McDermott Will & Emery Reviews

Pros

Mcdermott Will & Emery is distinguished and refined . There are many opportunities to further one's position and healthy competition to go along with it .

Cons

The company does not recycle and that seems quite troubling. Other then that all is fine with the company as a whole.

Pros

beautiful building, good amount of time off

Cons

unprofessional coworkers, lack of respect

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to employee dynamics

Pros

life and work balance is good

Cons

no challenge work at the company

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to employees

Pros

It has a decent benefit package

Cons

The salaries should be more.

Advice to Senior Management

Start to show your employees respect and open opportunities up for learning other jobs so that the many talents that most people have can be exposed which is nothing more than advancement for the firm. Learn to also listen to what your employees have to say.

Pros

There's a system set up to order dinner if you're working late, so you if you have to do so, you get a free meal.

Cons

For the IP litigation department, paralegals and support staff were underappreciated and worked into the ground. Too much focus on the attorneys and not enough recognition for the paralegals and case assistants who had to do the grunt work. When I was there at one point it seemed like the employee directory was changing every 2 weeks. Not a lot of people stayed here for 2+ years on the support staff side. Management adopted a cost-cutting attitude that came off as just plain stingy and cheap, and these are partners earning hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year.

If you can get in on the tax side though, that is completely different and is an example of how a law firm SHOULD work. Like a family, not putting out fires all the time, much more laid back.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit being such cheapskates, appreciate and recognize your paralegals, case assistants, and legal secretaries.

Pros

The pay is fair. There are some good people there. The different offices work well together. IT department is good.

Cons

Bad management. Bad communications. Poor treatment by partners. Difficult to get meaningful work. Lots of work hording. Very old school.

Advice to Senior Management

Partners should consider treating associates like people instead of robots. Management should communicate more openly with associates and listen to associate concerns.

Pros

Although it is changing, McDermott has always been a generally nice place to work with nice people. The benefits are still very good, even though they've been cut back in the past year.

Cons

They've always been pretty cheap, especially when it comes to investing in technology. Moral is pretty low lately, due to poor handling of lay offs and new management.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't forget that people are what make an organization great. The more you support and invest in your people, the greater the rewards will be to you later.

Pros

market sarary and benefits
reasonably stable firm

Cons

employees are kept out of decisions affecting them
lack of transparency

Advice to Senior Management

keep employees in the loop for decisions affecting them

Pros

Salary is at market levels and the firm offers competitve benefits.

Cons

Senior management is scattered around the U.S. officies (none in New York). Bonus structure is performance based in certain circumstance and hours based in other circumstances. Promotions are VERY arbitrary.

Advice to Senior Management

Forget expansion and fix the problems in the current offices.

Pros

This law firm rewards its staff and paraprofessionals fairly well and tries to convey the impression that it values people sacrifices and work.

Cons

There is a serious lack of communication between senior management and staff. Even if one believes that paraprofessionals and staff are completely and quickly replaceable, given the fact that they help manage partners' books of business, more respect is needed. When several people jump ship at a time, institutional knowledge is lost and not easily recovered. That makes it immensely harder for the remaining employees to do their jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

I think senior management needs to listen to the concerns and respond to the concerns of its staff.