Firm’s Good Deed Couldn’t BEE A Worse Metaphor

// Honey bees are critical cogs in a functioning ecosystem. We all like things to grow and those things need pollinators. So after years of colony collapse disorder wreaking havoc on the natural order of things, it’s nice to see companies doing their part to help keep the noble Apis functioning.

So frame everything we’re going to say here through the lens that what this firm is doing deserves praise. But how the firm markets its social responsibility to its employees might require some attention.

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Enter Fenwick & West, a firm that has yet to match the latest salary jump — though we suspect it will eventually. The firm scored a messaging victory with its bonus system that offers a little extra to high billers so they can actually take a vacation, so it knows how to send a message.

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But they can’t all be home runs.

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Yes, because no imagery better expresses a commitment to collegiality and work-life balance than sitting at a desk watching a swarm of genetically coded serfs toil for their queen until the moment they die and are unceremoniously dumped on the ground to make way for the next class. Bees do have a superpower: conveying to associates the virtue of quiet servitude.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s not that no good deed goes unpunished, it’s that not every good deed needs a livestream.

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Just chalk this one up to “we’re contributing to the revitalization of the Bay Area ecosystem” and file it with the year-end social responsibility report. Obviously no one at the firm was trying to tell associates, “Watch this, everybody — see how these little jackholes never ask their queen about Milbank sharing royal jelly?” but you don’t always get to control how a rhetorical artifact plays out once it leaves your hands.

Imagery aside, it also says, “We put all this effort into food porn for Pooh Bear, but we’ve not had time to hash out salary.” Which isn’t necessarily fair because it’s not like the same firm representatives sorting out Operation Honey Pot here are in charge of comp structure, but optics aren’t always fair.

Honestly, whenever I’m done covering this industry, firms should pay me as an outsider to just to read their internal and external communications and tell them, “Okay, here’s how this one unintentionally backfires on you.” Because this isn’t the first story I’ve written where the disconnect between praise and annoyed tipsters is a communication breakdown. My free advice to Fenwick now that this one is out there is to spin it as “these bees are working from home… and now you can permanently too!” or something.

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So good for Fenwick for investing in a worthy endeavor. Just remember to run your messaging by a bigger hivemind first.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Topics

Biglaw, Fenwick & West