Law Schools

Being A Summer Associate Is The Best Job You'll Have In The Legal Industry

It's basically like sleepaway camp, but you get paid insanely well and the food is a lot better.

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Ah, the end of a semester (again, for those of you who are experiencing/have experienced a quarters system . . . surely those have to end at some point too, right?).  Student traffic into my office slows to a trickle, as, for that matter, does foot traffic in the hallways of the law school as those studying for exams seemingly beam themselves directly into and out of the library for 12-hour rotations.  While many of you are focused on your upcoming exams, a good number likely have one eye looking forward to this summer.  This is especially true for those finishing off 2L.  My first column here at Above the Law dealt with 1L summer, and while that was only a month ago, with the speed of the news cycles in 2018, that column might as well have been 15 years ago.  So let us talk about the summer once again, this time from the perspective of those of you about to embark on perhaps the best part of the law school experience, the 2L summer.  Regardless of whether you spend the summer after your second year in Biglaw, a small firm, government, a non-profit, or elsewhere, there are some things to consider.

First, try a bit of everything. Even if you’ve wanted to be a litigator since grade school, influenced by reruns of Law & Order or Night Court (RIP Judge Harry Stone), do not spend the entire summer merely writing motions.  Dip your toe into the transactional pool and see what it is like.  I am not saying that one deal will make the most ardent litigator-to-be want to suddenly become a master M&A practitioner, but just because you have always thought you wanted to be the next member of the SCOTUS bar does not mean that is where your innate talents lie, or even what you truly want to do once you have experienced the wide array of practice areas available.  Now, some Biglaw firms might assign you to a particular group, and some smaller firms/employers might only deal with a certain subset of the law, but even if you cannot work on an array of topics over the course of the summer, use the opportunity to at least familiarize yourself with other areas, either by talking to attorneys at your firm and getting a sense of what their practice is like or even arranging to chat with some attorneys outside of your employer.

How can you talk to attorneys who are not working in your office?  Once again, it is all about networking.  While this is less important if you are in a job that will likely lead to a post-graduation offer, even in those circumstances it cannot hurt to have a few surreptitious conversations, just in case you find yourself at the end of a summer with an offer you have no intention of taking (yes, that can happen).  And if your summer position is unlikely to lead to an offer of permanent employment, networking over the summer is vital, especially if you will be working in the city where you would like to start your practice.

Next, do good work.  Look, I get it.  The paychecks (especially if you are in the $180K Biglaw salary bracket), the interesting cases, the opulent meals, it can be hard to treat your 2L summer like a job.  Believe me, it is.  While your employer clearly thinks you can excel there (if they did not, you would not have been hired in the first place), to say nothing of having invested a significant amount of money in you, the summer is still tantamount to one long job interview.  And while a Biglaw firm might be loathe to spend $30,000 on a student and then not give them an offer, they REALLY want to avoid investing $200,000 in a junior associate, only to determine the attorney cannot do the work.  One of the easy ways for an employer to determine your ability to stick with them for the long term is to look at your work product.  Put your best foot forward.  Do not submit drafts.  Everything you hand in, regardless of what you determine to be the import of the assignment, should be your best work.  I remember as a summer associate, I turned in a brief for a small appellate matter.  While it was not a bad brief, it was not A+ work.  What I thought would be a collaborative process with the supervising attorney to get a polished final brief was anything but.  The marked-up copy I got back was covered in more red than Jimmy saw on his tour of the slaughterhouse with Troy McClure.

But while you need to work hard, the final piece of advice for your 2L summer is to have fun. Being a summer associate is the best job you will likely have in the legal industry (trust me, I have had most of the jobs in this industry). Interesting assignments, partners and associates putting on their best face, no one caring about how many hours you are billing.  It is basically like sleepaway camp, but you get paid insanely well and the food is a lot better.  Friends you make that summer can last a lifetime.  The best man at my wedding was someone I met when we were summer associates.  When one of our fellow summers found themselves in the middle of a recent national news bonfire, stories flew back and forth via a group text among a handful of my summer associate colleagues, despite the fact that we haven’t worked together in nearly a decade.  This isn’t to say that you should not observe some limits.  The last thing you want to be is this year’s Aquagirl (and for every well-publicized story, there are dozens more than never go viral but are almost as bad and result in the same no offer; pro tip: DO NOT repeatedly slam a partner’s golf club on the fairway if you hit an errant shot).  And always be mindful of what the regular associates have to sacrifice to ensure you are having a good time.  While you might not have to keep track of your hours, those taking you out to lunch do and there is only so much “professional development” one can bill in a month, so try to keep the meal closer to 60 minutes than three hours.

So for those of you currently buried in the library, or if you just have memories of when you were, rest assured that there is a light at the proverbial tunnel, and it is not just the familiar glow of your laptop.  Power through your exams, celebrate, and then pack your bags for a great summer.

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Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at [email protected].

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