Lawyers tell you how to get no offered. Forum

[Birdnals]

I heard about a summer who motor boated a chick without putting on boat shoes first

How did he maintain traction

He's going to damage his deck.

[DCNTUA]

Email-ordering etiquette is definitely not exclusive to biglaw.

[Anonymous User]

What I don't get is why when people post advice, people start bitching about how stupid it is. This thread isn't supposed to be a normative discussion of what a workplace should be, it's supposed to be advice on how to function in how the workplace actually is. Maybe we should start another threat entitled "changes you'd make to biglaw" and "no butthurt about email ordering" will be post 1. But people do get butthurt, sometimes, and isn't it better to know what makes partners butthurt so you can avoid it and not be like me getting yelled at as a summer because I put a counsel before a partner in a distribution list?

[bjsesq]

What I don't get is why when people post advice, people start bitching about how stupid it is. This thread isn't supposed to be a normative discussion of what a workplace should be, it's supposed to be advice on how to function in how the workplace actually is. Maybe we should start another threat entitled "changes you'd make to biglaw" and "no butthurt about email ordering" will be post 1. But people do get butthurt, sometimes, and isn't it better to know what makes partners butthurt so you can avoid it and not be like me getting yelled at as a summer because I put a counsel before a partner in a distribution list?

Solid use of anon.

[Anonymous User]

What I don't get is why when people post advice, people start bitching about how stupid it is. This thread isn't supposed to be a normative discussion of what a workplace should be, it's supposed to be advice on how to function in how the workplace actually is. Maybe we should start another threat entitled "changes you'd make to biglaw" and "no butthurt about email ordering" will be post 1. But people do get butthurt, sometimes, and isn't it better to know what makes partners butthurt so you can avoid it and not be like me getting yelled at as a summer because I put a counsel before a partner in a distribution list?

Solid use of anon.

Really, I'm supposed to out myself (and potentially what firm I work at) when I tell a story of a senior associate yelling at me for getting email ordering wrong? Yeah, that'll encourage practicing attorneys to post on this board.

[bjsesq]

What I don't get is why when people post advice, people start bitching about how stupid it is. This thread isn't supposed to be a normative discussion of what a workplace should be, it's supposed to be advice on how to function in how the workplace actually is. Maybe we should start another threat entitled "changes you'd make to biglaw" and "no butthurt about email ordering" will be post 1. But people do get butthurt, sometimes, and isn't it better to know what makes partners butthurt so you can avoid it and not be like me getting yelled at as a summer because I put a counsel before a partner in a distribution list?

Solid use of anon.

Really, I'm supposed to out myself (and potentially what firm I work at) when I tell a story of a senior associate yelling at me for getting email ordering wrong? Yeah, that'll encourage practicing attorneys to post on this board.

There is literally no way to connect your tale of ordering woe to telling people to shut the fuck up with snide comments, but ok. Didn't mean to out you, breh.

[TTRansfer]

Keep telling the firm that you want to be doing environmental work but only going after polluters. Even when your firm represents just about every big time polluter in the state. Keep telling them that you're mainly interested in saving the environment when the firm helps destroy it.

[TTRansfer]

Ordering the "to" and "CC" lines is madness to me but I know there are people who reeeaaaally care. And those people are simply more prestigious than me.

If no partners are on the email, just do alphabetical so no one gets butthurt.

No, a girl I know told a story about how another associate failed to order by seniority and GASP how shocked she was.

Do you go by law school rank if there is a tie in seniority?

[exitoptions]

Ordering the "to" and "CC" lines is madness to me but I know there are people who reeeaaaally care. And those people are simply more prestigious than me.

If no partners are on the email, just do alphabetical so no one gets butthurt.

No, a girl I know told a story about how another associate failed to order by seniority and GASP how shocked she was.

Do you go by law school rank if there is a tie in seniority?

Yeah, but watch out, some partners prefer ATL to US News. And you're screwed in the extremely unlikely scenario that there's a Cooley partner on the list.

[IAFG]

Ordering the "to" and "CC" lines is madness to me but I know there are people who reeeaaaally care. And those people are simply more prestigious than me.

If no partners are on the email, just do alphabetical so no one gets butthurt.

No, a girl I know told a story about how another associate failed to order by seniority and GASP how shocked she was.

Do you go by law school rank if there is a tie in seniority?

No, last year's billable hours. Obviously.

[Dafaq]

Have the nightly car service drive you all around town (stopping by several bars and picking up bar patrons along the way).

[Anonymous User]

There was one girl who received a no-offer from my summer class. I don't know exactly why she was no offered, but there is a general consensus among the summers that it was for a combination of (1) always being last to arrive and first to leave, (2) finding a way to interject into nearly every conversation how hard it was to be a minority, (3) doing at least some sub-par work that turned at least one important hiring partner against her, and (4) repeatedly intimating that she wanted to be in a niche practice group that was (a) based out of another office and (b) not looking to hire summers.

Hard to say which one or combination of those factors really brought about the no offer. I'd recommend avoiding doing any of them.

Also, besides the awkward race issue interjections, note that she was quite affable and charming. Listing her perceived shortcomings makes her sounds much more awkward than she really was. You don't have to be some antisocial weirdo to come across poorly in an office environment. University and law professors may eat-up poignant observation race/religion/ethnicity/sexuality/etc. in America, but people feel very awkward talking about such things where they work due to fear of coming across incorrectly. So even if your colleagues understand where you are coming from and agree with you when you share your anecdote about how it's unfair that some store employees may have been distrustful of you while you shopped, there will be nothing they can say in response and so they will be wishing you would just stop talking about it.

[echooo23]

If we're talking about work tips (i.e., non of this is no offer stuff, but is the diff between making associates happy and having them roll their eyes)

1) dont ask questions piecemeal. Drives everyone nuts. Nothing wrong with questions, but collect them and then swing by my office when you have a bunch we can knock out in one quick meeting.

2) don't spin your wheels. If you're totally stumped or confused, tell whoever is supervising you. Don't bang your head against the computer for 2 days.

3) don't make emails excessively formal. Sometimes a formal email is expected. If I give you a research assignment and 3 days to do it, the email response should be VERY clean and well written. But if I call you at 4 and say " hey fire drill here can you check this for us ASAP?" then speed is paramount and be short and quick and not "dear x, the law of fiduciary duty was first promulgated in 1743 by The Lord Justice . . . "

4) I have never seen a summer memo or email that wasn't too long. YOUR EMAIL IS TOO LONG. ALWAYS. Take whatever your LS instincts tell you, and make it 50% shorter. Especially if working with corporate folks. Short, clean, to the point.

5) If your memo or email cites to a case or article, then that case or article should be attached to your email.

6) do not work in track changes unless specifically instructed to do so. Old partners get to work in track changes. You do not, generally.

7) When sending me a doc past 8PM, if you know I am on an iPad it's a nice gesture to send a PDF as well. Not necessary but often appreciated. Blacklines should always be in PDF at all hours unless instructed otherwise.

particulaly in corporate practice, familiarize yourself with how to run blacklines (and other seemingly stupid tech stuff that has a learning curve) as soon as possible. Sooner you do that, sooner I can use you on my team as more than decoration. I don't want you having your first experience with our bug-ridden blacklining program at 11:30pm when the documents need to get out.

9) if I give you a precedent to work from for your assignment, save it as the first version of the document so you can always blackline to it. Do not enter any changes in that first version; save your changes as a new version. This tip will make way more sense once you've dealt with firm document management systems.

10). Take copious notes on any call or internal meeting you're invited to sit in on, unless instructed OK not to. But ask first before taking notes if external in person meeting, bc sometimes it can send wrong impression to other parties at meeting.

11) always put a draft line and a document ID footer on every document you draft. It should be the first thing you do. People will grumble if you forget a draft line. It's like not zipping your fly.

Upcoming SA here, so sorry about stupid questions. But what is this blacklining, document ID footer, draft line thing?

[84651846190]

Ordering the "to" and "CC" lines is madness to me but I know there are people who reeeaaaally care. And those people are simply more prestigious than me.

If no partners are on the email, just do alphabetical so no one gets butthurt.

No, a girl I know told a story about how another associate failed to order by seniority and GASP how shocked she was.

People like this are what make practicing law so sucky.

[84651846190]

Email-ordering etiquette is definitely not exclusive to biglaw.

O rly? I worked in a F500 company before law school and literally never had this come up. Interesting.

[rpupkin]

Email-ordering etiquette is definitely not exclusive to biglaw.

O rly? I worked in a F500 company before law school and literally never had this come up. Interesting.

I clerked for a COA judge, and email-ordering was a huge thing if you had to distribute a memo to other judges on the panel. One long-serving judge had a reputation for throwing shit fits if his name did not appear first in the "To" or "CC" line.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Are cold offers a common thing in NYC vault firms? The reason that I ask is that for a firm with 100% offer rate even through the recession, are there SAs every year getting a cold offer or are these places where it is genuinely very very difficult to not get an offer (short of asking a named partner to start a spin off firm with you as a partner, embezzling from the firm, calling opposing counsel to settle, etc.).

One of the reasons that I ask is that in another thread a poster (IMFG?) suggested asking associates to walk you through a good day, average day, bad day in their practice area. This seems to me like great advice for learning what it is actually like to practice in a particular group, but I would be sort of hesitant to open up this line of conversation (the "walk me through a bad day" part) given that some people are reporting a no offer situation arising over relatively minor shit. For instance, a person who is non-white sharing her/his experience of being racially profiled does not really strike me as inappropriate conversation.

[bk1]

Email-ordering etiquette is definitely not exclusive to biglaw.

O rly? I worked in a F500 company before law school and literally never had this come up. Interesting.

I clerked for a COA judge, and email-ordering was a huge thing if you had to distribute a memo to other judges on the panel. One long-serving judge had a reputation for throwing shit fits if his name did not appear first in the "To" or "CC" line.

I'm actually not too surprised that it was a CoA judge who also cared about this stuff.

[Anonymous User]

I saw a drunk SA be physically restrained from punching a stranger. Not sure if no-offered.

[84651846190]

I saw a drunk SA be physically restrained from punching a stranger. Not sure if no-offered.

This is NBD. But God forbid you don't have a pair of boat shoes or list a junior partner before a senior partner in an email.

[hdunlop]

People are focusing too much on the not wearing boat shoes at the expensive of Oxfords with shorts.

[Anonymous User]

Are cold offers a common thing in NYC vault firms? The reason that I ask is that for a firm with 100% offer rate even through the recession, are there SAs every year getting a cold offer or are these places where it is genuinely very very difficult to not get an offer (short of asking a named partner to start a spin off firm with you as a partner, embezzling from the firm, calling opposing counsel to settle, etc.).

One of the reasons that I ask is that in another thread a poster (IMFG?) suggested asking associates to walk you through a good day, average day, bad day in their practice area. This seems to me like great advice for learning what it is actually like to practice in a particular group, but I would be sort of hesitant to open up this line of conversation (the "walk me through a bad day" part) given that some people are reporting a no offer situation arising over relatively minor shit. For instance, a person who is non-white sharing her/his experience of being racially profiled does not really strike me as inappropriate conversation.

"Chilly" offers are not uncommon among the firms with 100% offer rates. Cold offers happen as well - maybe a couplle a year per firm - but more common is a really negative end of summer review followed by an offer in a practice group they know you're not interested in. That's what I think of as a "chilly" offer because you can accept it and they'll let you come to work and do doc review or whatever for a couple years before they ask you to leave, but you're effectively off the track from day 1.

[FKASunny]

Only half joking, but should we plan on never pooping at work?

[09042014]

Only half joking, but should we plan on never pooping at work?

Assuming you mean in the toliet, of cours you can poo guy.

[84651846190]

Only half joking, but should we plan on never pooping at work?

Just make sure you're wearing boat shoes if you stand on the seat to shit like me--don't want to mark it up.