Jury duty during SA Forum

[MonsterTRM]

I deferred jury duty during the school year, and I got a new assignment right in the middle of my summer associate position. The state won't let me defer again. I'll let the law firm know. Any thoughts of anything else I can do?

[Frothingslosh]

I'm in the same position. They'll understand just as much as any other employer. I wouldn't imagine it would be much of an issue.

[Devlin]

I deferred jury duty during the school year, and I got a new assignment right in the middle of my summer associate position. The state won't let me defer again. I'll let the law firm know. Any thoughts of anything else I can do?

Just make sure to say crazy shit during voir dire to not get picked.

[tonidee]

Contact the HR person and let them know.

They will tell you to remind the assigning attorneys about your absence so you don't have deadlines when you are gone.

[MonsterTRM]

I deferred jury duty during the school year, and I got a new assignment right in the middle of my summer associate position. The state won't let me defer again. I'll let the law firm know. Any thoughts of anything else I can do?

Just make sure to say crazy shit during voir dire to not get picked.

Lol, I hope you're kidding. I watched a judge chew out a potential juror who was a lawyer as well for saying crazy shit. The judge called his law firm, and he had to do community service for the duration of the trial. Moral of the story is, if you're an attorney or law student, don't be an ass during voir dire.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Just let the recruiting folks know ASAP and inform any specific attorneys you end up working with. The only way this can be a problem is if you manage it poorly.

[suzige]

I'm also worried about being called up for jury duty during my summer. Haven't gotten word of a specific day to show up yet, so keeping my fingers crossed they pass over me.

[Dafaq]

Curious, is there no one you can take your case to? You’re a LS with a mountain of tuition debt and cannot afford to lose $600 a day. Perhaps an attorney at your SA firm can pull some strings...maybe?

[DportIA]

Curious, is there no one you can take your case to? You’re a LS with a mountain of tuition debt and cannot afford to lose $600 a day. Perhaps an attorney at your SA firm can pull some strings...maybe?

I really don't think the Firm would dock you your pay as an SA for jury duty. From my experience, firms are reluctant to take away your salary for days-missed even when you have to miss a day. As in, they "reserve the right to" but they also want you to say "yes" when and if they give you that offer.

Perhaps this should be a Q OP asks HR, too.

[rpupkin]

I can't think of a better time to have jury duty. During your SA, you will have little to no real responsibility. If it's a big law firm, the firm will likely care more about your attendance at after-hours social events (which you can still attend after jury duty) than they will about your presence in the office during the day.

Just let the recruiters (and/or the summer associate coordinator) know in advance when you're on-call for jury duty. No one will care.

[fxb]

Curious, is there no one you can take your case to? You’re a LS with a mountain of tuition debt and cannot afford to lose $600 a day. Perhaps an attorney at your SA firm can pull some strings...maybe?

[tonidee]

For missing the days, you can always offer to stay a few extra days.

[arklaw13]

If I were an trial lawyer I don't know that I would want a 2L on my jury. Maybe you'll get lucky and one of the attorneys will use a strike/challenge on you (no idea how this works in practice).

[Dafaq]

For missing the days, you can always offer to stay a few extra days.

Actually, not a bad idea. My 10 week SA turned into 12 weeks. As far as docking, that’s likely on a firm-to-firm basis. I know a couple SAs at big law firms who weren’t paid for holidays that fell in the middle of the week and some firms do not offer paid sick days (again, speaking of some large firms). Also, SAs experiences greatly differ, some SAs are staffed on cases and some aren’t. Your SA mileage may vary…

[dixiecupdrinking]

There is no way the firm docks your pay.

[TTRansfer]

For missing the days, you can always offer to stay a few extra days.

This. Many firms will let you if they have work (which they almost always do -- if they don't, that's a bit of a red flag anyway).

[MonsterTRM]

For missing the days, you can always offer to stay a few extra days.

This. Many firms will let you if they have work (which they almost always do -- if they don't, that's a bit of a red flag anyway).

I think this is what I'll do. I have a final tomorrow, so after that, I'll write the recruiter and let them know. This thread has been very helpful, thank you all!

[rpupkin]

For missing the days, you can always offer to stay a few extra days.

This. Many firms will let you if they have work (which they almost always do -- if they don't, that's a bit of a red flag anyway).

This statement is false for both firms I summered at while in law school. (These were both V20 firms.) One of the firms didn't have all that much work for the summers to do, but that wasn't a sign that the firm was slow—quite the opposite. Everyone was so slammed that they didn't have time to make work for the summers. You might do some substantive work here and there as a SA—it's possible to add value once in awhile—but overall you're just a time suck for the associates and partners. It's part of the cost of recruiting for the firm.

At both of the firms I summered at, there's no way they would have bothered to dock your pay if you missed a few days because of jury duty. (Or if you missed a few days because your grandmother died or because you had to attend your sister's wedding or whatever.) The SA thing is basically a recruiting party for the firms; they want you to have a good time and they want you to say nice things about the firm to your classmates when you return to law school. Yes, they also want to see a couple of written assignments from you—they want to make sure you're not illiterate. But they can figure that out after a couple of weeks. If, because of jury duty, you end up working nine weeks instead of ten, I seriously doubt anyone at the firm will care (or even notice). Just let them know in advance when you have jury duty.

[Borhas]

the odds of you ending up doing more than a day as a juror are pretty slim

[ChardPennington]

To be honest I think appearing to weasel out of jury duty would be more likely to land you in hot water than just doing your jury service. Recall that as a summer literally nothing you do is critical to the firm.

[Devlin]

I deferred jury duty during the school year, and I got a new assignment right in the middle of my summer associate position. The state won't let me defer again. I'll let the law firm know. Any thoughts of anything else I can do?

Just make sure to say crazy shit during voir dire to not get picked.

Lol, I hope you're kidding. I watched a judge chew out a potential juror who was a lawyer as well for saying crazy shit. The judge called his law firm, and he had to do community service for the duration of the trial. Moral of the story is, if you're an attorney or law student, don't be an ass during voir dire.

You can be more subtle about it. Crazy shit does not equal being an ass. Very fine threshold OP needs to cross.

[jdmonkey]

You should appear very enthusiastic about being called for the case. You can say oh torts was my favorite subject and I'd love to be a part of a real lawsuit. Or if it is criminal you can talk about how you have friends that are police officers, and you are in awe of what they do to keep you safe. Appearing to have an interest in the case or some kind of strong position about law enforcement are the quickest ways to be dismissed. Remember serving on this jury would be the highlight of your life and police officers are your heroes

[POTUS2044]

You should appear very enthusiastic about being called for the case. You can say oh torts was my favorite subject and I'd love to be a part of a real lawsuit. Or if it is criminal you can talk about how you have friends that are police officers, and you are in awe of what they do to keep you safe. Appearing to have an interest in the case or some kind of strong position about law enforcement are the quickest ways to be dismissed. Remember serving on this jury would be the highlight of your life and police officers are your heroes

alternatively, how much you loved learning about jury nullification

but, IME you will not get to that for at least a couple days.

you will very likely have an opportunity to disqualify yourself well before they get to official voir dire.

[fxb]

You should appear very enthusiastic about being called for the case. You can say oh torts was my favorite subject and I'd love to be a part of a real lawsuit. Or if it is criminal you can talk about how you have friends that are police officers, and you are in awe of what they do to keep you safe. Appearing to have an interest in the case or some kind of strong position about law enforcement are the quickest ways to be dismissed. Remember serving on this jury would be the highlight of your life and police officers are your heroes

That would do the trick but there's no need to be so dramatic about it. They'll ask some question (including whether you are a lawyer, whether you have family members in law enforcement, etc.), you go up and chat about it at the bench, and no matter what you say, even if it's just, "my uncle was a police officer," or, "my girlfriend's house was burglarized once," they will ask you whether it will affect your ability to be impartial. Say, "yes, I'm afraid it would." There's really nothing they can do at that point. You won't get seated.

[rpupkin]

You should appear very enthusiastic about being called for the case. You can say oh torts was my favorite subject and I'd love to be a part of a real lawsuit. Or if it is criminal you can talk about how you have friends that are police officers, and you are in awe of what they do to keep you safe. Appearing to have an interest in the case or some kind of strong position about law enforcement are the quickest ways to be dismissed. Remember serving on this jury would be the highlight of your life and police officers are your heroes

That would do the trick but there's no need to be so dramatic about it. They'll ask some question (including whether you are a lawyer, whether you have family members in law enforcement, etc.), you go up and chat about it at the bench, and no matter what you say, even if it's just, "my uncle was a police officer," or, "my girlfriend's house was burglarized once," they will ask you whether it will affect your ability to be impartial. Say, "yes, I'm afraid it would." There's really nothing they can do at that point. You won't get seated.

Great use of anon. Hey mods--can we out those who are giving advice about how to avoid jury duty? Or at least relegate the topic to the dregs of the lounge? It's pretty embarrassing that a group of lawyers and prospective lawyers is talking about how to lie to officers of the court in order to avoid jury service.