Detailed descriptions of first year corporate associate assignments? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have seen a lot of posts where people refer to "editing" or "drafting" but can those of you in big law provide some detailed insight into what type of assignments you had as a first year associate in corporate?

How long did each of these tasks take you and how is your work product judged? I see a lot of posts about firms having forms or templates with the relevant information already included. So what type of work is subject to being judged for quality?

[Anonymous User]

I have seen a lot of posts where people refer to "editing" or "drafting" but can those of you in big law provide some detailed insight into what type of assignments you had as a first year associate in corporate?

How long did each of these tasks take you and how is your work product judged? I see a lot of posts about firms having forms or templates with the relevant information already included. So what type of work is subject to being judged for quality?

Senior Associate: Go through this data room, make me a chart of all the agreements.

First-Year: Great. Do you have an example chart that I can use as a template?

Senior Associate: Yes I just emailed you a copy. It has columns for the type of agreement, party names, change of control provisions, termination rights, etc. Fill it out for everything in there.

(Spend the next couple of days doing doc review out of the data room because there is like 200 agreements)

Associate: Here is my 78 page chart of the data room agreements.

Senior Associate: [Great, keep updating this as more things get added to the data room. Give me the list of every agreement that has change of control rights in it] or [I saw 1 typo on the first page of this. Completely redo this entire 78-page chart to make sure there aren't any other typos.]

[Anonymous User]

I have seen a lot of posts where people refer to "editing" or "drafting" but can those of you in big law provide some detailed insight into what type of assignments you had as a first year associate in corporate?

How long did each of these tasks take you and how is your work product judged? I see a lot of posts about firms having forms or templates with the relevant information already included. So what type of work is subject to being judged for quality?

Senior Associate: Go through this data room, make me a chart of all the agreements.

First-Year: Great. Do you have an example chart that I can use as a template?

Senior Associate: Yes I just emailed you a copy. It has columns for the type of agreement, party names, change of control provisions, termination rights, etc. Fill it out for everything in there.

(Spend the next couple of days doing doc review out of the data room because there is like 200 agreements)

Associate: Here is my 78 page chart of the data room agreements.

Senior Associate: [Great, keep updating this as more things get added to the data room. Give me the list of every agreement that has change of control rights in it] or [I saw 1 typo on the first page of this. Completely redo this entire 78-page chart to make sure there aren't any other typos.]

Thanks for the info! Is this for litigation? And do you generally have to balance an assignment like this with other assignments? If so how do you manage your competing priorities.

[Anonymous User]

I have seen a lot of posts where people refer to "editing" or "drafting" but can those of you in big law provide some detailed insight into what type of assignments you had as a first year associate in corporate?

How long did each of these tasks take you and how is your work product judged? I see a lot of posts about firms having forms or templates with the relevant information already included. So what type of work is subject to being judged for quality?

Senior Associate: Go through this data room, make me a chart of all the agreements.

First-Year: Great. Do you have an example chart that I can use as a template?

Senior Associate: Yes I just emailed you a copy. It has columns for the type of agreement, party names, change of control provisions, termination rights, etc. Fill it out for everything in there.

(Spend the next couple of days doing doc review out of the data room because there is like 200 agreements)

Associate: Here is my 78 page chart of the data room agreements.

Senior Associate: [Great, keep updating this as more things get added to the data room. Give me the list of every agreement that has change of control rights in it] or [I saw 1 typo on the first page of this. Completely redo this entire 78-page chart to make sure there aren't any other typos.]

Thanks for the info! Is this for litigation? And do you generally have to balance an assignment like this with other assignments? If so how do you manage your competing priorities.

Corporate. No idea what litigation folks would do.

Yes, you would have to balance. You might start out doing one thing at a time, but by a couple of months in you will be juggling multiple assignments at the same time with varying deadlines that you have to manage.

You balance by having open and clear communications with the assigning attorneys on expected due dates for projects,what else you have going on and how long they think the project should take at the outset. If a partner comes up to you and says I want you to do [X] for me by this afternoon when you are already knee deep in some other projects due that same day, you tell them "I would love to do this. I also have XYZ due today for ABC partner that I am trying to finish up. I would need to ask ABC partner to push that deadline to get this done in time." Do not just say yes if you can't actually get the work done in the stated deadline.

Sometimes partners will forcibly bring you in on an all-hands fire-drill and you will just have to tell your other assigning attorneys that a fire-drill came up and if they want you to keep working on their projects to talk to whoever and make it their problem.

These are all the soft lawyering skills of being organized, managing deadlines and managing people's expectations that no one teaches you in law school. You will hopefully learn them very quickly on the job.

[otisreadingcomp]

I have seen a lot of posts where people refer to "editing" or "drafting" but can those of you in big law provide some detailed insight into what type of assignments you had as a first year associate in corporate?

How long did each of these tasks take you and how is your work product judged? I see a lot of posts about firms having forms or templates with the relevant information already included. So what type of work is subject to being judged for quality?

Senior Associate: Go through this data room, make me a chart of all the agreements.

First-Year: Great. Do you have an example chart that I can use as a template?

Senior Associate: Yes I just emailed you a copy. It has columns for the type of agreement, party names, change of control provisions, termination rights, etc. Fill it out for everything in there.

(Spend the next couple of days doing doc review out of the data room because there is like 200 agreements)

Associate: Here is my 78 page chart of the data room agreements.

Senior Associate: [Great, keep updating this as more things get added to the data room. Give me the list of every agreement that has change of control rights in it] or [I saw 1 typo on the first page of this. Completely redo this entire 78-page chart to make sure there aren't any other typos.]

For being a good corp associate, how do you get yourself to go back through the 78 page chart and make sure there are no typos? Attention to detail is clearly key, but there are times I've finished things in the past and just felt queasy looking back through what I had just worked on.

[Anonymous User]

For being a good corp associate, how do you get yourself to go back through the 78 page chart and make sure there are no typos? Attention to detail is clearly key, but there are times I've finished things in the past and just felt queasy looking back through what I had just worked on.

Whatever motivates you. I had a particularly prickly partner who was super, super good at his job but was crazy about small stuff like that. My fear of him dressing me down and making me feel stupid was stronger than any internal procrastination I had on going through things one more time. It probably made me a better lawyer in the end.