Comments on: Deferred Associates and Public Interest Work: A Difficult Integration

By: guest

guest — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:57:38 +0000

Number 7 is a student, does not work in public interest law and cant get a job in it and is bitter. Nobody over the age of 23 uses words like fratard.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:47:49 +0000

Both of my deferred associates have been nothing short of fantastic. I only wish I could be a more active part of ensuring they get their start date notices soon. — Public Interest Boss

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:46:58 +0000

As a current student who did public interest before law school and plans to return to it later–I dislike deferred associates, though I’m sure the clients appreciate extra people doing the work. Deferred associated are generally uncommitted to the work. When I interviewed law student interns and applicants for full time positions at my public interest position, it was vital that people showed an interest not just in working with poor people, but also in our specific area of the law. With a deferred associate, there’s just not that sort of selection process. It just sucks that it’s currently impossible to get a paid public interest job. Not only do the public interest employers have little money with which to hire, but why hire a brand new atty for pay when you can just get a deferred associate to work for free? Sure, the deferred associate will leave and probably isn’t as committed to the work, but to a public interest organization struggling for money, I understand the decision. I just, you can imagine, want a job.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:31:03 +0000

46 – no, you want to be cuckolded. Probably doesn’t happen to you very often.
-33

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:59:29 +0000

The deferred associates I’ve met are lazy. They take 3 day weekends all the time, never come in before 10:30 AM and then shop online.
I know they aren’t getting paid, but it doesn’t exactly endear them to the people who actually care about doing the job…

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:47:38 +0000

33– you want to be cuckolded, don’t you?

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:43:30 +0000

It’s a trade: You save some time by giving the deferred associate some bitch work to do like making copies, assembling exhibits, or whatever menial task you need done. In return, you take some of the time you saved and either let the deferred associate come to court with you or give them some other kind of training.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:42:13 +0000

39, public interest organizations — at least the larger ones — are quite adept at managing their legal staff. Public interest offices — again, at least the larger ones — provide their staff attorneys with months of training before allowing them to represent clients in court, and even then it’s with supervision. The deferred associates have come into these offices without the benefit of training and are ultimately more of a drain on the organization’s already limited resources. Why pull a supervisor from working with an actual staff attorney who will be sticking around for the next three years vs. having that supervisor shadowing the deferred associate who will only be around for a couple of months?
So while it may seem that the public interest offices are unable to manage their legal staff, the reality is they’re too busy managing their actual staff to dedicate the time to babysitting deferred associates.
Our office had a couple of deferred associates and with the nature of our practice (very trial heavy), it was a waste of the deferreds’ time as well as ours. We welcomed them into our office and they were nice folks, but could only handle minimal work since they were untrained. I’m sure there are other practice areas where their skills would be more useful (like doing public benefit hearings where you don’t even need a JD to appear), but in reality we treated these guys like overpaid paralegals.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:11:02 +0000

16: “I enjoyed public interest work. But it is not even close to the high you feel when you win a huge federal lawsuit.”
Seriously? Because if you’re in public interest, you can’t possibly win a huge federal lawsuit? Are you an idiot?

By: guest

guest — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:55:54 +0000

Seconding 21 & 26!