THE STANKOWSKI REPORT #3: Why I'm Glad I'm No Longer a Mere "Summer Associate"

by Stan Stankowski

A friend of mine, who has been working at a firm for the past year (instead of pursuing the nobler course of putting in a year of underpaid hell as a judicial clerk) called and reminded me of a conversation we used to have in law school. I won't bore you with the details, but essentially, I thought that I had a pretty good idea about what working in a firm would be like after I had spent my first and second year summers as a summer associate. He felt that you couldn't really have any idea until you got there and that the good parts were overglorified and the bad parts overdramatized.

My friend had a point, but not a very good one. Sure, there are things you think will be better or worse than they really end up being. However, in the end, I think that you get a pretty accurate idea when you are clerking. After all, no one really thinks that these fairly miserable and odd people get together every night for fun and games at the local bar, or that partners routinely chuck everything to head to the country club and shoot a round of golf on Tuesday afternoon. I hope to God that no one out there thinks that your secretary fills up your candy dish with some specified treat everyday. None of that is real. Which is a good thing, it doesn't seem very real in the first place. 

The things you think will be bad are actually probably still there. Really, do you think that they can spend that long trying to cover something up that isn't there? That would be a spectacular exercise in inefficiency. So, what can one expect on the transition from working as a summer associate to being a real live lawyer? It isn't all bad. In fact, some of it is pretty great. Neat enough to keep you there for ten years? We'll see.

(1)  When the doorman to your office building asks what you do, you don't have to say that you are a law student, followed by a five minute explanation.

(2) When you are at a deposition, you actually get to say your name. Nobody laughs or smiles indulgently at you. Opposing counsel can't object to you being there either.  (That actually happened to me once as a summer associate. What the hell was that?)

(3) When the security guard at the courthouse asks you for a bar card, you have one.

(4) You quit feeling awkward about ordering around worthless paralegals and bimbo secretaries after a few weeks.  (That's just for you MJB, kisses.) 

(5)  When your Aunt tells someone you are a lawyer, you don't have to act embarrassed and out of place when they ask you where you practice.

(6) When people from the office do go to the bar, they don't stand around waiting for you to be spontaneously drunk and do something absurd. They drink. You can too. Really. Go ahead. No one really thought that you loved carrying around a single, warm Amstel light all night in the first place.

(7) You don't have to smile and nod at every single ridiculous thing someone says. Instead, you can occasionally say, "What the hell did you just say?"  and no one will pass out. Promise.

So, in a way, you do get to be yourself again. While at work. For the first time in a couple of years probably. That's worth a lot of specified treats.

About the Author: Stan Stankowski is the pseudonym of a first-year associate working in a litigation firm somewhere in the South. For more details, read his introductory post, as well as Evan Schaeffer's introduction. The collected Stankowski Reports are here.

Comments

[Tom]

This post was classic. Thank you.