Foley Hoag

Holy Foley! Be Boston strong at a premier firm for socially conscious innovators.

About the Firm

A phrase that kept coming up in our conversations with Foley Hoag lawyers was “Boston values.” Litigating on behalf of the Red Sox, maybe? Socials where you throw tea in the harbor? In all seriousness, “Boston values mean that it’s a bit more collegial, and more relaxed, than a traditional white shoe firm,” one associate surmised, and that ethos does seem central to the firm’s appeal.

Multiple juniors flagged how much they valued the firm’s collaborative culture and commitment to work-life balance, which is admittedly tough to come by in the world of corporate law. “Foley has a good space in the market as a ‘BigLaw firm’ with a small law firm feel to it,” reflected another junior, adding that “you get the chance to do more things and don’t get pigeonholed early in your career doing a single thing.”

“…more collegial, and more relaxed, than a traditional white shoe firm.”

Boston values shape the firm’s identity in a couple of other ways too. One is a genuine focus on sectors that are appropriate for a city filled with scientists, scholars and start-ups. “We are deeply embedded in innovative industries,” managing partner Jim Bucking tells us, pointing to life sciences, tech, and renewable energy, with a particular emphasis on helping entrepreneurs from the very first stages of company formation and beyond. That focus has paid off through strong positions in the Chambers USA rankings for Massachusetts in practice areas such as environment, life sciences and energy & natural resources (to name only a few).

There’s also a streak of unapologetic New England liberalism running through Foley’s DNA. “We’re not shying away from being ‘the resistance firm’,” an associate tells us proudly, and the arrival of a new head of DEI signifies a continued commitment to inclusion initiatives.

Summer Program

Summers at Foley are encouraged to “use it as an opportunity to get to know people in your department,” while also doing “a range of things if you can,” so they can better understand what first–year work actually looks like. The program blends substantive assignments which are “very much the work that a junior associate does,” like drafting, research memos, and even sections of filed briefs, with larger projects on “issues of the day.”

Many summers also participate in short shadowing experiences, such as a two–week internship where you “shadow a business partner… on client calls,” which one told us played a major role in choosing their practice group. Throughout the summer, networking is heavily emphasized; while “your work product isn’t not important,” a key goal is meeting widely through mentors, lunches, and coffee chats to help determine next steps.

It’s worth noting that Foley has revamped this process recently in order to encourage associates to develop specialized expertise at an earlier stage. So, while summer associates are still encouraged to sample a broad range of work, job offers will ultimately come from specific departments. Despite this, interviewees stressed that “it’s still fine to not know what you want to do at that stage,” as the program is designed to support exploration before committing.

Strategy & Future

Although the firm is attached to its Boston roots, and the city houses its largest cohort of associates, we don’t want to give the false impression that the Charles River is the limit of Foley’s horizons. Its New York office is now well established, while outposts in D.C. and Denver are also growing fast.

The expansion in Colorado is a particularly important element of the firm’s current strategy, and Bucking tells us that “we aim to do everything there that we do in our other offices.” Associates seem supportive of the plans, as “there’s a good balance between growth and maintaining our culture and values; the leadership could choose to expand more drastically, but they know that the culture is a big part of why people are here.”

Another plank of its strategy is to lean into artificial intelligence. “We are a 300-lawyer firm often competing with 3000-lawyer firms, and we think that early adoption of AI will give us an edge,” Bucking says. There is a firmwide subscription to Harvey (available to legal and non-legal staff alike), and he reports that all new associates will be trained in its use and expected to develop their own expertise.

Read more from Jim Bucking under the 'Get Hired' tab.

The Work

With that in mind, there is an emphasis on lawyers cultivating specialisms in particular industries as well as in practice areas, with associates encouraged to choose areas of focus from among the firm’s core industries (which include life sciences, energy, education and cannabis).

Career Development

Career development at Foley is carried out under the umbrella of the BD Catalyst scheme, in which all associates are enrolled. In the early years, the training centers on picking up general career skills, but later on there’s greater emphasis on developing expertise specific to certain practice areas and industries, as well as the networking skills needed to win clients of your own.

Points values are also attached to a variety of CV-building activities (ranging from updating LinkedIn to giving business pitches) and everyone has an annual target number to hit, although the overall demand on associates’ time is described by those we spoke to as “very reasonable.”

“Foley prides itself on really great mentoring, really great professional development, and really great business development.”

Juniors had plenty of positive things to say about the business development program as a whole. “It’s helpful because, as a junior, you aren’t necessarily thinking about BD because you’re not responsible for bringing in clients,” one insider mused, “but it’s never too early to start building your brand.”

New associates are also given two mentors in their first year (one from their department, who is responsible for assigning part of their work, and one from outside the department, assigned under ELEVATE diversity program) and multiple interviewees felt they continued to benefit from their mentors’ advice long after the end of their formal relationship. As one associate neatly concluded: “Foley prides itself on really great mentoring, really great professional development, and really great business development, which set you up well for your career.”

One area where there was some uncertainty was the partnership track, which was described by one as “a complete black box.” Nonetheless, others did reveal some positive changes recently; the firm has changed its performance reviews to include more explicit career progression benchmarks and juniors were optimistic that this could help demystify the process.

Hours & Compensation

Foley has also sought to introduce more clarity to its bonus system, which has been overhauled with new eligibility criteria. At its core is the annual target of 1,850 billable hours, though up to 100 of these hours can be substituted for pro bono work and other firm citizenship activities.

Reports were a little mixed about how successful the shake-up has been. While most feel that it’s now clear what you need to do to qualify for a bonus, some suggest that the factors determining the precise amount awarded are still “hazy” and involve “a bit of ambiguity.”

While the firm doesn’t shy away from not paying market scale, associates felt this was a worthwhile trade-off for a workplace that aligned with their values or their preferred lifestyle. “My personal standpoint is that the difference is negligible,” one told us, as “the pretty strong work-life balance makes up for earning a few thousand dollars fewer than someone across the street.”

Indeed, the fact that “our general billable hour requirement is lower than it is for other firms” was a draw for several associates. Of course, as with all corporate law firms, it’s still the case that Foley can be a demanding workplace at times, particularly during crunch periods when some associates report working 60-hour weeks. Nonetheless, juniors also felt that “we have a lot of good conversations about workload” with partners, and that “people are very open to reallocations” when task lists become unmanageable.

Culture

Although the firm’s associates are split between its three main offices in Boston, New York and D.C., most associates feel that a shared culture unites them all. That’s partly because “the Boston values of the Boston office permeate the others,” as one associate put it, but also because the firm “have tried really hard to maintain cross-office collaboration,” with regular opportunities to travel between cities for work or social events.

“The culture is one of the biggest reasons why I chose this firm over others. The people are awesome, very respectful and kind.”

A sense of togetherness is also helped by regular face time given the compulsory in-office days of Tuesday to Thursday, making it easier to build real, day–to–day relationships. And it certainly helps that people at Foley were a good bunch to work with; as one junior put it, “The culture is one of the biggest reasons why I chose this firm over others. The people are awesome, very respectful and kind.”

In terms of the sort of people who thrive at the firm, there was a sense from our conversations that the firm is best suited for someone who knows what they want and is motivated to make use of partners’ open-door culture. One associate’s number one tip is that “at Foley it really helps to be proactive and outspoken,” while another notes that sometimes you need to be a “self-starter” who is “willing to seek out that advice” that will help advance your career.

Pro Bono

“You’re encouraged to do as much as you can,” an associate told us of the firm’s pro bono work. Foley employs a full-time pro bono coordinator, who sends round a bi-weekly list of matters where there is a chance to get involved. “They’re really good about helping you find a supervising attorney if there isn’t one already,” an interviewee reported, while others note that partners will reach out directly with opportunities for pro bono work. Several associates describe enjoying the chance to gain experience in areas – such as litigation and criminal law – which are not part of their day-to-day routine.

An additional option is to volunteer for the Foley Hoag Foundation, which runs multiple grant rounds each year; associates who assist with these can make a site visit to a non-profit, conduct interviews, and pitch to partners about why it might deserve funding from the foundation.

Inclusion

“Having inclusion as a firm pillar is something that attracted me to Foley.”

The firm remains publicly committed to not backtracking on its inclusion initiatives, which is something that several associates appreciated. “Having inclusion as a firm pillar is something that attracted me to Foley,” one associate tells us, adding that “despite political changes in the world, that’s stayed true.”

Both its affinity groups and the ELEVATE program remain active, and a junior lawyer reports that DEI director Jessica Maroney Shillito “has a really strong background so I’m excited to see what she can do.” Managing Partner Jim Bucking places these initiatives within the firm’s long-established tradition of opposing discrimination, and stresses that “our brand is centered round inclusivity; it always has been, and it always will be.”