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summer associate, i really enjoy the firm/work so far but i feel like i'm struggling to keep up.. i don't take on a ton of assignments but they are taking me forever to complete. i have to stay up all night finishing these short research memos and IDK how to become more efficient. i feel like my work product is not that good and i barely meet the deadlines. i'm kind of worried this does not bode well for biglaw in the future. does anyone have advice?

You are fine, don’t worry. Learning curve is steep. Just be responsive and have a good attitude.

71ilovelawschool7717 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:05 am

summer associate, i really enjoy the firm/work so far but i feel like i'm struggling to keep up.. i don't take on a ton of assignments but they are taking me forever to complete. i have to stay up all night finishing these short research memos and IDK how to become more efficient. i feel like my work product is not that good and i barely meet the deadlines. i'm kind of worried this does not bode well for biglaw in the future. does anyone have advice?

I think it's hard to judge your summer associate experience too harshly. For many people it's the first real job that they have had, or for others it's simply a steep learning curve at the beginning, but can get much easier once you've gotten some more experience under your belt. I know a lot of people (myself included) that had slower starts, but you'll pick it up. Are there people who just kill it from the opening bell? Sure, but catching onto something quickly doesn't 100% lead to success later on.

If you have an idea about what kind of law you want to practice (even just general corp vs lit), you can maybe try one or two experiential classes (I took a class with a couple of working attorneys once a week and it was much more practically useful than other classes), so maybe that can help if you are looking for ways to hit the ground running. Overall though, I wouldn't worry much at this point.

There are lots of possible explanations for how you're feeling. You're right that most summers never pull an all-nighter, but there are almost certainly exceptions, possibly including firm- or office-specific exceptions, and that's to be expected. Do you have (undiagnosed) ADHD? Do you just not enjoy the work and therefore have trouble focusing? As I said, a million possible explanations.

Luckily for you, Biglaw loves the billable hour, so once you become an associate, you pulling all-nighters usually isn't going to be a bad thing from the perspective of the people who issue your paychecks and bonuses. The trick will be to figure out how to tolerate those bad times and also parlay them into sufficient slack to take some time off in between.

Don't forget that most summer research assignments are a goose chase for case law that has alluded the associates on the team. I can't count the number of times someone on my team has said "there's got to be a case on this but we can't find one, better ask a summer to do some free labor as a last ditch effort."

i second the suggestion of doing clinics and externships

Do not discount the possibility of undiagnosed ADHD; it's quite common for people to first run into issues in grad school. I finished 1L with a 4.00 and my 1L summer was a struggle. Like maybe-I-shouldn't-be-a-lawyer kind of struggle. The more I've learned about it, the more it explains a lot about my life. Getting treatment has been a revelation and my 2L summer has been so much better because of it.

If you have any interest in finance or business transactions, and would prefer more discrete work tasks with more human interaction… then I’d suggest switching to corporate.

I know associate mentors are hit or miss, but if your firmed assigned you one and they’re accessible, try hitting them up. They may have a more nuanced perspective since they’ve likely been in your shoes or have more experience at that firm and may be able to better diagnose what’s going on.