Career Center

Career Center: Blown Deadlines & Mismanaged Assignments (Or Things to Do to Not Get a Permanent Offer)

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In case you might have forgotten, a summer clerkship at a law firm is a job. You are expected to be at work during normal business hours, to follow instructions, and to complete assignments. The fact that the firm may take you to concerts and fancy restaurants should not control how you perceive the summer clerkship experience. You must determine your priorities and plan accordingly. By far, the most frequent problems encountered by summer associates are the challenges presented by handling multiple assignments or meeting tough deadlines. This week’s Career Center Summer Associate Tips Series features advice on managing your assignments and deadlines from Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner.

Lawyers live in a world of deadlines — depositions must be taken, briefs must be filed, statutes of limitation will run, deals must be closed, and client presentations may be made. Some deadlines change unexpectedly. Others are immutable. Before tackling any assignment, you must understand the relevant deadlines….

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Career Center: Juggling Assignments and Your Sanity During the Summer

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'Please take me to a nice lunch!'

If the law firm is a circus, the summer associates are the clowns –- albeit clowns with one heck of a paycheck. I could go on and on with other circus-themed comparisons: the partner is the ring leader, the senior associates are the lion tamers, the junior associates on document review are the shovelers following the elephants to “sort” what comes out. But this post focuses on the summer associates who, like clowns, must learn how to juggle –- and instead of balls or bowling pins, summer associates must learn how to juggle several work assignments simultaneously.

According to Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner, one of the toughest challenges for young lawyers is managing their own workload. It is difficult to estimate the time that a project will take, especially since nothing in law school prepared you for the actual practice of law. Not to mention you will be working for several partners and attorneys simultaneously, which places an additional burden on you.

Here are some tips to help you juggle your assignments….

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Career Center: Master Your Own Destiny (Or At Least Your Assignments)

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Mastering assignments begins with understanding what the lawyers you are working for want. You are not in law school; this is not a contest where you are graded against other students. Clients want answers, not issue spotting. Sophisticated clients already know the issues. Clients want answers based on the facts and applicable law — not theory based on policy arguments, law review articles, cases from other states, dissenting opinions, or model statutes that have not been adopted.

According to Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner, the most frequent problems in summer programs arise from misunderstood assignments. Common errors include spending the wrong amount of time on a project, delivering the wrong type of work product, memoranda that speak with the voice of a law student rather than that of a lawyer, and inadequate or excessive legal research. Each is preventable.

If you do not enjoy research, call that truck driving school. If you do not have a natural curiosity about legal issues, you are in the wrong profession. That means a rigorous, disciplined approach to defining problems and finding answers even if it means going through scores of cases, stacks of treatises, and hitting innumerable dead ends until you are satisfied.

Know that your assignment will be delivered by an attorney responsible for coordinating projects for summer associates or the attorney for whom the work will be done. Therefore, do not leave the office of the assigning lawyer without answers to these eleven questions — which you can read by clicking here. Don’t forget, for additional career insights as well as profiles of individual law firms, check out the Career Center.

Career Center: Manage Your Time — Life on a Professional’s Clock

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Welcome to the world of Biglaw — a world of wonder, a world of magic, a world of pure imagination — okay, not really. After you are done watching Willy Wonka, come with me and you’ll see a world of schedules, time constraints, and statutory deadlines with loopholes and an infinite number of exceptions. If you haven’t already, buy yourself a watch — and no, not a Rolex (as Elie well knows, student loans are not easy to live with).

Transforming your wake-up-at-9:55-to-get-to-class-by-10 schedule to a working-at-a-law-firm schedule is not easy. The work habits of many students do not match well with the daily life of a firm. I’m not saying that law students do not know how to work hard, but when you join a law firm, you follow the pulse and practice of the firm, its partners, and its clients.

The following tips on managing your time and transitioning from law school to law firm are brought to you by Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner. Now on to the tips…

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Advice for Summer Associates: Don’t Cost Law Firms More Than You Have To

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Welcome to the joys of the billable hour.

Jerry Maguire made a memorable plea to retain his client: “Help me, help you. Help me, help you.” As a summer clerk, you are very expensive for the law firm — in addition to your salary and entertainment expenses, firms spend hundreds of attorney hours monitoring your work and keeping you interested. You do not want to add more to that expense if it can be avoided, especially if it involves simply following firm policies and procedures. While we have already covered how summer associates should act in social settings in and outside the firm, summer associates must learn how to properly manage their work and conduct research on their day-to-day work assignments.

The following tips on time entry are brought to you by Frank Kimball of Lateral Link, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner. Please note that these are general guidelines a summer associate should adhere to — be sure to check with your firm to determine what the firm’s actual policies are.

Now on to the tips….

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Is Your Summer Clerkship Too Boring for a TV Show? Good!

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Your summer associateship should be unfit for television (reality TV or otherwise).

What you do during your summer clerkship should not be viewed as a potential plot line in a TV series — or your future at the firm will last as long as The Deep End. From your fashion prowess to your social interactions, you should really be remembered for your work ethic and social competence. When you are being considered for a permanent position at summer’s end, you don’t want to be known as “Jäger Boy” or “Cleavage Girl.”

It only takes one momentary lapse in judgment to derail your future at the firm. Read these tips, brought to you by Frank Kimball of Lateral Link, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner.…

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Career Center: A Social Events Guide for Summer Associates

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Party responsibly, summer associates.

Summer associates are inundated by invitations to lunches, dinners, in-firm programs, and social activities outside the firm. Particularly in a summer when the economic outlook is still a bit uncertain, summer associates must act with care and discretion at firm-sponsored social events.

Almost invariably misconduct involves excessive late-night drinking. Someone once said “nothing good happens after midnight.” They were right. The following tips, brought to you by Frank Kimball of Lateral Link, will help you navigate the social scene this summer.…

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Career Center: Essential Reading for the Summer Associate (Because You Don’t Read Enough Already)

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If Oprah had a book club for summer associates, you can bet the following reading materials would be on that list (in addition to Above the Law). While I am sure extra reading is the last thing you want to do after long days (and nights) of working and schmoozing at the firm, the items identified below provide great insight into subjects a savvy summer associate should be on top of.

For extra credit, consider forming a summer book club with your classmates and/or fellow summer associates, read some of the material suggested below, and take some time to discuss. The following reading recommendations are brought to you by Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner.

Now on to the reading….

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Career Center: Summer Associate Speed Dating (aka Splitting Your Summer)

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A split can be delicious -- or dangerous....

Today’s Career Center tips for summer associates focus on how you can successfully split your summer between firms. Obtaining a summer clerkship at one firm is great, so splitting the summer with another firm is even better, right? Not necessarily.

In some cities, such as Dallas and Houston, the split summer has been a fact of life for decades, and summer associates often divide the summer into two, three, or more parts. But even in markets where split summers are the rule rather than the exception, a summer associate must take each firm seriously. Like speed dating, you are going to have to bring your “A-game” the entire time you are with each firm if you hope to land a “long-term relationship” with either firm.

On the one hand, you are going to have to make the firm you are currently summering at feel special — like they are the only firm that matters. On the other hand, both you and the firm know that you are “seeing other firms” and are not quite ready to make your employment status official on Facebook.

Let’s consider the risks here — and how to manage and minimize them, if you’re a summer associate who’s doing a split.

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Career Center: Tips for Summer Associates

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The Career Center is featuring a special series this summer for law students who want to excel as summer associates and ultimately secure permanent offers. Starting today and continuing throughout the summer, we will feature tips to help you manage your assignments, juggle conflicting demands, account for your time, handle feedback and criticism, and much more. These tips, focused on helping you navigate your law firm and summer associate internship, are provided by Frank Kimball, a principal of the Kimball Partner Group – a Lateral Link company, and an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner.

Today’s tips focus on how to maintain an attitude that will help you win over the partners at your firm and put you on the fast track to success. While not known for offering useful legal guidance, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde: The Musical offers great advice to summer associates: “Be positive.” You have already passed the first test, by initially securing the summer associate clerkship. Now you need to show off your dazzling personality — or at least demonstrate that you are at least tolerable during late-night doc review projects that await your future.

Keep the following tips in mind, whether you are working on a legal memo or hanging out at a partner’s summer house in the Hamptons….

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Career Center: Summer Associate Caveat Emptor – What Are Associates Really Thinking?

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Welcome, summer associates!

Summer is almost here, which means summer associates will begin working at major law firms around the world. Will you be summering at one of the law firms profiled below? If you are a Biglaw summer associate and want to know what firm associates really think about the firm you are clerking at, check out the Career Center for great insight on all the leading firms.

  • Formal training and mentoring are big at this firm, but some associates still feel ill-prepared to handle the actual work they are assigned. As one of the first U.S.-based firms to expand internationally, it can be “sink or swim,” according to Lateral Link members, and there is virtually no chance at becoming partner here. Still, the firm is considered a market leader with respect to family leave and has one of the highest average percentages of new female partners.
  • Associates at this top-tier firm, known for its intellectual property practice, enjoy the collaborative work environment as well as the manageable work hours. It is a free-market system when it comes to work assignments, but associates in the firm’s satellite offices warn that work may be hard to come by relative to the associates in the main office. With a five- to six-year partnership track and a minimum billable requirement of 1,750, becoming partner is a realistic goal for most associates here.

More profiles, after the jump.

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Career Center: How well did your firm behave during the recession?

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Some firms handled the great recession with grace and poise, while others need lots of improvement if they ever want to receive a Miss Congeniality award in the near future. Check out the blurbs below, as well as the firm profiles at the Career Center, to see which firms are pageant contenders and which firms are just pigs with a little lipstick on.

  • This firm is known for its prestigious bankruptcy practice and has handled several newsworthy bankruptcies during the economic crisis. Associates here receive lots of quality work and direct client contact; however, Lateral Link Members warn that some clients have unrealistic demands on associate availability and deadlines. On the plus side, since associates are pretty self-sufficient with getting their own work, the firm is not very strict about minimum billable hours.
  • While some Lateral Link Members describe the compensation model at this firm as “laughably low in comparison to other firms,” face time expectation at the firm is minimal, and associates say there is “lower stress” than at other large firms. Pro bono work is also encouraged, and the firm counts the first 100 pro bono hours towards billable hours and bonus consideration. As a result of its pro bono commitment, 99% of associates firm wide participated in some form of pro bono work last year.

More profiles, after the jump.

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