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Covington & Burling

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Covington & Burling Reviews

3.9

63% would recommend to a friend

(261 total reviews)

Maria Ivy

53% approve of CEO

72% positive business outlook

Covington & Burling has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 261 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Covington & Burling employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Legal industry (3.8 stars).

Reviews by job title

261 reviews
2.0
2 Sept 2018

Big Brother

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Beautiful office; nice people. You don’t have to click in or out but your key fob is needed to walk around the office, so they know when you’re there and when you’re not.

Cons

This place is too big for its own good. I was misled about the position I had applied for; I was told I would get remote access and email on my phone my first day and that I could work as much overtime as I wanted. Turned out none of this was true, and when I questioned why, I was told that the person who told me this was “new” and “shouldn’t have told [me] that”. I’m not sure why this person was allowed to interview me, but... I was hired as a mid level paralegal instead of a senior, which I am, and was primarily assigned the task of reorganizing files. I was allowed to cite check but was required to sign up for future training and a test to determine whether or not I could cite check (doesn’t make sense, right?) There are cameras everywhere including in your office. There are uniformed police outside and cops dressed like lawyers walking around inside. You cannot share your email address with friends or family and you cannot use your computer for banking, etc during your lunch break. My office was a storage room with boxes and bins stacked everywhere. Paralegal management never checked to see if my office was set up beforehand, hence the mess. I felt like I was basically put in my office and forgotten about. No one responded to my calls or emails when I had questions and after three weeks of reorganizing files a senior paralegal sent an email demanding to know who had been reorganizing the files.

1.0
10 Jul 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Looks good on a resume, nice office, medical, dental, vision, 401K, commuter benefits, and occasionally finding leftovers from meetings.

Cons

Uniforms, seriously! You are required to wear a uniform because that is how little they think of you. The resources are sparse, even though there are hundreds of attorneys. They expect you to be at the whim of every attorneys’ needs, including working long nights, early mornings, weekends, and EVEN overnight shifts. Attorneys and managers yelling and swearing at you, and sometimes being absurdly condescending. Almost never receiving positive comments or being told thank you, even when you are handing something to them or cleaning up their mess. The firm only cares about the attorneys. They barely allow room for growth, and do not invest in more training or learning opportunities for staff. Feeling sick to your stomach every Sunday night.

1.0
11 Jul 2019

Not Worth It

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Depending on position, salary can be ok, but it is definitely “hazard pay.” What you have to deal with for the money is nowhere near worth it. Plus, they nickel and dime you (they seriously charge you for cups, even if the cup is all you need - there’s an additional charge if you get a beverage to go in it - and no that is not a joke) to get as much of it back as possible. Incredibly smart colleagues but no efforts at team building. We all just bonded over how horrible the place is.

Cons

Pretty much everything. The other reviews (except for a couple of glowing ones that read like they were written by Recruiting, not the positions listed on the reviews) have covered most of the basics. Extremely poorly run. Incredibly toxic environment. Very, very high turnover which means that, until you join the others that have already figured out it’s best to run for the exit, you’ll likely be doing the job of several people with little to no training or support. Hostility might as well be the official firm culture. Very few perks and no available time to enjoy the few that exist. There’s 0 ability to work from home for staff. The few that have access can only utilize it outside of normal business hours (basically to do additional work for no extra pay, but from the comfort of your home!), Management is awful. They encourage fear over actual respect and treat the staff much worse than trash (being treated like trash would have been a nice upgrade). There is 0 privacy. There is an open floor plan for most and the offices and conference rooms are all glass. Unfortunately, they’re too cheap to spring for soundproofing which means that, whether you need to discuss something sensitive with your supervisor, report an issue to hr in person, make a private phone call urgently, or you’re being reprimanded, you can expect everyone outside of those doors (and everyone they tell because gossip seems to be the only way info is communicated, confidential or otherwise) to know all of your business as well. Plus, there are literally cameras everywhere, even in conference rooms, which is majorly concerning, especially since the screens showing all of the firm’s monitoring in real time is in an open area for anyone to see. Finally (for this review anyway; sadly there are still many more cons to choose from), there’s no official snow policy so you’re forced to burn your vacation days (don’t worry you won’t have time to use them for actual vacations anyway) if you’re not willing to risk your life to go into the office in extremely dangerous weather.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 261 Reviews

Glassdoor has 284 Covington & Burling reviews submitted anonymously by Covington & Burling employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Covington & Burling is right for you.