Bad Ideas, Barack Obama, Biglaw, Summer Associates

Summer Associate of the Day Earlier in the Month: The Clifford Chance Lolita

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This story has been making the rounds in New York summer associate circles. We’ve known about it for a while, but we wanted to get more corroboration. Now that we’ve heard the same details from multiple sources, we feel that it’s fair game.
In the style of Page Six, we’re doing it as a blind item.* Here you go:

A partner at Clifford Chance was seen making out with a summer associate at the corporate reception [on Thursday, July 12]. The two were seen leaving together when a fifth-year associate ran out and told the partner: “Dude, you don’t want to do this.”

Now THAT is a good associate. The model associate is like an extension of the partner’s mind — the sober part.
So are summer associates fair game? Read the rest of this post, after the jump.


Before you get all judgmental, with respect to either the partner or the summer associate, remember this about Sen. Barack Obama and his lovely wife, Michelle Obama:

[Michelle Robinson] was working as an associate at law firm Sidley Austin, in the Chicago office, when she met Barack Obama. She was put in charge of being his mentor while he was a summer associate.

She married Barack Obama in 1992, and they have two daughters, Malia (born 1999) and Sasha (born 2001).

Summer associates, beware. You never know where those free lunches might lead….
The origins of the Obama marriage demonstrate that relationships between summer associates and permanent lawyers at the firm are not per se “gross.” As those of you taking the bar exam this week surely recall, there’s a presumption of grossness, but it’s rebuttable.
In deciding whether the presumption has been rebutted, the most important factors are (1) the age difference between the parties and (2) their hotness. If the parties are close in age and incredibly good-looking, like Barack and Michelle Obama, then the relationship is not icky.
(Speaking of Obama, if you didn’t see it when it came out last month, this video is awesome.)
* Consistent with our general rule, we’re keeping the participants in the Clifford Chance make-out session anonymous. Please do not name them, or even speculate as to their identity, in the comments — which, of course, are the legal responsibility of the commenters (not ATL).
If things get out of hand in the comments, we’ll have to close the thread, and we’d rather not do that. Thanks.
Michelle Obama [Wikipedia]
“I Got a Crush…On Obama” By Obama Girl [YouTube]
Clifford Chance [official website]

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