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February 9, 2010 |
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| May 24, 2007 |
By: The Snark |
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y now, the endless series of happy hours and cocktail parties that Big Firms like to call the “Summer Associate Season” is in full swing.
As you read this, a select group of law students from across the country are trying to answer a crucial question: “White wine spritzer, Guinness or Jack & Coke?”
Although I know that the chances of any of the Summer Campers taking a break from these important libation choices (or, for that matter, from the endless round of Braves games, free lunches and classes in how to reboot the computer) to read my thoughts on the subject are slim to none, I am nonetheless going to offer some advice to them. Feel free to pass it along to any Summer Camper you hope will survive to become a Cog…
Dearest Summer Campers,
Welcome to Camp Big Firm! I am your friendly guide to surviving the summer season without an arrest record, and to ensuring you aren’t on the short list of those whispered names who fail to secure offers of employment after law school. You’ve all heard the rumors: “Once you get a summer position, you’re in. Everyone gets an offer.” After all your hard work at landing the posh Big Firm Summer Associate gig, you don’t want to be cited as the example of the one who managed to dispel this commonly-held belief: “Oh, not everyone gets an offer! Last summer, Jessica didn’t get an offer from her second firm. They say she mooned the hiring partner’s husband…”
One way to avoid being a Summer Camp Casualty is to learn to master the Happy Hour/cocktail party circuit. After all, 50 percent of your total time at the Firm will be spent at such events and during that time, you will meet 80 percent of all of the Big Firm lawyers you’ll come in contact with over the course of the summer. The other 19 percent you meet will be those who mooch off of you for free lunches, and the final 1 percent are the few who are patient enough to actually supervise your five work projects.
Now that the pressure is on, a few tips:
1. Eat
I have heard some “professional” etiquette gurus say that you should never eat food during cocktail parties because it is awkward, you can’t talk and you get spinach in your teeth. All true. It is very hard to balance a plate of sushi on your left hand while squeezing the stem of a glass full of bright green apple martini between your fingers and simultaneously shaking hands with an associate who is asking if professor so-and-so is still at your law school.
But if you skip the free grub offered at these things, you are not only missing out on a free, and often tasty, meal, but also failing to create the necessary barrier between your stomach lining and the free booze you will have to consume to be able to continuously repeat the answers to the same three questions: “What law school do you attend?” “Where are you from?” and “Where are you living for the summer?”
Eating also gives you a break from the endless conversation with that partner who is so excited to tell you his life story and why he became a litigator that he does not notice his audience is scanning the room for an escape. Food is the answer: “I’m sorry Mr. Litigator. That is a great story. But if you’ll excuse me, I see a mini-tart with my name on it.”
But don’t be that guy who acts like he will never eat again and stacks up three plates full of dumplings and takes one “to go” for his roommate. Or the girl who takes all the tzatziki sauce and then double-dips in the hummus. That’s just wrong. But basic manners are a given here. I’m trying to give you more nuanced guidance. You’re on your own if you think it is appropriate to grab an extra brewskie “for the road.”
2. Drink
Summer Associate Happy Hours and cocktail parties have one central social purpose: providing the free and necessary stimulants that will facilitate socializing with a bunch of lawyers for hours on end. You will want to partake in the free booze in order to help you smile through the second-year real estate associate’s fond memories of her glory days as a Summer Camper: “…and then we all ran down to the beach singing the lyrics to “Baby Got Back.” It was such a BLAST! Don’t you LOVE it? Those were the days!”
But despite the temptation to load-up on the free imported beer, you must exercise restraint in consumption or else you could join the list of Summer Associate Legends whose stories of drunken stupidity survive at the Firm long after their 5-week tenure. There’s the guy who woke up under a palm tree wearing a hula skirt; the girl who insulted the entire summer class by telling “You Know
You’re a Red Neck If” jokes that seemed to use her colleagues as the punch line; and the kid who got pulled over by the cops for driving the wrong way on a one-way street after the “Cocktails with Corporate” party.
Besides, if you drink too much at these things, you will have to spend all the cash you earned during the summer on a new wardrobe because after all those hops and Schnapps go to your head, they’ll travel straight down to your waistline.
3. Be Merry
The Happy Hour/cocktail party circuit can sometimes feel less like a happy party and more like a painful wedding reception for that distant cousin on your dad’s side whom you only met once—when you were 12—before having to fly out to Wisconsin for the festivities.
You are stuck in a room full of strangers and vague acquaintances trying to leave a good impression. You are finding your place in the Summer Camper cliques while also navigating your way trough the crowd of attorneys to make sure someone remembers you among the herd. For some this is a breeze—but for others, this is social purgatory.
No matter which category describes you, you must be merry. As a Summer Associate, you must begin to learn the number one No. 1 rule of survival for a Big Firm Cog—no whining. As a Summer Associate, you are earning twice as much dough in a week as most of the staff earns in a month—despite your lack of any valuable or billable skills—and everyone knows it.
So be careful not to indulge your shyness by hiding out in the bathroom stall with your plate of canapés. Don’t weep in your Margarita when you are missing your girl back home and definitely don’t show how much you dread spending all your free time repeatedly explaining why, despite your connections to Florida, you really love Atlanta.
Simple enough, right? Eat, drink and be merry.
By the sixth (or tenth) cocktail party you live through, I promise it will get easier. By then you will have learned to stop asking about that hilarious associate who interviewed on campus, but seems to have disappeared from the Firm directory. You will also know better than to ask “Oh, so you’re in your 8th year. You must be a partner?” Um, not so much.
If you haven’t learned those lessons by then, well, no worries. Just cross your fingers and pray that the old adage is true: “Everyone gets an offer!”
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