As a first-year Biglaw associate, the shop at which I worked had a generous vacation policy. They gave all attorneys four weeks of paid vacation each year, and when an employee left the firm, the shop paid up to four weeks’ worth of vacation time to the departing worker. Many firms these days have open-ended vacation policies, which bosses say is preferable because people theoretically can take off as much as they wish. In reality, we all know that such policies allow employers to avoid needing to pay out for unused vacation time, and employers can use implied pressure to keep employees from taking too much time off. While thinking about such policies recently, I wondered if there was anything morally wrong with someone using such policies to take a long vacation and then quitting even if they haven’t worked at a firm for a long time.
Earlier in my career, I worked at a midsized law firm that had an open-ended vacation time. The firm allowed associates to take off as much vacation time as they pleased so long as they satisfied the firm’s expectations when it came to billable hours. People at this firm generally took a decent amount of vacation time off since the firm paid workers below market salaries and the vacation policy was one of the perceived perks of working at this firm.
During my time at this shop, an associate arrived at the firm and got married about four to five months later. The associate ended up taking about four weeks of vacation time because of his wedding. This seems like a lot, but I believe that the associate got married outside of our area and had planned his honeymoon months before joining the law firm.
When the associate returned to work, everyone was shocked to discover that he tendered his two-week notice. It seems that our firm was not this associate’s first preference when it came to employers, and he had been speaking with folks at another shop for a long time about a potential job offer. It just so happened that the job offer came through right when this associate returned from his honeymoon, and the new opportunity was difficult to pass up.
Of course, management at our firm was not pleased. Not only had they invested time and resources into training this associate during his short stint at our shop, but they recently permitted him to take a long paid vacation to attend wedding festivities and his honeymoon. The associate seemed contrite, and he offered to pay the firm back the wages he earned while taking his four weeks of vacation. However, the firm did not take the associate up on the offer, and I did not understand the mechanics of such an offer since the associate presumably had tax withholdings that would have to be factored into this type of resolution.
My initial reaction to this associate taking a long vacation and quitting was negative since it left my shop in the dust and all of the other associates had to share his work while my firm found a replacement. But now that I think about it, this episode could be karma for the firm maintaining an unrestricted and ill-defined vacation policy in the first place. If the associate earned vacation days over time on a set schedule, the firm could have informed the associate that he did not have enough vacation time to take the trip. However, the firm likely did not want to be tied down to such a policy, and so they were left holding the bag when an associate used the policy to his advantage.
I would love feedback from readers on this issue, do people think workers have a moral obligation not to act underhandedly to employers? My feeling is employers already take a lot from employees, and workers should generally be free to use workplace policies against those who employ them.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothman.law.