Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman Reviews

Pros

The prestige of the firm and experience attained is great.

Cons

Human Resources is horrible. Even if with the firm for a long period of time, there is no sense of loyalty to their employees.

Pros

Entreprenurial spirit within a traditional firm, promote work/life balance, great work, excellent professional resources

Cons

You work hard and to be successful, you need to secure your own clients

Pros

pay
time off
nice co-works
fast paced
lots of work
casual Fridays
got to fart a lot
vending machines had "the good stuff"

Cons

too much stress
the boss
fast paced
lots of work
customers
copy machine didn't work
people would steal food
smelled like a fart

Advice to Senior Management

chill out

Pros

Having a paycheck every two week

Cons

Management is old secretaries with no college degree.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

Better communication with associates the past few years.

Cons

Review system and merit bonus system still stink.

Pros

The firm is fair in awarding time off.

Cons

Everything else; the firm has little loyalty to any of its employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees like family rather than strangers.

Pros

Attorneys--both associates and partners are pleasant, good people to work for
Opportunity to work on interesting deals and litigations

Cons

Senior Management--the management committee has no idea what it's doing.
The firm still suffers from communication and management conflicts because of the three firm mergers since 2001.
Local NYC management--the partners that you work for do a good job mentoring you and advising you. A good number of them care about you as individuals too, but again this firm is just disjointed at the senior level because the California partners (Pillsbury) may disagree with the New York (Winthrop Stimson) partners or Shaw Pittman (DC) partners. The firms thought that merging would make them stronger, but there's no coherent strategy.

Advice to Senior Management

Get it together soon. Either figure out why you merged or break up.

Pros

excellent salaries, compensation is very high

Cons

terrible work/life balance, not friendly to working mothers, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't let someone go on the day they get back from maternity leave...

Pros

Superior quality of the work product and the national reputation of some of the practice areas, such as energy and real estate. Some of the more senior partners are very good at mentoring.

Cons

Most of the east coast clients were clients of the smaller feeder firms that make up PWSP and as a result, they are not very happy with the BigFirm rates now being charged. That, coupled with a series of pay increases, has caused this firm to no longer be competitive for work in some practice areas. This is what led to one round of stealth layoffs and another more public round of layoffs in March 2009.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to be like the big boys. Go back to your roots, which is general counsel to regional and national businesses at local rates.

Pros

Pillsbury is a reputible firm with many smart, hardworking attorneys. The firm has a good reputation, eventhough it has been battered in the past few years.

Pillsbury policies are good to women and homosexuals.

Cons

Senior management at the firm are fools. Frankly, it's hard to destroy a 100+ year old practice, but Pillsbury management is doing a great job in making it difficult to practice law at Pillsbury. Not only is management secretive and ungenuine, what little feedback they provide is often two-faced.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should make the firm more open. If you're going to say something, make sure you're telling the truth, and not just saying what you think other people want to hear.

More importantly, stop listening to the idiot management/marketing consultants, and just focus on making Pillsbury a good place to work.