EXCLUSIVE Ropes & Gray cuts a week’s holiday

_{On the plus side, that's five fewer days with this lot.}

Ropes & Gray has altered its associates' contracts to remove five days’ holiday, reducing their annual allowance from 30 days to 25.

A source told RollOnFriday that NQs who qualified this autumn weren’t told about the downgrade, and only discovered the change when they reviewed their contracts.

Ropes' 30-day holiday allowance was introduced as a perk to attract talent when the firm launched in London in 2010, but it's been considering whether to nuke it for some time.

A review concluded that the extra five days was not in line with the market, or even across Ropes' offices, and created a bottleneck of lawyers trying to cram in their holiday at the end of the year, putting pressure on those left in the office. So it made the shift in September, presumably having concluded that, most importantly of all, the London office was sufficiently well-established not to require such an inducement.

A source said the move caused "uproar across the office", although it was also described to ROF as a change that only caught the (six affected) NQs by surprise, who may not elicit barrels of sympathy given they're paid more than the prime minister.

Ropes declined to comment.

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Comments

That is all.

Is this legal?

Is this legal?

Well considering the NQs sign new employment contracts on qualification, why wouldn’t it be…?

Ropes and Gray showing their massive legal heft by going "that's not market" at their own associate's employment terms. Amazing. What a sweaty, mediocre shop.

Legal or not, it just means newer staff will be covering for all the older staff who will continue to take 30 days. Pretty scummy to try to sneak it into the NQ contracts.

Unless they increased pay to compensate, they can do one

They'll be working on "holiday" anyway lol

"Unless they increased pay to compensate, they can do one"

Oh no!

The overpaid junior associates are going to threaten to leave for lower paying jobs that also offer 25 days of holiday rather than 30. Whatever shall we do?

It's not as if we have a long line of qualified candidates lining up for associate roles of all levels, each one willing to leave their equivalent but lower paying job immediately for the prospect of more dosh here at R&G.

Quick, let's call an emergency meeting to discuss.

@856

I think the point was about varying existing employees’ contracts without agreement on a material amendment.

Can existing contracts incorporating the 30 day entitlement be amended to reduce the rights from an employment law perspective ? Or will ropes have to pay them an amount / agree the new terms as it’s a loss of a contractual right ?