Sidley Austin LLP

"It's a hard place to advance if you are not a white male. "

"Not to, unfortunately. It was a good (but not great) place before the prior office manager passed away. Now, every success is a success for leadership. Every loss is a loss for the other person. It's not a fair environment and definitely not one where you can continue to grow and succeed. Working under a narcissistic manager is difficult for anyone to handle and it shouldn't be tolerated."

"Expectations are not clear and it isn't really family friendly at least from staff perspective. Work life balance is tough here as well."

"Great leave benefits. Women are encouraged to take entirety of leave and encouraged to reintegrate after returning from leave at their own pace (within reason, of course)."

"Dress code is very closely followed here so dress extremely business professional"

"The culture is 9 to 5 for the most part, but there can be a certain level of stress/pressure involved in working with lawyers. "

"The benefits are about average for non-lawyer employees"

"I enjoyed my time at this company working amongst lawyers inevitably makes you feel a lot more motivated. However, your attire definitely will make you stick out like a sore thumb if you don't dress business suit or pencil skirt and blouse. However, good work atmosphere."

"It's probably somewhat less hours focused than other big law firms and has a less cut throat environment than some others. Both of which are helpful to women with families. But it is still a big law firm and, in fact, is moving away from it's more gentle approach. However, it may still be a better place for women than its peer firms."

"Generally women are treated fairly, but we have to compete against young single men with nothing to do but put endless hours into this job."

"Disorganization is rampant, but the benefits are amazing. My work life balance isn't great as an hourly support staff, but here is what is awesome: * 5 weeks paid time off for all staff (and you accrue more as your tenure increases) * great health insurance - PPO in Illinois covers 90% of our IVF treatments The actual work is tough because while the lawyers will support your department with money, the leadership is a bit lacking and so things are very disjointed. I couldn't recommend this firm right now because I lose a lot of sleep from unnecessary work stress, but I do hope it could improve. For now I'm sticking around to try to have a baby. I hope to one day know what the maternity coverage is like (I have heard for hourly staff it's 2 months paid plus whatever PTO you want to tack onto the end--not too shabby--but I cannot confirm). Bonuses are low and so are raises (got under 3% last year after multiple lawyers reached out to the CMO to commend my work). Only been here a year, so not sure about how fast or slow they are to promote."