most laid back firm of V10, V20 Forum

[jd20132013]

one of my best friends who's a year above me did her summer there and loved it for its culture

this has to be satire of a clueless law student, right? summers really aren't representative of much.

[ruski]

one of my best friends who's a year above me did her summer there and loved it for its culture

this has to be satire of a clueless law student, right? summers really aren't representative of much.

disagree. as a summer u can get an excellent idea of teh firms culture by not observing your own schedule, but by the associates around u. if you work past 7/8, take a walk a around teh floors, see who else is there. speak to associates about their schedule. hell i even asked a few associates i was close to what their billables were for last year. u can straight up ask associates about vacation time, etc. esp first or second years who are closer to your level, they are pretty frank with u

[jd20132013]

Point taken, that's fair.

[Anonymous User]

Laid back could mean so many different things. OP needs to clarify whether s/he means you don't have to dress too spiffy and the associates go drinking together, or the firm is not full of extremely high-pressure, neurotic people. For the former, there do seem to be some differences within the V20. For the latter, you may have to (gasp) slum it below the V20, or at the very least leave NYC. Geography does seem to make a genuine difference.

[echamberlin8]

I'm a 0L, so take this with a grain of salt, but I work at WilmerHale as a paralegal (V21, I know, so not exactly in the parameters of this thread), and I think the culture is pretty laid-back here (maybe because it's a Boston/DC firm instead of a NYC one?). No one really ever yells, most of the attorneys are grateful and polite, and people seem to have a good sense of humor here. I work on a large case with 50+ lawyers on it, so I have a good bit of experience with the attorneys here.

That being said, I think the lawyers usually keep to themselves pretty much and probably don't go out for many happy hours or drinks after work, from what I can see. The hours are tough, but I don't think they are as bad as some people make it out to be (perhaps NYC firms are worse). Overall, I think WH would be a pretty good firm for a recent law school grad to work at. I know one attorney here left work at Sullivan & Cromwell, because she said the people there were mean and yelled a lot, and has liked it a lot better here.

[desertlaw]

The TLS idea that you can't get a good read on a firm's culture over the summer, is just plain wrong. Yeah, you won't fully understand what it physically/emotionally/sexually feels like to be a junior associate. But you can get an honest response from many associates about what their (firm & social) life is like, how many hours they bill, whether they like the work. Yeah, summer associate life is candy and lemonade in terms of your own work. But you can still get a sense of what the people/culture are like.

[Anonymous User]

Naive 2L: So there is less of a risk than during OCI/callbacks to ask about actual billables/realistic perception of culture? Or is it better to just pick up on it through osmosis on the occasions you stay late and stuff?

[desertlaw]

You'll make friends with junior associates and they'll tell you this stuff. I wouldn't ask on Day 1, but they want to help and give advice. It'll happen and over the summer they'll tell you about what firm life is actually like.