Summer Associate of the Day: The Shearman & Sterling Slacker
Last week we covered some goings-on -- or non-goings-on, to those of you who found them boring -- at Shearman & Sterling. Here's a quick update.
We reported that, according to the firm, there have been no staff layoffs. One source writes:
I'd like to know how they define administrative staff, as they laid off their entire word processing / document production center (i.e legal word processors, proofreaders, EDGAR operators, and supervisors) in February 2007. It has since been disastrously outsourced....
Outsourcing from a year and a half ago isn't what we had in mind when we asked about recent layoffs. But we pass that along, for what it's worth; we do aim to be accurate.
In the comments, there were some rumors about start dates for 2009 associates. We're looking into the rumors and will report back. If you can confirm, please email us.
Update: We're still waiting for official word from the firm, but one Shearman offeree confirms that yes, start dates for incoming associates next year will be no earlier than November 30, 2009.
Finally, we wondered whether there might be an interesting story surrounding the one out of 140 summer associates who didn't get an offer. It turns out that there is.
Find out what it takes to get no-offered by Shearman these days, after the jump.
Several sources told us the tale of the no-offered summer. Not only did he not get an offer, but he was actually fired in the middle of the summer program (a la the lesbianic lip-lockers at Lindquist & Vennum).
From one tipster:
The kid got fired mid summer. He got way too drunk at firm events in New York. He split with [a foreign] office, and once he got there apparently it got worse. He no-showed at work, and apparently had [contraband materials] in his firm-provided housing that were discovered by the cleaning crew.
Here's a more colorful account:
[W]hile he was in the NYC office, he would come in around 11, be aggressive in finding an associate/partner to take him out to lunch. After coming back from lunch, he would roll out of the office and hang with his friends. Then, he would come back around 7-ish and order free dinner and take a company car home....The summer then went to [an overseas office]. He apparently didn't show up to work for three days straight, and then emailed his partner advisor at 11 p.m. asking if he needed to come in that day.
I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was that he outright refused to work on July 4th, which is obviously not observed in [that country]... Shearman flew him back to NYC, then dismissed him soon after.
Moral of the story: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. If that includes working on the Fourth of July, put away the flag pin, and roll up those sleeves.
Standard ATL rules apply. Please don't mention the summer associate by name or provide further identifying information. Thanks.
P.S. Some might say that, if he was the only no-offered summer in the entire 2008 S&S class, his identity should not be hard to figure out. That may be true. The main point of the "no name" rule is to prevent this story from coming up whenever this person is Googled. Cf. Shakespear Feyissa.
We aren't required to do leave out names (and other gossip blogs and message boards regularly do include names in such stories). But we have a policy of omitting names, just to be nice.
Of course, summer associates who get no-offered -- not just cold-offered, but no-offered -- have bigger problems than being mentioned on ATL. Because they don't have the fig leaf of a cold offer to hide behind, they must explain their lack of an offer to prospective employers anyway.
(58) Comments
first?
First!
These pretzels are making me firsty!!
was he a 1L or a 2L? because if he's a 1L, it doesn't matter!
3, apparently the pretzels actually made you THIRDsty.
Nice try though.
What exactly does "[contraband materials] in his firm-provided housing" mean? From the erratic behavior, this sounds like it might involve not just laziness but a substance-abuse problem.
Contraband = drugs? I hope it was something worthwhile.
I would guess it means they found a pipe or a bong or something like that.
As another Shearman summer, I can tell you that the contraband was boxes of stolen pens and paper from the firm.
Stolen pens and papers? Weak.
No Swiss Miss?
http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/07/xsummers_the_swiss_mister.php
Only rainmaking partners with a book of business in excess on $10 million a year can get away with blowing off the day after lunch and taking a company car home. For not knowing that this SA deserved to be fired.
One between the "lines" question nags, however: What was the nature of the "contraband" discovered by the cleaning crew in the firm digs? I suspect that it was more than a few Hustler mags under the mattress. Which is most likely the predominate reason the guy was fired.
TAKE AWAY LESSON: Always make nice with what Leona Helmsley notoriously referred to as "the little people" (in this case, the cleaning crew). [See, e.g., http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/040816/16eewhere.htm .]
ha ha, swiss miss!
So it sounds like he went to work with one of them big fancy law firms for the summer so he could get free lunches, dinners, and rides home every day, AND never have to buy pens and paper for years. Classy!
"The Shearman & Sterling Slacker" is too boring a term for this guy. Something more along the lines of the "The Pen Nabber" would be better - others can come up with much better alternatives I'm sure.
Maybe the guy didn't want to practice and just wanted to bilk the firm for a summer and a free trip overseas. Well done.
This guy is a hero.
LAW SCHOOL JACKASSES:
The 'Shearman summer' is a fake. The contraband was not pens and paper.
9 just make a funny. Laugh a bit, realize your naivete, and let's get information as to whether it was a bong or a coked-up mirror and tightly wound dollar, dollar bill...ya'll.
I've been involved in overseeing the summer program at [equally prestigious biglaw firm] for a few years now, and I've seen plenty of summers behave imprudently. From my experience, a summer can fail to show up for work occasionally, arrive at 11am every day, be aggressive about finding lunch buddies, and take a vacation day here and there, and he still won't get no-offered. The deal-breakers are the work product and whether he did anything unethical. It would seem, therefore, that his biggest transgression was taking the car when he had not been at work all day. I'd also guess that this guy was generally unlikeable, did bad work, and didn't respond well to suggestions that he was royally screwing up. My firm always gives the summer an opportunity to make things right unless the summer's transgression was a serious ethical problem.
And, also, as others have mentioned, if the firm uncovered evidence that he was dealing meth, that would be a deal-breaker.
--18
What city was he in (besides NY)?
20,
Google is your friend, genius.
Abu Dhabi
Beijing
Brussels
Düsseldorf
Frankfurt
Hong Kong
London
Menlo Park
Munich
New York
Paris
Rome
San Francisco
São Paulo
Shanghai
Singapore
Tokyo
Toronto
Washington
See law school kids, 21 made a funny, too. S/he really doesn't think the poster at 20 is a genius. Thanks for coming out.
- 17
These pretzels are making me twenty-thirdsty!
i like turtles.
methinks that said summer didn't really give a rat's ass whether he got an offer at S&S.
as for the contraband...must have been some hard core porno. very nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y
18, so what you are saying is, guys at your firm used to slack off all the time, it was no big deal, right?
25 is one of the few voices of reason. This story and many of the posts act like this guy is f**ked. Doubtful. He probably already had another job lined up in a different city that may, or more likely does not have anything to do with biglaw, So many possibilities
He may (or may not) one day regret being a big enough douche to get fired from a job thats impossible to get fired from, but its extremely unlikely hes upset he didnt get a Shearman offer or worried about 'explaining' his no-offer
25, would possessing hard-core porno in your living quarters, even if the firm was paying for them, get you fired? Maybe in the Abu Dhabi or Singapore offices, but generally that stuff is legal in most countries. If he brought it into the office, yeah, that would be a problem.
I would wildly speculate that the associate was caught with a crate of automatic weapons. It would be hypocritical of the partners to fire him for drugs or porn.
There's no way the contraband was pens and paper. What firm gives a shit if a SA takes home pens and paper?
Me thinks the maid found a little of the nose candy, or maybe that other stuff white people like:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/27/33-marijuana/
21 - c'mon! Are you too lazy to fix the list? 20, take your pick:
Abu Dhabi
Beijing
Brussels
Düsseldorf
Frankfurt
Hong Kong
London
Munich
Paris
Rome
São Paulo
Shanghai
Singapore
Tokyo
Toronto - prolly not this one, either.
Holy crap! I was an associate at the beginning of my career at S&S and started as a first year in the hayday of the tech boom. I remember we had some summers do some pretty outrageous things and there was certainly hanky panky going on and complete retardation due to an intense amount of alchohol...during that time period summers worked...some...and partied and lobbied for helicopter rides and the most expensive lunches around town, and...and...
But this is unreal. Why even bother doing a summer program? And how on earth does someone like this even get an offer to BE a summer?
21: there are more than a few offices on that list that are not overseas. if you want to be a smartass, do it right.
Gotta be a trust fund baby. Even if he had a solid offer at [equally presigious firm], he'd have a reputation to uphold that would prevent him from being that much of an idiot. Damn. I wish I was a trust fund baby.....
Summer associates have to arrive before 11am?
5:16
GPA + t14 = SA without interviewing
34,
Don't be butt hurt because you are late to the game. I'm not here for your amusement. You can edit the list in your mind, genius.
Toodles,
21
What was the story with the girl from BU who got no offered last summer (2007) by WilmerHale Boston? I heard she was the managing editor of law review and got suspended from school too.
Summers do stupid stuff like over-drinking, demanding freebies, ditching work for the social elements, etc., all the time. Its not really news.
The most intersting thing is what the "contraband" was and why the firm was told about it. If it was a narcotic, that's illegal virtually everywhere, but I have a hard time believing that the staff in say Brussels would give two s^&ts about it unless he was abussive to the cleaning crew and they were gunning for him. In some of the other countries, you go to jail for a very long time if you do that.
Porn is illegal in a few of those countries, as some others had noted. I think liquor might be illegal in one or two of those as well.
Of course, chewing gum is illegal in Signapore, but I'm guessing that's not it.
While having the complete works of some porn startlet would be more amusing, I'm guessing its narcotics. The firm found out, wanted to avoid problems like having a summer get 20 years and a caning and got him back to New York before something bad happened.
A lot of people seem to view this guy as an idiot. Let's compare:
He flew around the world on someone else's dime, ate gourmet means, and collected fat paychecks without lifting a finger.
The partners at the firm let him do all of the above.
Who is the stupid one?
any word on latham and white & case offers to summers?
summer associates are basically worthless anyway.
41: He is. He blew a 160k starting salary AND half of the summer program for more time hanging out with friends when all he had to do was show up before noon, stay until after 5, and at least APPEAR busy while he's there. When I summered several people would leave every day at 5 to drink and no one ever said a word.
Unless he's a trust fund baby or has some other ridiculous circumstance, this guy sounds like he has serious issues. What better firm than S&S is going to give him an offer when he got FIRED as a SUMMER ASSOCIATE for refusing to work?
I do want to know what the "contraband" is though. Why redact that? How does the nature of the contraband identify the summer?
Brazilian fart porn
they should have fired him abroad, and had him find his own way home.....
42, why do you care about those 2 firms specifically?
5:16 - He got to be a summer - and act like this for more than a day - because the law firm recruiting model is an epic fail.
From what I understand, he split with one of the German offices... Frankfurt, I believe. Also, he definitely wants to work in BigLaw (he goes to NYU and is far from a trust fund baby) and he was just an idiot. He was a 2L and didn't work at a lawfirm last summer, and as far as I knew, his refusal to work on July 4th and his ruining the firm's apartment during his Fourth of July party led to his being fired. At this point, he is royally f*cked!!!
It's legal to chew gum in Singapore. It had been illegal to SELL, but that's changed, too.
Is the summer intern Jewish?
May be he wanted to get back at the Germans.
Wait, so is 49 saying he had a 4th of July party in Frankfurt? That's bold.
52, that's bold - I hope you're being sarcastic!!! What about hardly showing up to work and scamming free rides home in the evening, and everything else that he did that showed a complete lack of respect for a potential employer.
My God, either this intern is the world's dumbest person, or he has a huge substance abuse problem. If the later is his case then he really needs to get some help.
I find it hard to believe that someone could actually want a job at SS and act that way during the summer. I guess I'm just floored at how stupid this kid is.
The economy sucks. I think the time when you could screw up (even minor screw ups) and still keep your job is gone.
No-offering summers is hard.
Firing or forcing out first-years is much easier.
probably best they fired him now rather than stealthily like they are doing with the rest of their associates
53, you're right, he's a total social idiot and you don't even know the half of it. The ATL account of his numerous f*&^-ups goes pretty easy on him. It fails to mention the half-dozen female summer associates he harassed at firm events and the brazen attitude he displayed to partners and associates at both summer events and in the office.
Torture Porn.