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I plan on doing public interest after graduation and have almost no interest in working at a biglaw firm. it sounds miserable and i think i would be terrible at it. summer associate programs, however, sound pretty sweet-- particularly if you're not worried about getting an offer.

is it a big mistake to split the summer between biglaw and a PI gig? i have work experience before law school, 1L job, clinic, course selection, significant pro bono projects and civil rights type journal, so I don't think it will look like I'm not genuinely committed to public interest (honestly, I'm shocked that I got a biglaw SA offer at all given my resume). Am I wrong about this? are there any post-grad public interest jobs (or clerkships) for which doing half a summer at a firm will seriously hurt me?

relatedly, will extremely competitive public interest places look down on spending the summer at a firm that's not ultra-elite/grade whoring? I've been fortunate to have really solid positions at some of the most 'prestigious' public interest/govt places, and a summer of fancy lunches and cocktail parties is really not worth it if it mars an otherwise impressive resume. (I realize this sounds really snobby and self-important, but i'm in good company on this website.)

I apologize for sounding like such an insufferable, entitled law student. I'd love to either hear that this is okay or to be disabused of my delusional aspirations. Thank you!

Have a friend who did this and pulled it off but he definitely had to fight the stigma from it being on his resume. Ultimately the "I tried the other side and knew for sure I wanted to do PI instead" argument isn't bad, but there will be some purists who will be skeptical.

If you do a split summer I'd consider omitting the firm from your resume and putting "Summer 2016" for the PI gig but some may disagree with that.

bump. also curious about how much competitive public interest employers/govt care about biglaw prstiiiiiiige

They don't care about BigLaw preftige.

Different anon bumping this to ask some similar but different questions:

1. If you're a 1L doing a biglaw SA, is a firm more likely to say no to splitting with a PI place? Will they be like, this is already such a rare opportunity and if you only want half of it, we can just give the whole thing to somebody else? Or will they just not give a shit?

2. What PI places are more likely to say yes to splitting a summer and which are more likely to say no?

I recently got an offer for a government honors position, with strong PI involvement in law school, a PI job 1L summer, and an SA 2L with a large but not prestigious firm. I don't think PI orgs care much about firm prestige, but it is gonna hurt you that you have less PI positions than your peers when you interview for post grad positions. Even if you have a PI background, a lot of the people you will be interviewing against will have done a govt/related PI job every summer (particularly, I think it matters more where you go your 2L summer than 1L). But I think it may be better for you if you are actually splitting your summer rather than only working as an SA like I did. My reasons for doing an SA were economic and PI orgs are definitely aware that is a reason for many people. One thing that they look for (though may not explicitly ask you) is if you got an offer from your SA, so make sure to put that you did on your resume.

In terms of what PI orgs will be more likely to allow you to split, it is usually pretty easy to split your 2L summer with the same org you worked with during 1L summer. PI/government jobs also seem to be more amenable to splitting because a lot of them are unpaid, so if you have a firm with an inflexible SA schedule, you still may be able to volunteer at the PI org before and after your SA.