Covington & Burling Reviews

Pros

Very collegial; market compensation; interesting cases; lightly staffed teams; elgalitarian attitude; nice offices; associates are treated very well by senior attorneys.

Cons

Drudgery of big law life applies here as elsewhere; lots of document review; unpredictable hours; occasionally boring, ministerial work; first years share offices.

Advice to Senior Management

Associates really appreciate being asked what they think about high level strategy with respect to a case; associates also appreciate participating in client and attorney conferences.

Pros

Very good benefits - great office location.

Cons

Secretarial management isn't consistent on treatment of staff. Depending on who you are and maybe who you work for you will get preferential treatment. If you are on their hit list BEWARE no matter what you do it will never be good enough!

Pros

Colleagues are courteous at all levels;
Filled with great talent;
Great benefits

Cons

Billable hour quotas are stifling if you do not work in litigation.

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

Competitive compensation, excellent benefits, excellent support staff.

Cons

Hierarchical. A poor work-life balance.

Advice to Senior Management

More formal training programs for paralegal deptartment, smaller caseloads, more transparency in bonuses (there seemed to be at least two tiers - which wasn't really explained).

Pros

Compensation was top-notch for the greater DC area. Very smart peers, excellent clients, and friendly office support staff. Overall, a good experience.

Cons

Co-workers can be socially awkward and inept. Inability to hold basic conversations, obsession over work, etc... Overall, a good experience.

Advice to Senior Management

Shrink the summer program and more carefully vet the candidates. Focus on iterative assignments rather than "one-shot" memo's. Overall a good experience.

Pros

Lots of prestige, salary and bonus matching the top of the market, best-of-the-best minds, polite atmosphere, nice offices and pleasant associates.

Cons

Long, unpredictable hours, you can work hard your entire career and never see anything for it, polite atmosphere obscures real feedback about how your doing and ability to improve/change/move on as well as creating insincerity in some cases, boring work, people are bright but but not always interesting, good work begets more of the same.

Advice to Senior Management

To continue to recruit the best of the best, you must radically change the practice of law. Otherwise, you will eventually be left with those who are smart, but have no skills beyond raw analysis -- in other words, second tier humans. The most-needed changes are 1) replacement of the billable hour, 2) willingness to do whatever it takes to assure more predictable hours, including over-staffing, willingess to say "no" to clients from time to time, etc. and 3) outsourcing of dumb work to a second class of non-attorney workers, akin to analysts at investment banks.

Pros

Prestige, brilliant and friendly colleagues, interesting work. Hard work is required but also appreciated. Pro bono opportunities are abundant and associates are encouraged to take advantage of them; pro bono hours after 50 count towards the billable benchmark of 1950. Horror stories are few and far between.

Cons

Like any major law firm, billable hours can become the overriding focus of your life. Working from home is not often an option. The associate bonus policy is fairly opaque, despite recent efforts to offer more clarity. Support staff is uneven. Mentoring can be hit or miss -- but the firm is working on improving formal professional development.

Advice to Senior Management

In general, keep up the good work.

Pros

In the NY office, the attorneys are always willing to explain a case history and the reasoning behind the strategy employed, even to paralegals (which was my position for two years). Even though I was only a paralegal, I definitely felt respected, because they recognize that they need paralegals in order for the attorneys to be able to function.

Cons

The firm is trying to expand and have more of a corporate atmosphere. They moved in 2007 to the NY Times Building, which is definitely designed to be more corporate and does not really encourage as much interaction between employees as there used to be. As a paralegal, they don't expect you to stay longer than two years. It's more of a "see if you want to go to law school" position.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees when they complain! The attorneys are absolutely fantastic to work with. My problem was more with the HR department/Management Committee.