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should I send a gift to my mentor at the f500 company I'm working at at the end of the summer

No that's weird. Just thank him/her like a normal person

I've been told that gifts should only ever flow down the food chain, not up. So don't give supervisors gifts. (Before people get all lawyer- on me: if your supervisor is, say, pregnant, and the office does a baby shower for them, feel free to buy a baby gift. That kind of thing is fine. But a gift for thanking them essentially for doing their job, when they're your superior, is kind of ishy.)

I'm getting my mentor a bottle of booze as a thank you gift---but according to the first and second years in the office, it is custom at the firm to do so,

Anonymous User wrote:I'm getting my mentor a bottle of booze as a thank you gift---but according to the first and second years in the office, it is custom at the firm to do so

Something like this is fine if it is what everyone else does, but otherwise I'd take the advice of the above posters and not send anything other than a card (maybe).

Your work performance should have thanked them.

If a SA gave me a gift I would find it somewhere between endearingly awkward and mildly creepy. My two cents.

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sublime wrote:What about your secretary/admin assistant?

That depends. Not per se inappropriate, but you should do what is customary in your office.

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dixiecupdrinking wrote:

sublime wrote:What about your secretary/admin assistant?

That depends. Not per se inappropriate, but you should do what is customary in your office.

Completely appropriate in my office, so I'd check with an associate. In fact, thank you for reminding me.

sublime wrote:I mean, I figured that all the summers she helped could throw in like $20 an get her a gift card or something. Nbd, right? No idea what is customary.

Check with the other SAs and see what their thoughts are. We all had different secretaries and the other summers didn't want to get their secretaries gifts, so I didn't want to be the only one to do so (it's a nice gesture, but not at the expense of appearing as though I were trying to make the other summers look bad or whatever).

This must vary across firms. At my regional biglaw firm, gifts and thank you notes to your secretary, your mentoring team, and the recruiting coordinator (that one is usually a class gift) are borderline expected. I had no idea that was not universal. Just check with a reliable junior associate or two on what they did when they summered.