July 9, 2007
Hiring Clients' Children for the Summer
One of the great challenges for law firm administrators is what to do with clients' children who have been “placed” with the firm for the summer. Some firms enforce a prohibition on make work programs for clients’ kids but, typically, it is up to the office administrator or HR manager to find work for lucky students. In speaking with administrators on how to deal with the issue we received the following advice:
- Get the Firm’s Management Committee or Board to approve the number of summer positions, the required qualifications, what work they will be hired to perform and their compensation. This provides the administrators with some support when partners become “pushy” about a specific candidate.
- Don’t give clients’ children make work jobs where they just sit around all day. You don’t want bored students relaying their displeasure with the firm to the client. Big projects are best, e.g., stripping files before they go to storage or erasing hard drives on old computers.
- Make a big deal of confidentiality during their orientation. Remember everything you say that day will be repeated to the client at dinner so make it a good message.
- View the summer jobs people as being in a “mini summer associate program.” Plan some fun time for them but at a much less ostentatious level than for the law students.
Is July 4th a One-day or a Five-day Holiday?
Independence Day, Christmas and New Years Day are the only holidays that fall on a specific date. All other holidays have been changed for the convenience of three day weekends. For most law firms, Christmas and New Year’s day are not a significant problem because most courts and private employers schedule generous days off as part of the season. Independence Day is another issue, and law firm HR Directors report that the week of July 4th in any year is the second most requested week for vacation after Christmas week. While no one seems to track the trend, several administrators have observed that the week in which July 4th falls is the unhealthiest of the year – at least according to sick leave usage.
Despite such statistics, most law firms are reluctant to close offices for non-mandated holidays. Informal research performed by several office administrators finds that the billable hours recorded on weeks with a holiday show an average 13 percent reduction without a corresponding make-up peak in the following week. Based on such observational data, holidays continue to be an expensive perk for professional service firms and we hear little interest in a policy change. 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.
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