Expectations for the summer, before the job starts:
1. I expect to learn just how many shades of blue there are. I don't mean sadness. I mean blue like in dress shirts. I expect to see lots of blue shirts, all similar but subtly different from each other. I expect it will be a real education. In blueshirtness. I own 4 blue dress shirts right now. If I were to give each of them a name, they would be "Shiny Blue," "Textured Light Blue," "Dark Blue," and "Blue I think is blue but a bunch of people told me it was gray." But I expect to also learn what "Bright Blue," "Powder Blue," "Electric Blue," "Striped Blue," "Pinstriped Blue," "Blue with white collar," "Used to be blue but ended up with the whites in the laundry and got bleached," "Wishes it was blue but is really sort of pink," "Stained blue," "Sky blue," "Hole in the collar blue," and "Magic marker blue" all look like too. I'll be keeping a list.
2. I expect to be able to more fully articulate the differences between Lexis and Westlaw, what one has and the other hasn't, which one gives better free assistance over e-mail, the pricing differences, which one has a more enthusiastic sales rep, which provides better training, which is more likely to lead me on wild-goose-searches where I end up finding interesting news articles about people I went to elementary school with, which is the more "sensitive" legal research service, what the difference between a Boolean and Natural Language search is, how many digits of my Westlaw password I can memorize without my brain exploding, which is more forgiving of rookie mistakes like selecting the wrong court system to look in, which loads faster, and which smells better.
3. I expect to participate in a lot of summer associate events, in fact probably the same number and exactly the same type as my friends at other firms around the city. In fact, I expect to see large packs of summer associates from other firms leaving Wolfgang Puck's "Le Hamsterie" right as my firm's group is entering; sitting next to us at the Yankees game (where Gary Sheffield will have been expressly instructed to hit a foul ball directly into our section so that one lucky summer associate gets to go home with a souvenir. Yankee tickets bought by the law firm: free; Concessions bought by the law firm: free; Gary Sheffield hitting a foul ball right into your section: $100,000 check from the law firm to Gary Sheffield; if that really happens: priceless); down the row at Wicked: The Musical; three lanes over at the bowling alley... oh, wait, lawyers don't go bowling. Bowling is a blue-collar sport. Lawyers, despite wearing blue shirts, only play white-collar sports, like accounting.
4. I expect to get tired of eating in nice restaurants, since I hear I will end up having a lot of nice lunches. Which will actually be a shame, since eating in a nice restaurant should be a treat, not necessarily an everyday activity. But it will be a nice shame, sort of. Part of me thinks this all may be overblown and I'll actually get to make some lunch plans with friends in the city and not be "booked" every day with work-lunching. But obviously until I start I have no idea. The perfect business meal for a nice blue shirt: soup, pasta with red sauce, something parmagiana, and liquid chocolate raspberry spinning gyroscopes of staining liquid for dessert. Or perhaps I'll just order the dry cereal with white rice, so even if I pour it all on my lap, I can still walk back to the office clean and ready for an afternoon on Lexisicing.
5. I expect to like it. I mean, everyone says it's a lot of fun, I'll get to meet some students from other schools, meet some lawyers, figure out what it is lawyers do, go to some cool events and activities, eat in nice restaurants, see some things besides the inside of a classroom, really what's not to like. Except for the sense that I'll be becoming "one of them." But I suppose I did that when I sent in my law school deposit. I don't know. I guess I'm hoping that not all lawyers live up (down?) to the generic lawyer reputations, although really many of the people I met during the interview process seemed like very nice people, so I don't really think I should be concerned. But I don't know. And not knowing what to expect kind of makes the anticipation fun. A little bit.
1. I expect to learn just how many shades of blue there are. I don't mean sadness. I mean blue like in dress shirts. I expect to see lots of blue shirts, all similar but subtly different from each other. I expect it will be a real education. In blueshirtness. I own 4 blue dress shirts right now. If I were to give each of them a name, they would be "Shiny Blue," "Textured Light Blue," "Dark Blue," and "Blue I think is blue but a bunch of people told me it was gray." But I expect to also learn what "Bright Blue," "Powder Blue," "Electric Blue," "Striped Blue," "Pinstriped Blue," "Blue with white collar," "Used to be blue but ended up with the whites in the laundry and got bleached," "Wishes it was blue but is really sort of pink," "Stained blue," "Sky blue," "Hole in the collar blue," and "Magic marker blue" all look like too. I'll be keeping a list.
2. I expect to be able to more fully articulate the differences between Lexis and Westlaw, what one has and the other hasn't, which one gives better free assistance over e-mail, the pricing differences, which one has a more enthusiastic sales rep, which provides better training, which is more likely to lead me on wild-goose-searches where I end up finding interesting news articles about people I went to elementary school with, which is the more "sensitive" legal research service, what the difference between a Boolean and Natural Language search is, how many digits of my Westlaw password I can memorize without my brain exploding, which is more forgiving of rookie mistakes like selecting the wrong court system to look in, which loads faster, and which smells better.
3. I expect to participate in a lot of summer associate events, in fact probably the same number and exactly the same type as my friends at other firms around the city. In fact, I expect to see large packs of summer associates from other firms leaving Wolfgang Puck's "Le Hamsterie" right as my firm's group is entering; sitting next to us at the Yankees game (where Gary Sheffield will have been expressly instructed to hit a foul ball directly into our section so that one lucky summer associate gets to go home with a souvenir. Yankee tickets bought by the law firm: free; Concessions bought by the law firm: free; Gary Sheffield hitting a foul ball right into your section: $100,000 check from the law firm to Gary Sheffield; if that really happens: priceless); down the row at Wicked: The Musical; three lanes over at the bowling alley... oh, wait, lawyers don't go bowling. Bowling is a blue-collar sport. Lawyers, despite wearing blue shirts, only play white-collar sports, like accounting.
4. I expect to get tired of eating in nice restaurants, since I hear I will end up having a lot of nice lunches. Which will actually be a shame, since eating in a nice restaurant should be a treat, not necessarily an everyday activity. But it will be a nice shame, sort of. Part of me thinks this all may be overblown and I'll actually get to make some lunch plans with friends in the city and not be "booked" every day with work-lunching. But obviously until I start I have no idea. The perfect business meal for a nice blue shirt: soup, pasta with red sauce, something parmagiana, and liquid chocolate raspberry spinning gyroscopes of staining liquid for dessert. Or perhaps I'll just order the dry cereal with white rice, so even if I pour it all on my lap, I can still walk back to the office clean and ready for an afternoon on Lexisicing.
5. I expect to like it. I mean, everyone says it's a lot of fun, I'll get to meet some students from other schools, meet some lawyers, figure out what it is lawyers do, go to some cool events and activities, eat in nice restaurants, see some things besides the inside of a classroom, really what's not to like. Except for the sense that I'll be becoming "one of them." But I suppose I did that when I sent in my law school deposit. I don't know. I guess I'm hoping that not all lawyers live up (down?) to the generic lawyer reputations, although really many of the people I met during the interview process seemed like very nice people, so I don't really think I should be concerned. But I don't know. And not knowing what to expect kind of makes the anticipation fun. A little bit.
posted by Anonymous @ 1:02 PM
<< Home