Life@Hunton
Attorney Life
From the moment an attorney joins Hunton & Williams, he or she is integrated into all aspects of legal practice and firm life, through team meetings, client assignments and ongoing professional development opportunities. Direct responsibility for client projects is offered, based upon an incoming attorney’s level of experience and seniority, and all practitioners have the opportunity to participate in firm initiatives, programs and committees. The firm is also committed to providing and supporting both informal and formal mentoring. All offices have an Associate Advisory Committee, and many of the offices host chapters of the firm's Womens Networking Forum.
Compensation and Benefits
One of the firm's core values is to reward our attorneys for their hard work and exceptional accomplishments. We are also committed to providing compensation that is competitive in all of our offices and compares favorably to market standards in every region. Attorney salaries are based on level of experience, office location, and performance expectations that include quality of work and work product, productivity and overall contribution to the firm.
The firm offers benefits packages to those benefit-eligible lawyers who are expected to work at least 1,000 hours per year. The firm's standard benefits packages include fully or partially paid medical insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, group term life insurance and business travel accident insurance. You may also elect to purchase (through firm contributions, or pre-tax or after-tax payroll deductions) optional benefits such as dental insurance, vision insurance, dependent life insurance, supplemental life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, dependent/health care spending accounts, and long-term care insurance. Domestic partners are eligible for medical, dental, vision, dependent life, and accidental death and dismemberment coverage.
The firm also pays for certain moving expenses for new and laterally hired attorneys. Our Retirement Savings Plan offers you the opportunity to make 100% vested, tax-deferred 401(k) contributions after receipt of your first paycheck. Lawyers also receive four weeks of paid vacation per fiscal year (pro-rated based on employment start date), six week's paid childcare leave for the primary caregiver for the birth or adoption of a child (for female lawyers, this is in addition to up to six weeks short-term disability leave), and backup child and dependent adult/elder care, as well as a concierge service. The firm also provides flu shots and on-site wellness screenings at no cost, and some offices offer subsidized health club memberships and subsidized parking or transportation benefits.
Professional Development
Hunton & Williams seeks to attract and retain the brightest and most accomplished attorneys in the world. However, no practitioner can afford to rest on his or her early laurels. To help our lawyers stay at the top of their game throughout their careers, the firm is committed to providing the finest professional development available.
Our Office of Lawyer Recruiting and Development (OLRD) oversees and coordinates our firmwide lawyer policy and program initiatives. Engaged in all aspects of professional development—from recruiting through training and promotion—the OLRD works closely with the firm's Teams/Practice Groups and the Associates, Diversity and Recruiting committees to deliver a comprehensive training curriculum designed to help our lawyers learn the essential legal, practice development and client service skills needed to build an effective, rewarding practice. Beginning for each lawyer on day one with the firm's lawyer orientation program, and continuing with formal and informal mentoring programs, skills-based training that includes negotiation, communication, business development and leadership skills workshops, industry- and practice-focused training, and annual evaluations and ongoing feedback, our lawyers are provided the resources and tools they need to develop their skills and build their practices.
Flexible Work Arrangements
High-quality client service depends on a positive balance between personal and professional demands. For our lawyers to provide the highest-quality client service, the firm recognizes that it is important to provide programs that allow our lawyers to manage the demands of both their personal and professional commitments. Nearly 20 years ago, Hunton & Williams was one of the first law firms to establish a formal flexible hours program. The program is gender neutral and designed to help our attorneys manage a variety of situations, not just family care. While each arrangement is customized to meet the specific needs of the firm, the clients and the attorney, there are three basic models: reduced-hours attorneys, who work a reduced schedule, are salaried, receive benefits and remain eligible for partnership consideration; project lawyers, who work a reduced schedule, are paid an hourly rate for billable work, do not receive benefits and are not eligible for partnership consideration; and staff attorneys, whose arrangements vary based on client and firm needs, may be salaried or paid an hourly rate for billable work, are eligible for benefits, but are not eligible for partnership consideration. In addition to the above general categories, some of our lawyers are Telecommuters, working from home or other remote locations on various schedules.
The firm also provides a variety of other formal programs and state-of-the-art technologies to help our lawyers manage personal and professional demands, including The Pathways for Success Program (which offers lawyers who wish to take time off from the practice of law to focus on personal demands the opportunity to assume Project Lawyer status for a period of up to five years, with flexibility to take on discrete projects with the firm's approval, but with no requirement or expectation to do so), extended child care leave, paternity and adoption leave, back-up emergency child and adult care, a concierge service, lactation rooms to support mothers who want to return to work, 24-hour access to document processing, and other computer and technical assistance.
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"Many law firms like Hunton & Williams that have extremely high standards for client service are not open to considering less than full-time employment for any attorney, no matter how talented he or she may be. As someone who has taken advantage of Hunton & Williams’ reduced-hours arrangement for more than 10 years, I want to say how proud I am to work with a firm that recognizes the value a committed attorney can bring to a firm on a limited hour basis."
Heidi Abbott, Counsel, Richmond
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