Pranks, Summer Associates

Let's Screw With Some Summer Associates

Why aren't more firms pranking their summer associates?

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As summer associate gigs become more and more straight-laced, with summers acting on their best behavior and attorneys reining in the high-flying, five-hour lunches of poached Bald Eagle, it’s good to see someone out there who still wants to make their summer program as fun as it is challenging.

This isn’t the first time we’ve turned our lonely eyes to Edelson PC for summer mirth. Several years ago, Jay Edelson hired an actor to play the world’s worst summer associate. He’d show up late, he’d brag about hiring contract attorneys to do his assignments for him, he’d just generally, in Edelson’s words, “f**k with them.” It was funny, but it also served the important goal of bonding the summer class… against this jerk.

This year, Edelson’s prank served a different goal — to get summers to embrace a collaborative atmosphere where they shouldn’t shy from going directly to partners. So the firm hired the same actor to return and play Pablo Esco Bear, the firm’s Polar Bear-American partner, and decked him out with an office and had him email summers. Obviously:

Law school students are used to the notion that they shouldn’t talk to partners, for instance, and founder/CEO Jay Edelson says that no matter how many times he tells them to come talk to him whenever they’d like, and that they’re all part of one firm aiming to accomplish one goal together, it’s very difficult for them to buy into it. Pabs was used to break down this wall at the very start – and also to show that while the work they do is serious, they don’t take themselves seriously. And yes, that being able to communicate with anyone – or anything? – is key to being an effective lawyer. Suffice to say, the plan worked.

The firm cobbled together some of Pablo’s best moments in this video. And also some of his lowest, including the bar fight he got into when he learned his human girlfriend was cheating on him with another polar bear. Don’t worry Pablo. As they say, there are plenty of fish in the arctic floe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNKxVe9kRkA&feature=youtu.be

I love that they kept in the outtake of the actor declaring how stupid the fight was. It was stupid, but it was amusing, and that’s what matters. Sometimes you have to suffer for your art.

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Earlier: This Firm Hired An Actor To Play The World’s Worst Summer Associate
Can A Summer Associate Please Blow A Goat Or Something?

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