATL to confirm their take on Linklaters. Allow me to strongly disagree with whatever the anonymous poster had heard. I worked at Linklaters this past summer, and I split between their New York and London offices. Despite my inability to waste time on gmail chat while at work, I received meaningful and instructive work and formed great relationships with the associates and partners in both offices. I had a great time all summer long. Although Links has not yet sent out its formal offers, most of my fellow summers told me in unequivocal terms that if they received an offer, they would accept.

Also, after reading this thread, I am very upset that someone would have the audacity to claim to be able to speak for all off the "Linklaters summer associates." Out of a class of about 40 US summers, no more than a handful of students represented any one school. Whoever started this thread could not have possibly spoken directly to a majority of the summers. In my ten weeks with Links, I didnt hear a single major complaint. But if someone had a bad experience, or even a bad summer, their friends who hear about it should be careful about making the sort of uninformed snap judgments that began this unfortunate thread. General negvative comments such as these do nothing to promote constructive discussion, and only serve to misinform. Deciding to summer at a firm is a major life decision that should only be made after a student gets as much information as possible. I encourage anyone who is considering a summer at Linklaters to push their inquiry beyond ATL and talk to more people at links. I guarantee you will quickly learn that this thread is at best a waste of your time, and at worst a red herring.

The first comment on this thread asked ATL to confirm their take on Linklaters. Allow me to strongly disagree with whatever the anonymous poster had heard. I worked at Linklaters this past summer, and I split between their New York and London offices. Despite my inability to waste time on gmail chat while at work, I received meaningful and instructive work and formed great relationships with the associates and partners in both offices. I had a great time all summer long. Although Links has not yet sent out its formal offers, most of my fellow summers told me in unequivocal terms that if they received an offer, they would accept.

Also, after reading this thread, I am very upset that someone would have the audacity to claim to be able to speak for all off the "Linklaters summer associates." Out of a class of about 40 US summers, no more than a handful of students represented any one school. Whoever started this thread could not have possibly spoken directly to a majority of the summers. In my ten weeks with Links, I didnt hear a single major complaint. But if someone had a bad experience, or even a bad summer, their friends who hear about it should be careful about making the sort of uninformed snap judgments that began this unfortunate thread. General negvative comments such as these do nothing to promote constructive discussion, and only serve to misinform. Deciding to summer at a firm is a major life decision that should only be made after a student gets as much information as possible. I encourage anyone who is considering a summer at Linklaters to push their inquiry beyond ATL and talk to more people at links. I guarantee you will quickly learn that this thread is at best a waste of your time, and at worst a red herring.

Just an FYI to all those making billing comments above: Linklaters has no billable hours minimum, and our bonuses are lockstep. It rocks. You have work to do, you do it; you don't, you don't. You don't spend your downtime worrying about whether you're going to make hours and get your bonus. My friends at other BigLawNYC firms should be so lucky.

Also, no one bats an eye when someone is at one of the "personal email kiosks." In fact, they are computers at real desks in low-traffic areas so privacy is not an issue, and you don't have to login so (again) privacy is not an issue.

Also, generalizations about our British counterparts thinking they're better are rash and absurd. If you've gone to law school or ever worked on a cross border deal you know that some lawyers have egos, no matter their country of origin, but most are just normal(ish) people.

Keep your observations to subjects you actually know something about.

I know Linklaters has no set billable hours requirement, but can anyone let me know what the average number of hours billed is for associates?

Linklaters has an amazing summer program. And they fly everyone to London for a few days of hanging out. The NY office still has that start up feel. Most people had a great time. The lateral hires all talk about how much they prefer Links to their old firms.

On the whole email from home thing - firstly I nevr had to do it when i was junior but even if I did you can log into the secure network with a SecureID card that everyone is issued with. Apart from the fact that our London office is nicknamed Castle Greyskull its a top place to work and most of my friends at other 'magic circle' firms have a heck of a lot less job satisfaction than your average linklaters employee.

On the British counterparts regarding themselves as better: Linklaters takes its policy on the firm being friendly and 'open door' very seriously. I'm currently in the Paris office and could happily walk next door and talk to the managing partner. If someone ever is rude its unlikely that they're going anywhere.