A Day In The Life Of A Partner At Seyfarth Shaw LLP
A day for a labor and employment partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP involves significant "email triage," shifting from direct casework like "drafting motions" early in the career to strategic client advising and editing as seniority increases. Post-pandemic, remote work has reduced time spent on travel for court hearings, allowing more focus on client communication and internal strategy.
Communication, Email Management, Legal Practice, Litigation, Client Relations
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
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Traits
Josh Rodine
Partner
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
University of California, Santa Barbara (1996)
University of Maryland, College Park (MA, Philosophy 1999); University of Illinois College of Law (JD, 2002)
Philosophy
Law
Legal
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Pell Grant Recipient, Took Out Loans
Video Highlights
1. A significant portion of a partner's day involves managing and responding to emails, both internal and external.
2. As seniority increases, the nature of tasks changes; junior attorneys focus more on direct casework (e.g., drafting motions), while senior partners spend more time reviewing and strategizing.
3. Technology, particularly remote work capabilities, has impacted the day-to-day activities, reducing time spent on travel for court appearances and depositions
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a partner in labor and employment look like?
It is a lot of email triage. In that regard, one's practice looks different when they are more junior versus more senior.
When one is a more junior attorney, they spend less time dealing with client issues and more time dealing with case or matter transaction-type issues. When I was newer in my practice, I spent a lot of my day responding to discovery requests, drafting discovery requests, drafting motions, and opposing motions.
Now I spend my time editing all of that stuff. But really, the thing that I spend the most time doing during the day is responding to both internal and external email. These are questions from clients relating to particular pieces of advice they need, or strategic exchanges about what we're going to do in relation to a particular piece of litigation.
Add to that mix things like taking and defending depositions and handling court hearings. These actually take up less time now post-pandemic because we're not appearing in court as frequently; we do a lot more of that remotely. So, if I need to appear in Orange County, I'm not going to chew up three hours of my day just driving there and back to the office.
The hearings that we're involved with happen maybe a few times a month. That's not a daily thing. The other items that I described take up much more of my time on a day-to-day basis.