Ben Aguinaga on Jones Day’s Collaborative Culture
Read the full transcript below:
Ben Aguinaga:
As far as the culture of the firm goes, there are a number of impressions that kind of hit home for me. One is the people here are amazing. There's an open door policy so you can wander through the halls and talk to anybody. I mean, if you haven't had a preexisting relationship with somebody in the office, there are a number of folks who are very willing to answer random questions that you might have. Another thing that's truly unique about the firm is that it's very global. So the majority of my work is not with attorneys here in the DC office. I've been doing a lot of work with partners in the Chicago office and in the Houston office. And I'll be joining a matter soon with a partner in the New York office. I think that's one thing that really helps clients is that at Jones Day, we can put together a team from all over the country to make sure that it's tailor made for the client's needs.
Ben Aguinaga:
And it's been really great to kind of reach out and work with attorneys all over the country. When a client comes to us and presents a problem that the client's facing, Jones Day's reaction is not to shoehorn whatever attorney that client approached into the matter and just limit the client's representation to that attorney. And maybe everybody in that attorney's office. Instead, the response is, well, who do we have in the entire firm who can chime in on this issue and provide the absolute best representation that we can offer the client?
Ben Aguinaga:
And so that's when you have a Houston partner calling me and saying, "Look, we've got this really discrete breach of contract matter. We don't have any I&A associates here in the Houston office. We were wondering if you can come in and write our dispositive briefing." That kind of pooling of the talent from across the nation and across the world, I think is truly valuable from a client's perspective. You don't have the limitations, the inherent limitations of one office or a subset of attorneys in one office who were only available to do the work.
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