Summer Associate of the Day: The Katten Kreep

Hey kids, guess what? It IS possible to get fired from your cushy summer associate gig!
You need to try hard — really hard. It’s even harder than passing the bar exam.
But it’s not impossible. This summer has already claimed at least one victim. Multiple sources advise that a summer associate in the Chicago office of Katten Muchin Rosenman was recently canned.
Read the dirty details, after the jump.


We heard this story a while ago, but we’ve held off on posting until now, in order to gather more information. What appears in this post comes from multiple sources.
We also wanted to given Katten a chance to weigh in. We contacted Michael Jacobson and Pamela Smith, the Katten partners in charge of recruiting in Chicago, to see if they might have any comment. They did not get back to us. Nor did the firm’s media relations team.
So here’s what we know. Please note that these are merely allegations:
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.
3. Katten held a meeting with the remaining summer associates to discuss the firing. The summers were told that “the firing was precipitated by a series of events.” They weren’t given all the details, but were told that “if they knew the details, they would be surprised that it took so long for them to fire the SA.”
4. The entire SA class “was sworn to secrecy on pain of death.” (Guess it didn’t work out that well for them.)
Please note that this post does not mention the name of the summer associate in question. This is deliberate.
If you attempt to name the SA in the comments, your comment will be deleted (technically, “unpublished” — this preserves your IP address in our records). If the comments here get unruly, we will close the thread.
As we’ve said many times before: YOU are responsible for your own comments. Above the Law assumes no responsibility for them. Thank you.

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