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Talk about bucking a trend. Over the last few years, *the* story when it comes to Biglaw parental leave has been expansion. Increasing the number of weeks, making the policy gender neutral, ramp-up periods with a reduced billing expectation for new parents returning to work — just a whole host of ways to make being a parent and a Biglaw attorney at the same time more humane. And at a time when work/life balance is fueling lateral moves, this trend is mutually beneficial — helping attorneys at the firm through the growing pains of new parenthood and keeping them at the firm to the benefit of Biglaw.
But DLA Piper just went the opposite direction — today, they announced they’re slashing the parental leave offered by the firm by six weeks. As reported by tipsters:
DLA piper reduced its parental leave policy for non-birthing parents. Previously they offered 18 weeks to all parents. New policy provides 12 weeks of leave for baby bonding and 6 additional weeks of short term disability for attorneys who give birth.
Here’s the firm’s email on the subject.
This completely screws over adoptive parents, foster parents, fathers, and even birthing parents are taking a hit. There’s not been a change to short term disability/medical leave, so though birthing parents can still get to 18 weeks off by combining leave with short-term disability, they can no longer hit the 24-week threshold.
Seriously, this is all kinds of fucked up. Above the Law has been tracking parental leave in Biglaw since 2008 — this is the first time anyone at ATL can remember a firm taking a step backwards and actually cutting back on the amount of leave offered. What a terrible look for the firm.
Also, did DLA Piper learn absolutely nothing from the Kyte Baby parental leave PR disaster? The once-trendy baby brand screwed over an employee who was adopting a child. As a result, they’ve faced massive backlash.
I also can’t help but note how terrible the effective date for the new policy is as well. Any leave that starts after May 1 will be reduced. Can you imagine being seven months pregnant, having you and your partner’s paternity leave plan all figured out, and finding out now your partner has to go back to work six weeks earlier than you’d planned? When you have a newborn, six weeks might as well be a lifetime, and this throws all of those meticulous plans out the window.
Whatever monetary benefit DLA Piper thinks they’re getting from this new policy, it cannot be worth the bad will they’re sowing amongst their attorneys. This is absolutely the kind of thing associates leave firms over — because even if they aren’t immediately impacted by the change, it shows how little the firm actually cares about their non-partner attorneys.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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