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Mitron,

Have y'all also downloaded outlook and teams on your phones? For those who have not, do seniors really buy "I did not have access/check my laptop over the weekend" bit.
I've downloaded but I've turned off the notifications. I access it when I feel like, not when notification comes.
One of a newly joined A0 has a weird habit of turning off the data from 9pm to 9 am and on weekends. I m going to give him very very bad review.
Aisa kya hospital chala rahe ho jo itni emergency hai? Monday 9 am dekhliyo FEMA restrictions apni, hero.
Jab matter ki band baj chuki hogi aur client tumhari Baarah baja raha hoga tab pata lagega ki hospital hi challa hai
Dubne do uss client ko, itna important matter hai toh last minute tak pakode tal raha tha kya? Sabh urgency scam hai.
Hadd hai yaar... kabhi multi-teams matter pe kaam nahiin kiya hai kya? where the matter has various dimensions and requires various teams? The other team has committed a deadline to the client. The client has set a meeting with the counter party (perhaps a sovereign fund) based on the deadline. You get your piece of work at 8 pm because the previous team took some extra time. Raat ko baith ke analysis to karna padhega na.. so that the client can continue with his schedule the next day.
Similarly, matters where a foreign law firm is coordinating on behalf of the client with law firms across multiple jurisdictions also run on very tight deadlines.
This A0 is either too dumb or just simply does not care to remain available for the team.
bhai/behen maine isse faad comment nahi dekhai LI pe abtak. LLM, T-1, A0 etc ki posts sab apni jagah but ye to alag hee stuff tha.
Btw he turns off his data from 9 am to 9 pm on weekdays and 24 hrs during weekends.
And setting (fairly reasonable) boundaries to protect one's mental health is a problem for you? I assume this kid will make himself available if he's forewarned that there's an urgent deadline or whatever, but this expectation of being reachable all the time is bullshit.
How so you know that the.mobile data is turned off?your and your "law" firm doing Pegasus surveillance?
This is scary. I use my personal phone for office work and what if the terms and conditions allow them to access other apps on my phone? Can anybody do anything to allay this fear? Can I sue my firm if they have access to my personal stuff?
Okay but there are much more important things in life, for example, my politics. Hope you are not interested in that as well.
Municipality ki election mein khade hone ki himmat nahi hai, bade aaye politician.

Had se had Republic/NDTV (depending on preference) ke news panel pe aa jaoge 1 din. Kya hi ukhaad loge?
Bhai Sahab ko whatsapp bhejo ki pl send this document, raat ke 9 baje ke baad message deliver hi nahiin hota... delivery report atti hai subah 9:10, 9:15 am ki.
The team has actually stopped trusting this fellow with important matters.
I would hate to have a kid like that in my team. But I have to say that secretly admire these freshers these days who know their rights and firm's limitations. Back in the day I was too happy being a sweat shop worker because I didn't feel like there were any better options for me but I these kids know better.
The team is full of incompetents if they cannot get the 'important stuff' dealt with between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. And by incompetents, I'm not referring to this kid who seems to be having a perfectly good sense of work-life balance. You all don't do medical emergencies, you are not supposed to have 'urgent' work thrust upon you past midnight. The sooner you robots at the firms figure that out, the better for the law students and graduates all over the country.
The sooner the A0s and graduates realise that their 1 lpm retainer is coming because robots are slogging on their behalf, the better it will be. And since when 9 pm is past midnight?
Not really. 1 LPM is easily available in firms where you actually really work 8-10 hours a day. Spending more time in office or before a computer at home doesn't mean more work is getting done. The human brain cannot provide quality processing power for legal work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, sleep deprived. Your bosses are making the additional money, stagnating your salary and exploiting your labour.
No one is asking the A0 be available more than 10hrs a day or on all the 7 days. We do not bug him or ask him to make summaries etc. when there is no work. We avoid disturbing his Highness (or any other team member for that matter) on weekends unless absolutely necessary.
Your human brain is assuming a lot of things which aren't there. I think you are heavily sleep deprived.
If you don't bother the A0 for more than 10 hours a day, then why on earth are you cribbing about him keeping his Internet off from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.? Last I checked, that still leaves 12 hours. Similarly, if you don't bother him at night, then how does it matter to you if he keeps his phone switched off, on flight mode, off data, or use it for psychedelic music? People have arrived at rational conclusions based on your cribbing only, so that's not an assumption without substance.
Cribbing because he is not required when those urgencies come (atleast twice or thrice a month) where the entire team strength is required.
Please ask the recruiting partner to clearly mention this requirement from next time onward during campus placement and PPO interviews. It will save everyone a lot of time and toxicity.
He might have, had your recruiting partners been actually open about real working conditions in the firm. They never are.
Lets do one thing - let all of us stop working after 9 pm and say 'No' even if the client wants the filing to be done tomorrow or even if his premise is being raided and he wants to file a writ. Because A0s are woke and care for work life balance. Also, lets be ready to take a massive haircut in our remuneration.
Who are you kidding, 360 days out of 365, there is no real urgency. Deadlines are entirely artificial on 360 days. You want him to lose sleep 360 days for the 5 days where there is a real urgency?
So now you are ready to admit that law firm partners and SAs and PAs don't care about work life balance at all, and can't pay the promised salary unless the A0s promise to work 80 hours per week? Please tell them to be truthful to that extent during the interviews and assessment internships then. We will see after that how many of the good students ever join your firms.
These are things to be handled at your level i.e SA or PA level,stop dumping it on an A0 head.What is an A0 or an A1 going to do in these situations? .Do you remember the "wolf" story? the problem is everything is made "urgent",so when actual "urgent" work turns up A0s think you are just upto ego fulfillment of bossing him around and stealing his time.
Pathetic excuses to be egomaniac SA being rightly told off by A0 who cuts you off at 9 pm.
What do I do about my SA? He gives me enough work during the day to ensure I am working through the night and on Friday so I am working through the weekend. He tells me everything is urgent. We have such big demanding clients that we have no other choice, or so he tells me. I can see through him and would have told him off if an alternative universe where I was a strong individual who was sure of himself.
Yes, because that's what partner calls are usually about. Literal dawn raids being conducted. Whom are you kidding?
>you are not supposed to have 'urgent' work thrust upon you

Uncle/Aunty, are you really a lawyer? Heard of urgent writs? Early morning senior counsel briefings? Transactions spanning across jurisdictions? Late night calls with foreign attorneys?
Yes, heard of all those. Good lawyers all over the world manage all of that without spending more than 12 hours in office. If you can't, then you and your team aren't just good enough.
Remove all SA,PA if A0 are going to handle all this "urgent" writs and senior counsel briefings etc.Anways SA is so busy with tracking and surveillance on mobile data on or off of some A0.
Even I feel that I should go on a long sabbatical and let the hallowed A0 run the show.
This is so hilarious, I am totally entertained by youu guys. When A0s are expected to be available during drafting or senior counsel briefings, they are not expected to run the show. They are needed for SCC/Manupatra research, taking notes, maintaining basta/documentations, etc. If the SAs / PAs have to do these tasks in addition to managing the matters, they will require super powers.
It's very unfortunate that most of the freshers with whom I have interacted find these tasks too menial/below their standard.
SA,your junior has figured out that you are stalking his time post office hours and maybe turns off data to keep you away.Stop stalking and doing surveillance on the junior,he's not your property that he's supposed to be available to you 24*7.
And generally post 9 pm people prefer family time and more importantly SLEEP.so if the junior, who is a human being(no matter how much you treat otherwise), can't tell you in office to back off post 9pm from his life he's surely entitled to cut you off from his life from 9 pm -9 am
He should also cut off from the team then.
Ours is a low pressure team - generally we do not work 24X7 or more than 10 hours. There are a few late days a month (not more than 4 to 5) and perhaps one weekend when one does have to work. If the A0 cannot shoulder even this much responsibility, its better he goes somewhere else.
Send him to another place, na? Is he placing you on gunpoint to keep paying him if in your opinion, he can't cut it in your hallowed team that works for 16 hours a day and actually produces output for only 8?
That's the course of events which are unfolding for him. I couldn't send him to another place. I will recommend that he be asked to leave.
So do that and don't crib here, wasting your precious billing time in the process.
Why is an A0 supposed to deliver on your "urgent" responsibilities.If he's expected to handle this much as an A0its time to cut off the SA position altogether from the hierarchy.Do siem work yourself,stop dumping yr level work on juniors,if they do the work don't steal credit and if you do steal credit at least then also take responsibility for the errors that come with that credit and for God's sake,stop burbubg up because your A0 has a life and refuses to be at your neck and call for 12 hours of 9 pm - 9 am.
Hello!! Again reading too much between the lines? Shouldn't formatting documents or pulling out case laws be A0's job? If a call is to take place at 9 am the next day, shouldn't the A0 be available during the debrief call the previous evening?
Are you joking or you really have no idea of the profession? The Zero after A in A0 does not mean that the A0 will do lesser work then A1. There is a top-down delegation of work in law firm teams. The division of labour does not happen in a way that the A0 will do some part of the work and the SA will do some other part.
An SA is probably working on three times more number of projects than an A0. Role of SA is devise strategy in matters, coordinate with the clients, review work products coming from various streams, consolidate things together, and update the partner.
Hells will actually break loose for the client if the SA's billing shows formatting of documents or research which should generally be done by A0s and A1s.
The SA won't get it.He does not treat his junior with basic human-human courtesy (that side of him dief in the process of becoming SA,that's how it happens at Tier1"law"firms).And SA family probably hates him for the person he's become,so family time is alien to him
Dear Dinosaur yourself and (..) those ticks can be turned off.remember?
The second grey tick which means message delivered can't be turned off?

Naya Naya smartphone chalana seekhe ho?
Haven't complained to the bosses yet... Talked to him a couple of times. Though there is some improvement, it's still not what is required. Also giving him the benefit of doubt of not having worked in real office setup and his on boarding being during WFH.
If his behaviour continues after office reopens, I will not treat him with patience.
Oh no,OMG OMG,how dare he committ the sin of switching off from work at 9 pm,how dare he treat himself as human right?because his feudal SA thinks he owns this junior,right?you and the law firm are the worst gutter-workplace creators for creating such a stinky toxic world.
Data is probably turned off so that AO does not have to put up with calls/wsapp from creeps like you
Mein apna remuneration bhi A0 ko de deta huun... let himh handle my work as well.
I agree with SA on this. The law is not a job. It is a responsibility. If you expect your doctor to be available (as most of you do), as lawyers you need to be available too.
Justice Yogesh Khanna used to conduct some of his virtual court hearings through phone.

Laptop pe files kholte the.
Office IT installed 10+ apps on phone, including MST and Outlook. Yes, the notification sounds going off at odd hours (often for non-imp, admin related work) is triggering.
Pros - can shoot off a reply/clarification/acknowledgement without having to open the laptop over the weekends or after logging off on weekdays.
Cons - extended availability, especially when you have partners/associates who like to send follow ups over the weekend or ask for things to be done

1 year into this and a little less anxious, have been trying to keep MST offline over the weekend and switch off the notification sounds. At least this way there are no more 7 am emails which are newsletter/auto emails/timesheet reminders.
You should just turn off all notifications but make it a point to check your mails/notifications on MST once in a while. If anything is so urgent, people will call you on phone.
wierd how money makes people do and say such shitty things......maybe the old bearded guy was right....hmmm
I have historically used outlook. It is a good app for email and calendar. Teams is nice too. But the best part? I don't work at a law firm. So these apps are actually enjoyable. Enjoy you law firm bros!
It's been almost three years since I shifted to a law firm and I've realised that either the law firm community is not abreast of the pay scale vis-a-vis work timings in other professions or too ignorant of the same. On average, an employee working in the finance/management industry gets an average salary of 10-13 LPA (excluding bonus and Esops) with work timings essentially ranging from 9 to 6-6:30 and most weekends off. Similarly, engineers working in startups and IT companies like LTI, Infosys, Zomato, Mindtree, Oyo, HappstMinds have a relatively very comfortable work-life and handsome pay (equivalent to or more than what we get and I can confirm this as my friends work in some of these).

I refrain from mentioning the Medical profession since it is essentially driven by the demand of preserving health and saving lives, unlike the commercial targets in the aforementioned professions.

Having said that, the argument of slogging for hours to be able to earn 1lakh p.m. is fallacious and something that has been brought up by greedy M.Partners to do cost-cutting and keep the low to mid-level associates in a bubble, while maintaining a high bargaining position. Considering that pay levels in 2012 ranged from 10 to 13 lakhs in law firms, it is prudent to conclude that they have saved humongous amounts by keeping pay levels low and putting a cap at 14/15lpa for an entry-level position. But again, the blame is to be put on the demand-supply position which the Partners have very smartly managed to exploit. Keeping aside the pay scale, I think it is more important to stress upon the unfeasible working hours that we, as associates, have to put in to earn our bread and butter. Ofcourse, a lot of you would find me as a woke and entitled, but the truth is that you guys (including me) have surrendered your sanity for a pay cheque that seems fat but is not. Also, as I write this, one potential and hard-working A-0 at my firm reassess his decision of joining this mad race and seeks guidance on an alternate career!
Aren't those who are not able to crack medical / engineering entrance end up doing law (check the statistics in any nlu)? Engg./ Med. entrances are way more tough than clat.
The point here is that those who work in good it companies have already proved their merit thhats why they are in comfortable jobs. They are doing jobs which require more intellectual input then DDs.