December 4, 2006
Big Holiday Year
2007 may be a banner year for employee holidays. Next year Christmas Day and New Years Day fall on a Tuesday. This, of course, means that Christmas Eve and New Years Eve fall on Monday providing the lure of four day-weekend holidays. The last time this happened was 2001 when most law firms planned on working on the two Monday “Eves” but in the heat of moment, many firms declared the days as holidays for all but essential staff (i.e., secretaries of attorneys who decided to work on those days). A quick survey of some of our clients finds that, while most firms have not published their 2007 holiday schedules yet, about half the firms we talked to planned on making the two Eves part of their official holiday schedule. Half will wait until closer to the date to see what other firms are doing. Two firms are discussing closing on December 24 through January 2. Most firms intend to keep a skeleton staff on duty to service working attorneys. The next time we’ll see this is 2012.
So, what holidays are most firms celebrating? Except for Washington, DC, the most common schedule for 2007 seems to be:
Monday, January 1, 2007 New Years Day
Monday, January 15, 2007 Martin Luther King Day
Monday, May 28, 2007 Memorial Day
Wednesday, July 4, 2007 Independence Day
Monday, September 3, 2007 Labor Day
Thursday, November 22, 2007 Thanksgiving Day
Friday, November 23, 2007 Day after Thanksgiving
Monday, December 24, 2007 Christmas Eve
Tuesday, December 25, 2007 Christmas Day
Monday, December 31, 2007 New Years Eve
Privacy of E-mails
The prominence of e-mail records in recent congressional scandals has led some law firms to seek ways of protecting e-mail histories from discovery in employment liability cases. Computer security experts suggest a variety of methods including a shorter archive period on e-mail traffic and making sure employees are knowledgeable about e-mail records. The first brings a lot of push back from attorneys. The second would seem easy; however, a recent survey shows that:
-
More than half of all workers did not know that personal e-mail, instant messages (IMs) and unsent files created on a work computer could become business records.
-
More than half of those surveyed did not realize that personal web searches on their work computers could become business records.
-
wo-thirds of all workers did not understand that personal IMs to friends could become business records if they were sent on company computers.
-
Younger workers (18-34) tended to be less aware than older ones. More than half of the younger group (55 percent) did not understand that sending an e-mail to a friend created a business record, compared with 39 percent of those over 55.
A key seems to be focusing on these issues in both technology training and in general communications. Making this issue the topic of an email from the managing partner or some other senior member of the firm brings its importance to the forefront. DC Gender Identity Rules
Since so many of our clients are located in Washington, or have an office there, we felt it important to talk about the new Gender Identity rules that went into effect last month. “Gender identity” is defined as the appearance, expression or behavior of an individual, regardless of the individual's assigned gender at birth. In short, regardless of ones sex at birth, if they tell you they are a female, their gender identity is female.
In addition to generally treating such individuals as a protected class, employers may not deny access to restrooms and other gender-specific facilities that are consistent with the employee’s gender identity. In fact, in the case of single occupancy restrooms, employers must change signs that specify a gender to signs that simply say “restroom.” Employers may not permit a hostile environment. Evidence of unlawful harassment and hostile environment include deliberately misusing an individual's preferred name, form of address or gender-related pronoun. Administrative Salaries Rise
After some stabilization, the increase in associate starting salaries seems to be having a trickle down effect throughout law firms to the senior administrative ranks. Leading the increases are Chief Marketing Officers, and compensation nearing (and in some cases exceeding) the firm’s profit per partner is not unusual. Since, often, these positions are more highly paid than the COO or other principal administrators, some firms are moving senior marketing staff out of the “C Suite” and into a category of their own reporting directly to the managing partner or marketing committee.
At the same time, we are seeing firms provide previously unheard of flexibility in the physical location of these positions. It is not at all unusual to see the managing partner, COO and CMO all in different cities where the firm maintains offices. Legal Resource Group LLC specializes in serving the executive and administrative recruiting needs of law firms. We maintain the largest data base of law firm executive and Administrative staff in the world. This allows us to immediately identify the very best candidates. We find the best people, complete searches faster and have extremely reasonable fees. For further information, visit our website at www.LRGLLC.com , contact us by e-mail at inquiries@LRGLLC.com or by phone at 1-800-688-4147.
| 
