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Anyone want to shed some light on things like schedule? Should I be avoiding weekend or night plans in advance?

WoodsyAtoll wrote:Anyone want to shed some light on things like schedule? Should I be avoiding weekend or night plans in advance?

This is firm and group dependent, but for virtually every firm expect to work 9-6 and never on weekends.

If you’re at cravats, different story.

You'll receive a social schedule with a calendar of events you must attend. Other than that and completing your work on time, your schedule will be flexible.

Enjoy. Being a real lawyer at the firm will be a lot more stressful.

WoodsyAtoll wrote:Anyone want to shed some light on things like schedule? Should I be avoiding weekend or night plans in advance?

You're probably going to be too tired/boozed out to be making night plans. If not, making weeknight plans would likely interfere with any pre-planned social events or a spontaneous invitation from partners for dinner and drinks.

Also don't bother buying groceries.

mcmand wrote:You'll receive a social schedule with a calendar of events you must attend. Other than that and completing your work on time, your schedule will be flexible.

Enjoy. Being a real lawyer at the firm will be a lot more stressful.

If a firm expects associates to bill ~40 hours per week, how many hours might that firm expect its SAs to bill per week?

BeeTeeZ wrote:

mcmand wrote:You'll receive a social schedule with a calendar of events you must attend. Other than that and completing your work on time, your schedule will be flexible.

Enjoy. Being a real lawyer at the firm will be a lot more stressful.

If a firm expects associates to bill ~40 hours per week, how many hours might that firm expect its SAs to bill per week?

Less than that. It depends on the firm but if you're managing your time well I would be surprised if you stayed late often, and very surprised if you worked on a weekend.

BeeTeeZ wrote:

mcmand wrote:You'll receive a social schedule with a calendar of events you must attend. Other than that and completing your work on time, your schedule will be flexible.

Enjoy. Being a real lawyer at the firm will be a lot more stressful.

If a firm expects associates to bill ~40 hours per week, how many hours might that firm expect its SAs to bill per week?

We were told to try to bill 3-4 hours/day as a summer but I worked somewhere with a lax SA program

At what point will we be receiving the models and bottles?

JusticeChuckleNutz wrote:At what point will we be receiving the models and bottles?

It's not that fun. It's a 10 week interview where you have alcohol and free food but if you act a fool you can put yourself right out of an offer. Basically a bunch of terrible incentives. Biglaw is just a long list of bad incentives, really. So I guess it makes sense.

Man i never recognize other peoples' descriptions of their SAs. I split my summer between two big firms on opposite coasts and had two really different experiences, but neither of them really match up with what people say their SAs were like on these kinds of threads. Describing both in case useful for OP and others to get a sense of the range of things:

Firm 1: east coast. One of the enormous firms. Planned social events maybe 3-4 times a week, usually a couple weeknights and maybe one or weekend things (concerts, baseball games, etc), but I skipped out on a fair number of these and never heard a word about it, as did a good number of my summer classmates (though not a majority). A few events were "must attend" because X or Y partner was involved or firm summer program tradition - and we were given heads-up on which events these were - but most were honestly optional and rarely had more than like 60-70% of the summer class there. Then once social groups started to form, 1-2 impromptu evening "let's spend the firm's summer budget on whiskey" type things a week, with smaller groups. I never felt much pressure to go to these either, but I mostly did because the smaller group usually meant people I actually wanted to spend time with. The thing that WAS an every day, basically-must-attend was all of the lunches; a handful of associates were really gung-ho about taking advantage of the summer budget and basically divvied up the summers in order to cash in on the absurd $80-100/person lunch cap, and people did notice if you were in the office over lunch rather than out with all the other summers. I think I worked until like 7pm once and it was totally my own not-getting-it, not an actual expectation to do work. I came away with a feeling that basically every associate that I interacted with hated the firm and their work, but other than that it was a super fun summer.

Firm 2: west coast. Smaller than firm 1 but definitely still a big firm and not a boutique. Planned social events maybe once or twice a week, and only rarely for the entire summer class, but also a couple longer weekend-type trips/events; all of these were, actually, required, though I ended up missing one of the important ones for reasons semi out of my control and ate some good-hearted shit for it (but no actual consequences). Can count on one hand the amount of times I left the office for lunch. Pulled a couple all-nighters for assignments, though looking back now it's laughable how insubstantial the work was. People knew work product was actually being evaluated, though not super critically, and it did feel more like an extended job interview (though not in the sense of mcmand's post above). It was more like "ok, here's what working here is like, can you basically hack it and do you enjoy this."

Offered at both (in spite of my poor social event attendance). Firm 1 was 100% offer to the class, though no one afaik put themselves in a position to get no-offered anyway. Firm 2 did no-offer a couple people that year but has not since; I think basically everyone in the class expected it based on how those people acted. Ended up picking firm 2.

Did a lot of night/weekend stuff that had nothing to do with the firms during both halves of the summer. I could see this not being possible at a place that has legitimately-required social events every night. Friends in other firms in both markets reported having stretches, and in some cases entire summers, like that.

WoodsyAtoll wrote:Anyone want to shed some light on things like schedule? Should I be avoiding weekend or night plans in advance?

Can you tell us the market you are in? Things can vary a lot based on this.

Anonymous User wrote: Firm 2: west coast. Smaller than firm 1 but definitely still a big firm and not a boutique. Planned social events maybe once or twice a week, and only rarely for the entire summer class, but also a couple longer weekend-type trips/events; all of these were, actually, required, though I ended up missing one of the important ones for reasons semi out of my control and ate some good-hearted shit for it (but no actual consequences). Can count on one hand the amount of times I left the office for lunch. Pulled a couple all-nighters for assignments, though looking back now it's laughable how insubstantial the work was. People knew work product was actually being evaluated, though not super critically, and it did feel more like an extended job interview (though not in the sense of mcmand's post above). It was more like "ok, here's what working here is like, can you basically hack it and do you enjoy this."

Maybe you were in the Bay Area, but none of the above, especially the bolded, will happen in LA. I can 100% say that with complete confidence. 100%. If you pull an all nighter in LA as a summer, it's because you are obsessive about something, not because the project or assigning attorney asked for it . . . or maybe if they gave you a long form project and you waited until the last minute.

mecarey wrote:

WoodsyAtoll wrote:Anyone want to shed some light on things like schedule? Should I be avoiding weekend or night plans in advance?

Can you tell us the market you are in? Things can vary a lot based on this.

Boston, one of the top biglaw firms.

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: Firm 2: west coast. Smaller than firm 1 but definitely still a big firm and not a boutique. Planned social events maybe once or twice a week, and only rarely for the entire summer class, but also a couple longer weekend-type trips/events; all of these were, actually, required, though I ended up missing one of the important ones for reasons semi out of my control and ate some good-hearted shit for it (but no actual consequences). Can count on one hand the amount of times I left the office for lunch. Pulled a couple all-nighters for assignments, though looking back now it's laughable how insubstantial the work was. People knew work product was actually being evaluated, though not super critically, and it did feel more like an extended job interview (though not in the sense of mcmand's post above). It was more like "ok, here's what working here is like, can you basically hack it and do you enjoy this."

Maybe you were in the Bay Area, but none of the above, especially the bolded, will happen in LA. I can 100% say that with complete confidence. 100%. If you pull an all nighter in LA as a summer, it's because you are obsessive about something, not because the project or assigning attorney asked for it . . . or maybe if they gave you a long form project and you waited until the last minute.

OP you quoted. This was in LA, but you are right that procrastination was involved. Still, each of the projects that led to all-nighters were more substantial than probably the entire amount of work I did for Firm 1 as a summer.