A Summer Associate Etiquette Manual: Special Katten Edition
Last week we told you about a fellow at Katten Muchin Rosenman in Chicago, who managed to achieve the impossible feat: he got fired from a summer associate gig. This is even more impressive than merely getting "no-offered" at the end of the summer. We wrote:
1. A summer associate in the Chicago office of Katten was fired earlier this month (believed to be the week of July 9, 2007).2. His employment was terminated because (a) he allegedly engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with female summer associates, variously described as "repeatedly smack[ing] the asses of female summers" or "playing grab ass with female summers," and (b) he allegedly made racially insensitive jokes, in front of multiple attorneys.
In the wake of this story, a reader sent us this message:
Apparently, the WSJ Law Blog "Rules of Etiquette" for summer associates need minor revision. Here are my suggested changes.
You can check out the new and improved etiquette handbook, after the jump.
Law Blog News You Can Use: An Associate Etiquette Lesson
Posted by Nathan Koppel
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
With summer-associate season looming, the Law Blog has geared up for the inevitable story of a young attorney drinking too much, telling an off-color joke or accidentally sending a snarky email to every partner, firm wide. Ah, so bursting with legal promise, but so socially naive!
Mintz Levin is doing its part to domesticate associates. In late May and early June, the firm will host etiquette events for its 30 summer associates at restaurants in Boston, New York and D.C. Table manners will be the focus....
Here are some basic pointers, courtesy of Mintz.
1. The Cardinal Rule: Bread on the left, drinks on your right. But there’s an exception: If your neighbor boorishly co-opts your bread plate, don’t “make a fuss,” says Mintz partner Deborah Daccord, who co-chairs the firm’s hiring committee. Either take the next available bread plate or ask your waiter to bring another plate. Do not slap the ass of the SA/senior associate/partner next to you as he/she takes her seat at the table.
2. Napkins: If you leave the table during a meal, it’s considered proper form to put your napkin on your chair. If your seatmate leaves the table during a meal, do not slap his/her ass.
3. Ass Slapping Discouraged: French Fries: So delicious but so problematic, requiring a bifurcated standard. If you are eating your main course with your hands, i.e. a burger, then by all means eat your fries with your hands. But if you’re dining on steak, then the frites should also be consumed with silverware. Do not slap anyone’s ass.
4. Soup: Once it cools sufficiently, you are actually allowed to pick up the bowl and down it, boarding-house style. Just kidding. The rule is to scoop the soup by pushing your spoon away from your body....
5. Chowda: Being a Boston-based firm, Mintz offers particular guidance on New England clam chowder. Typically, Daccord explains, you are not supposed to crumble crackers in your soup.... But chowder is often served with those oyster crackers. Not a problem: just empty the crackers into your soup, without crunching them.
6. Intros: You should always introduce a person of lesser authority to a person of greater authority, i.e., “President Bush, this is the Law Blog”; because it’s assumed that 43 needs no introduction. Do not slap the ass of the person you are introducing, especially the POTUS or the First Lady.
Law Blog News You Can Use: An Associate Etiquette Lesson [WSJ Law Blog]
(35) Comments
uno
YES!!!!!!!!! I HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO RECEIVE A FREE iPOD NANO!!!!!
lame.
What a terrible waste of a post and of your readers' time. The etiquette rules are stupid, and the "new and improved" version is not funny or creative.
7. Do not use "i.e." when you mean "e.g." This makes you look stupid.
I understand there was a summer at Latham LA in 2006 who got no-offered for ass-slapping. Same guy?
ATL commenters = Ungrateful tools. Just carp carp carp. Never a word of praise.
Do this, Lat. Don't do that, Lat. Constant second-guessing of Lat's editorial judgment (even though ATL seems to have done pretty well since it launched).
But Lat can't really complain. When your audience is a bunch of lawyers, what do you expect?
wow, that was lame
This blog has officially jumped the shark.
No, that guy was from Paul Hastings in LA. According to internet rumors, he kept saying, loudly, at a firm event that he wanted to "f*ck" the fiance of a well-liked senior associate. When told to stop, the summer went on to threaten the senior associate with "you don't know me, I'll kill you, f*ck you" or something like that. See: http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=440928&forum_id=2&PHPSESSID=6c2ce5bc1113280ec72dbb4efb2d6b6b
I like the heading "Ass Slapping Discouraged." It sounds exactly like those weird treatise headings.
the only reason I am here is to see if I am going to get paid more.
Oh, yes, the post from 2:06 responds to the posting in 1:56; that is, the creepy summer from 2006 who was fired was from Paul Hastings LA not Latham LA.
2:08: But here you are, reading a non-salary post.
Instant credibility comes from ending your comments with "See: http://xoxohth.com...."
This isn't as embarassing as associate LS sucking a Partner's cock to get a job.
2:06, I know about the PH summer story. This is someone different. He was at Latham not PH. He got no-offered, not fired. He made physical contacts, not verbal harassment.
2:19, credibility? Dude, ask your friends from Yale, USC, or Paul Hastings, they'll confirm the story for you, I added the link to save myself the trouble of recounting the whole thing...
GOD that was unfunny and dull. Did Merck still Lat's password agin?
All this etiquette stuff is terrible. Don't slurp your soup, try to use the correct silverware, and enjoy the damn dinner. Anyone who takes offense at where someone places their napkin while getting up to use the can needs to get a life. Also, FU if you think I'm eating french fries with a fork. I'd rather not work for you if that is the standard.
Who orders fries with a steak anyway? Grow up, order a fucking baked potato.
3:50 -- I didn't even know people ordered steak for lunch. I generally think of it as a dinner item.
Nonetheless, my view is this. I have been to dinner at some very nice restaurants. A few years ago, I worried so much about whether I was using the correct fork and whether or not I was pronouncing the entree correctly that I couldn't enjoy the meal. Now, when I'm out at a nice place, I just eat and have a good time. Everyone should just relax a bit and enjoy a meal on someone else's dime.
3:44
"Everyone should just relax a bit and enjoy a meal on someone else's dime."
Or not, and donate the proceeds to charity. Go Simpson!!!
I think the etiquette question we all want to ask, but are afraid to is:
Can you slap your own ass?
What if it's karaoke night and you're singing "I'm too sexy for my shirt"?
Too much? Not enough?
Questions, questions, questions!
Golly, this practice of law is harder than it looks.
4:17, you own for funny comments today. Give us more!
There are very few asses in BigLaw worth slapping, unfortunately.
6:07, that may be true, but there is plenty of ass to slap in some cases.
The NYC summer associate survival tips that everyone knows but that no one mentions:
(1) Never make a political statement that could be perceived as conservative or otherwise right-of-center
(2) Never leave clues that you may hold religious beliefs and/or attend religious service (unless you are a Muslim)
(3) If a full time associate makes a knee-jerk or stupid political statement during a summer lunch, just smile and in any event do not debate
(4) Do not criticize your firm's affirmative action policy
(5) Never bring a Bible to the office under any circumstances
Based on Fed Soc's first 5 survival rules, I think he/she omitted a few:
(6) Don’t wear your confederate flag bowtie to work
(7) Don’t tell your female associates that a woman’s place is in the home.
(8) Don’t ask your female partner who she screwed to make partner.
(9) If you see a minority in the hallway, don’t automatically ask them to get you a cup of coffee.
(10) Don’t put signs around your office that read “Heathen free zone. No Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists allowed!”
9:12: That was pretty funny. Still, my point stands; none of my five "survival tips" involved behavior that should be deemed in any way inappropriate in a normal work environment.
Well, I just happen to think that your survival points are erroneous for the following reasons:
1. There’s nothing wrong with making conservative political statements. The problem, which is usually committed by conservatives, is when you make statements that either denigrate or restrict the rights of other people. Example 1: We should send all these immigrants back to Mexico. Example 2: We should amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.
2. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that you are a person of faith. The problem is when you use your faith to disparage or oppress those who do not share your beliefs. See example 2 above.
3. This is just common sense. You, being the job seeker, are not in a position to challenge the job giver. If he/she thinks Brittany Spears is a classy lady, just let it go.
4. Where to begin, where to begin? First, following up on #3, you are not in a position to criticize any of the firm’s policies. Second, I’m going to go out on a limb and make the assumption that you are a default American (white, Christian, heterosexual, male). The day you abdicate the bundle of privileges you get for being a default American is the day we can begin to have a dialogue about criticizing your firm’s affirmative action policy.
5. No problem with bringing your Bible to work, so long as you don’t spend your breaks quoting Leviticus in the hallway or respond to every question with “What would Jesus do?” (Well, he probably wouldn’t be reading Leviticus).
10:58 - on #1 - Except for the minor point that many biglaw types haven't even heard a conservative political opinion since they moved to NY 8 years previously. This does not apply to all, but there really are some folks who utterly freak out if they hear an opinion that differs from their own. I'm talking about really crazy statements like "the 2nd Amendment is still part of the Constitution" or "why should non-citizens apprehended while breaking just about every one of the Geneva conventions be granted all the rights granted to US citizens?". Or how about the senior partner who could not start a speech without first slamming on the President (and this was back in 2002, before eveyone, including most conservatives. started slamming on the president).
I don't think that most biglaw people are anti-conservative in a hateful way - more like they are just stunned/feaked/amazed to have to deal with any sort of contrary opinion.
Of course, it isn't all like that - one of my faviourite memories is a 3rd year who decided to go off on an ultra-liberal (or maybe ultra-left wing, wouldn't want to tar reasonable liberals by association with this kook) rant at a firm event in front of a very senior partner. Once the gauntlet was thrown he picked it right up and jammed it down her silly pie-hole. She of course almost had the vapors and pronounced herself to upset to continue with the topic. I guess she assumed she was entirely among political friends (to my knowledged, until this incident the partner had never expressed any political views to associates).
10:58
"I’m going to go out on a limb and make the assumption that you are a default American (white, Christian, heterosexual, male). The day you abdicate the bundle of privileges you get for being a default American is the day we can begin to have a dialogue about criticizing your firm’s affirmative action policy."
Clearly you are an anti-default american bigot!
Please list this bundle of 'privledges' you think this group gets and where I can go to obtain them. Otherwise it makes you sound like you're simply looking for someone to blame for your own inadequacies and failures.
Bigot? Me? Not hardly. I just call it like I see it. As for your bundle of privileges, you don't need to go anywhere to obtain them because you already have them. A brief example of some of said benefits:
1. (unlike with women or minorities) if you're successful, you never have to worry about people discrediting your success by saying that you slept your way to the top or that you only got the position because of affirmative action.
2. (unlike with gays) you can get married. Also, you can put up pictures of your significant other without worry of anyone judging you because of it.
3. (unlike with women, minorities, gays, or non Christians) you never have to worry about being the representative of your [race, gender, sexual orientation, religion] because you’re the only one [unless you choose to put yourself in that situation]. Nor do you have to worry about exhibiting any behavior that’s going to validate some stupid stereotype.
4. no one ever got pulled over for driving while white.
5. every statistic shows that you make more that your female counterparts, regardless of experience or qualifications.
6. (unlike women or minorities) you don’t have to worry about being accused of being too white or too masculine
7. (unlike with non-Christians) you don’t ever have to worry about going into a courthouse and have your religion be offended by some government sanctioned display.
8. there is no subconscious sexism, racism, or xenophobia that affects you when you’re applying for a job or loan (unless you’re applying for a job with NOW or BET).
9. you don’t have to worry about being “randomly” searched at an airport because you happen to be wearing religious regalia.
I could go on and on but what would be the point. You probably don’t even consider most of theses privileges which only underlines my point. If you’re not a default American, many of the things on this list are privileges.
I voted for the ass-slap, in keeping with ALT tradition:
See here http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/07/summer_associate_of_the_day.php
and here:
http://abovethelaw.com/2007/07/a_summer_associate_etiquette_m.php