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Gunner FAIL: Firm Rescinds Offer After Offeree Asks Too Many Questions

Associates aren't supposed to take initiative, they're supposed to take orders.

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OFFER ACCEPTANCE EMAIL FROM STUDENT TO MORGAN, MINNOCK, RICE, & JAMES

(Partner),

I was so excited to receive your e-mail. As I mentioned before, I would absolutely love to clerk for your firm this summer. The rate of pay seemed entirely fair. Seeing as this is such an important decision, I did have three questions for you. These were questions I was going to ask (Managing Partner) last Friday, but things were too busy:

(1) I live in Orem, UT, and I would likely need to use the Frontrunner to make it up to Salt Lake everyday. Some firms offer to compensate or pay for a 4-month train pass. Would that be a possibility?

(2) You mentioned several times that I should have the intention of staying on post-graduation, obviously conditional on how I perform this summer. That is something I am willing and eager to do. I want to impress the partners with my work ethic, as well as my work quality.

Looking to the future, do you have an idea of what the starting salary is for a first-year attorney at the firm? Does that change once the bar has been passed?

(I’m sure these may depend entirely on the circumstances, and so if you can’t answer specifically that is OK.)

Sponsored

(3) Lastly, we spoke briefly in our interview together about a company from (name of state) called “(Company Name)”. They have about 175 employees and are growing rapidly. We have been talking since September, and they are dissatisfied with their current outside counsel. The salesman inside of me saw this as a perfect opportunity to acquire a client for the future for whatever firm I end up clerking for. (you)

If you were OK with it, I would forego the “one or two weeks” of R & R you mentioned, and apply those foregone weeks towards a 4-week clerkship with this company. I think it could be extremely valuable to your firm for two reasons: (A) I honestly believe that if I spend a little time with them I can convince them to switch to our firm for their outside counsel services considering their current dissatisfaction; and (B) I would gain valuable experience of knowing how corporations make decisions in-house, and I would apply that experience to my work with you.

Of course, it would only be 4 weeks (not half of the summer like many clerkships), and I would be more than willing to immediately continue work for you 10 – 20 hours per week while in school my 3L year.

Thank you for taking the time to answer those 3 main questions. I am really excited to work with you. Please let me know your thoughts and feelings.

Thank you,

Sponsored

(Clerk)

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