Biglaw, Summer Associates

A Collection of Funny Summer Associate Stories from a Bygone Age

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Some people were disappointed in the summer associate tales this year. We had only one really salacious story this summer. (If there were others we missed, email us.) Thank you, Oenophile Olympian, for your addition to the summer associate rules of etiquette.

Our schadenfreude-loving readers were terribly disappointed by the scarcity of scandal. Shame on you, sober and sedate 2010 summer associates! Though it’s worked out well for you all, it forced long-time lawyers to go digging in their memory banks for more exciting material.

We have five stories that came to us via comments and e-mail from the good old days when summer associates were young and restless, instead of focused and desperate…

We have put them in an ascending order of ridiculousness:

5. One commenter didn’t think wearing an Olympic jumpsuit to summer events was that odd, and thought odder a “summer who knitted during meetings.” That is indeed strange, and surely must have needled her colleagues.

4. The same commenter knew another summer who, at the firm’s summer picnic, “challenged all and sundry to a hot dog eating contest, and later challenged the administrative partner’s blue-haired mother to a drinking contest.” Well, at least the law student showed a competitive spirit, which is an asset in an associate.

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3. In the tipster’s words: “My friends took a summer out to lunch at Sequoia on the Georgetown waterfront to get to know him better. They sat in the big windows overlooking the Potomac in a white table-clothed dining room, the epitome of the Washington Power Lunch at the time. The summer was extremely hung over, keeping his sunglasses on while ordering lunch. And then he fainted flat to the floor before the food arrived. An ambulance came and he was diagnosed as dehydrated. He didn’t get an offer. The partners were really pissed off they didn’t get their lunch because of all the commotion.”

2. The TMI summer: This summer “went on and on and on and on with details about her open marriage and the polyamory house that she lived in.” Maybe this was a BYU law student?

1. In the tipster’s words: “Can we go all the way back to 2000 at a “major DC white shoe” firm? A male summer associate was told he could bring a date to a function after work. Since he went to a NY school, he didn’t know anybody in town, so, of course, he brought a hooker. Monday morning, he was called in to explain himself to the Exec Comm and denied the date was a hooker. Then he changed his story at lunch and bragged to the other summers about his “awesome hooker hook-up.” He was relieved of his summer position on Tues morning for “lying about the hooker.” Best reason EVER to get fired. Can you imagine having to fill out a Bar Exam application and when you get to the part that says “Reason for dismissal” you type in “lying about the hooker”?”

We welcome additional summer associate lore in the comments, or via email.

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