Active Mandate
Managing Time Off & Availability
How to handle vacations and time away from an active mandate, and how your account manager helps manage the impact.
You don't have a set number of vacation days on a fractional mandate — but time off still needs to be coordinated, because your client is counting on your availability and invoicing is predicated on it. Here's how it works:
Talk to Your Client First
First things first, give your client a heads up. A quick conversation letting them know your dates, whether you'll be fully offline or partially available, and whether you'll need any coverage goes a long way. Clients generally have no issue with time off — they just don't want to be surprised when they reach out and you're unreachable.
For longer absences, it's worth flagging the need for backfill coverage sooner rather than later. Your AM can help arrange that — but they need lead time.
Log it in the App
Once you've spoken to your client, submit your time off notice through the Goodlawyer App. Look for the luggage icon in the nav bar.
Include:
- Your start and end dates
- Whether you're taking full or partial days
- Whether you need backfill coverage
- Any relevant context (limited connectivity, a different time zone, strict no-contact for personal reasons, etc.)
- Examples of good descriptions:
I’ll be visiting family and will be in ET mostly offline, available only for urgent matters. There has been a death in the family so I would appreciate as minimal contact as possible as we will be doing memorials and celebration of life throughout the week.
I’ll be touring the West Coast in a camper van, but will continue working half days throughout the 2 weeks away. My availability will be primarily in the mornings.
Going all over South East Asia for 3 weeks. I will not be available for any work and the client has requested some backfill coverage while I’m away. Please contact me to arrange this additional support.
The more your AM knows, the better they can support you and manage the client's expectations while you're away.
Some clients and lawyers will prefer unbilled overages to accrue in anticipation of an upcoming vacation. This gives the client and lawyer more consistent invoices and payments. Your AM can help facilitate such an agreement.
What Happens After You Submit
Your AM is notified as soon as you submit. They'll handle any billing adjustments for the time you're away, coordinate backfill coverage if needed, and manage communication with the client so you don't have to. If your vacation plans change, you can easily edit or cancel the time-off in the app.
A Note on Longer Absences
If you're planning an extended break — parental leave, a sabbatical, or anything longer than a couple of weeks — get in touch with your AM early. There are more moving parts: mandate continuity, client expectations, coverage logistics, and what happens to billing over that period. The earlier we know, the better we can set you up to come back smoothly.
That's the whole picture: loop in your client, log it in the app, and your AM handles the rest.