When Melissa Dominguez started at the law firm ROIG Lawyers two decades ago, she understandably worried what it would be like juggling the new job with her newborn.
Dominguez recalls that she was hopeful the receptionist job would lead to something else, but only if she could figure out how to balance it with the demands of parenthood. Luckily, she discovered that her new employer didn’t mind at all if she had obligations outside of work.
“They gave me the flexibility where, as a single mom, God forbid if my kid got sick, I could go take care of him and even sometimes bring him into the office,” Dominguez says. “They are probably the most understanding humans on the face of the earth.”
That culture of recognizing that its 164 employees have lives outside of work allowed ROIG Lawyers to claim the top spot among midsize companies in the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Top Workplaces for the second year in a row.
A minority-owned litigation law firm, ROIG began when founder Fernando Roig started the firm in 1990 to specialize in insurance defense litigation and instilled it with a cultural philosophy built around values like giving back to the community — and an understanding of the demands employees have in their home lives.
One way the company achieves this is regular get-togethers and events, which have just now begun to return to in-person, says Michael A. Rosenberg, ROIG’s managing partner. In March, ROIG held its annual picnic for the first time since before the pandemic. Employees are invited to bring their entire extended families to the event, which this year meant 300 people at Topeekeegee Yugnee Park in Hollywood. The event includes a catered buffet and the classic picnic games like bounce houses, balloon toss and tug of war.
“Everything just seemed to align for us perfectly. We got everyone together and just had a fantastic weekend,” Rosenberg says. “I was overwhelmed by getting to see everybody and getting to spend time with everyone again. I was at a loss for words, and normally I’m not.”
While some ROIG employees have returned to working at the office, most teams are still at home, and that will likely continue, Rosenberg said.
For a while during the pandemic, the firm was simply reacting to the “crazy world we found ourselves in” and allowing employees to work from home. Now that’s something that’s being analyzed by each of the firm’s teams to see if it can continue for each of them, with some likely ending up in a hybrid model, mostly working from home and then with reservable desks available at the office.
That move away from the office is something the company had been considering before COVID, and the pandemic turned into a test to show it would work long-term. “We were right on the precipice of doing it. We had several people, partners, attorneys and staff members already working outside of Florida,” Rosenberg said. “We were experimenting with working in an outside environment, and the pandemic certainly accelerated those plans, and there’s no looking back.”
Working from home has benefits that Rosenberg said he hadn’t considered before he tried it. “Just before you called, I was walking the dog, and that’s 15 minutes that provides a great reset.”
It’s a concept that Rosenberg says also fits with the firm’s founding philosophy, that investing in a family-like culture is more valuable than an investment in tech or other infrastructure.
During COVID, Dominguez says ROIG made sure employees knew they’d have a job through those tough times.
The company also was understanding that parents suddenly found themselves balancing work lives with full-time child care. Working from home mostly now, it would be easy to work overtime more and more, but Dominguez says the company is “such sticklers” for maintaining a work-life balance that her bosses will tell her to take time for herself.
Now a paralegal, Dominguez says she has a relationship with the two partners she works for that’s more like friendships.
She recalls a day in the height of the pandemic when the stress of having to become a teacher to her son weighed heavily on her. “I called the partners in tears and just stressed out and they said, ‘OK, that’s fine. You don’t have to. Take the day. Relax. Feel better about it, and we’ll revisit it tomorrow.’ By the end of the day I had flowers at my door, just to cheer me up.”
