Start Date and Writing Competition Forum

[Lacepiece23]

So I was lucky enough to get a 1L summer associate position at a smaller litigation firm in a secondary market. They emailed me my start date, which is May 20th. Only problem is that I have the writing competition, which extends right from the end of final until the 24th. I was just wondering if there was anybody out there who was working for part of the writing competition 1L year and if this was doable. I am definitely not grade on material for law review, but could be high enough after this semester to be in striking distance to grade on. Just wondering what 2Ls or 3Ls would recommend that I do in this situation. BTW I also, emailed the firm and told them my preferred start date, which they ignored.

[ph14]

So I was lucky enough to get a 1L summer associate position at a smaller litigation firm in a secondary market. They emailed me my start date, which is May 20th. Only problem is that I have the writing competition, which extends right from the end of final until the 24th. I was just wondering if there was anybody out there who was working for part of the writing competition 1L year and if this was doable. I am definitely not grade on material for law review, but could be high enough after this semester to be in striking distance to grade on. Just wondering what 2Ls or 3Ls would recommend that I do in this situation. BTW I also, emailed the firm and told them my preferred start date, which they ignored.

They ignored the email or said they couldn't accommodate it? I imagine it would be very difficult to write onto law review if you lost the vast majority of your day and energy to your summer associate position, although i'm sure it's not impossible. Can you email the firm again? Try emailing the managing partner of the office rather than recruiting. I think it would be really strange if they insisted on you working while you were finishing up on the writing competition. It wouldn't be great for their reputation, and that's part of the reason why firms hire 1Ls.

[Lacepiece23]

So I was lucky enough to get a 1L summer associate position at a smaller litigation firm in a secondary market. They emailed me my start date, which is May 20th. Only problem is that I have the writing competition, which extends right from the end of final until the 24th. I was just wondering if there was anybody out there who was working for part of the writing competition 1L year and if this was doable. I am definitely not grade on material for law review, but could be high enough after this semester to be in striking distance to grade on. Just wondering what 2Ls or 3Ls would recommend that I do in this situation. BTW I also, emailed the firm and told them my preferred start date, which they ignored.

They ignored the email or said they couldn't accommodate it? I imagine it would be very difficult to write onto law review if you lost the vast majority of your day and energy to your summer associate position, although i'm sure it's not impossible. Can you email the firm again? Try emailing the managing partner of the office rather than recruiting. I think it would be really strange if they insisted on you working while you were finishing up on the writing competition. It wouldn't be great for their reputation, and that's part of the reason why firms hire 1Ls.

Yeah I sent them an email about the writing competition, and they didn't get back to me. I did find that strange as well they haven't been the best at communicating with me maybe I will try again soon. They definitely ignored it though and didn't say they wouldn't accommodate.

[ph14]

So I was lucky enough to get a 1L summer associate position at a smaller litigation firm in a secondary market. They emailed me my start date, which is May 20th. Only problem is that I have the writing competition, which extends right from the end of final until the 24th. I was just wondering if there was anybody out there who was working for part of the writing competition 1L year and if this was doable. I am definitely not grade on material for law review, but could be high enough after this semester to be in striking distance to grade on. Just wondering what 2Ls or 3Ls would recommend that I do in this situation. BTW I also, emailed the firm and told them my preferred start date, which they ignored.

They ignored the email or said they couldn't accommodate it? I imagine it would be very difficult to write onto law review if you lost the vast majority of your day and energy to your summer associate position, although i'm sure it's not impossible. Can you email the firm again? Try emailing the managing partner of the office rather than recruiting. I think it would be really strange if they insisted on you working while you were finishing up on the writing competition. It wouldn't be great for their reputation, and that's part of the reason why firms hire 1Ls.

Yeah I sent them an email about the writing competition, and they didn't get back to me. I did find that strange as well they haven't been the best at communicating with me maybe I will try again soon. They definitely ignored it though and didn't say they wouldn't accommodate.

Email them back.

[LeDique]

How long will the writing competition have been on before that?

[Lacepiece23]

How long will the writing competition have been on before that?

I think like six days. It starts May 14th, so I'll definitely have the whole time from the 15th to the 20th to be working on the competition.

[WearyCartographer]

How long will the writing competition have been on before that?

I think like six days. It starts May 14th, so I'll definitely have the whole time from the 15th to the 20th to be working on the competition.

Honestly, that should be plenty of time if you don't mind being disciplined about it. I ran into a similar problem last year and just worked as if the due date was my first day of work. It certainly doesn't hurt to push back your start date - but bottom line is six days should not put you in a bind.

[Lacepiece23]

How long will the writing competition have been on before that?

I think like six days. It starts May 14th, so I'll definitely have the whole time from the 15th to the 20th to be working on the competition.

Honestly, that should be plenty of time if you don't mind being disciplined about it. I ran into a similar problem last year and just worked as if the due date was my first day of work. It certainly doesn't hurt to push back your start date - but bottom line is six days should not put you in a bind.

Thanks thats what I was really wondering. I know people sometimes take a few days off before starting the writing competition. Just was wondering if that would be enough time to do a good job, if say I spent the whole days just working my ass off for it. Do you feel like it hurt your performance not having the full amount of time?

[WearyCartographer]

Thanks thats what I was really wondering. I know people sometimes take a few days off before starting the writing competition. Just was wondering if that would be enough time to do a good job, if say I spent the whole days just working my ass off for it. Do you feel like it hurt your performance not having the full amount of time?

Well, mine was an open universe (we could use any outside sources) question and I really only spent three full days working on it. I used other days to either plan/do preliminary research on the front end or do mindless editing/bluebooking on the back end, but didn't put more than a couple hours in other than the three primary days I worked on it.

Obviously everyone has different working styles - so to some degree the answer to this question is just know yourself and know how you work best. All that said - I made law review and it definitely wasn't on grades alone.

[chickenalfredo]

I have a similar situation. Would like to try and write on but I don't want to miss out on an extra 3k.

[Myself]

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[NotMyRealName09]

CALL

[CanadianWolf]

It's doable. Just make a schedule & stay disciplined.

[Myself]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

FWIW, my school gave us something crazy like 3+ weeks to get the thing done, and everyone I know (including me) did it in the last week(end) anyway. I'm also pretty sure the U Chicago student I interned with 1L summer did hers after work the first week (since Chicago's on quarters, she had to start the internship late anyway). I would certainly see if you can get the extra time (maybe try calling, since e-mails haven't worked?), but if you can't, I would bet you can frontload the write-on and do fine.

(Granted, if you have to move across country for the SA, this will be tougher.)

[Lacepiece23]

FWIW, my school gave us something crazy like 3+ weeks to get the thing done, and everyone I know (including me) did it in the last week(end) anyway. I'm also pretty sure the U Chicago student I interned with 1L summer did hers after work the first week (since Chicago's on quarters, she had to start the internship late anyway). I would certainly see if you can get the extra time (maybe try calling, since e-mails haven't worked?), but if you can't, I would bet you can frontload the write-on and do fine.

(Granted, if you have to move across country for the SA, this will be tougher.)

No I'm going home so I will literally be living at home, and going to work which is 20 minutes away. I'm skeptical about being too pushy tho because this is the market that I want to go back to, and the partner that really pushed me through the process and got me hired is regarded as the best defense attorney in my city. He really did me a huge favor so I don't want to come off as whiny and piss him off.

[moandersen]

Definitely doable. I completed the writing competition during the first week of my 1L SA and I had the flu. I was able to write on to LR. Just be disciplined. It will suck for a few days but then it's over.

[Bildungsroman]

People in this thread seem a lot more insistent that your firm will accommodate you than I would expect. I know at my school a lot of people were given start dates for their summer jobs and were not given the option to start late just because the writing competition was going on.

I would personally be very wary about getting too pushy on this, because it's likely that all the 1Ls in your firm are in the same position of needing to have the writing competition and the work schedule overlap. And it's also quite likely that a lot of your classmates are facing the same limitation.

[Myself]

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[jess]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

This is totally going to come across as a humblebrag, but I did my write-on in one day, about 8 hours. You will totally be fine. It's not going to be as bad as you expect. Don't read all of the sources in their entirety, and focus more on bluebooking than the substance of your argument.

This probably varies by school. It wouldn't have been a great policy for my school's write-on, because the most common flaw was having a crappy argument.

[Lacepiece23]

Thanks for the advice guys I think I'm just going to suck it up and try to do it in the first few days. If worse comes to worse I can try to do it after work/ take the competition to work and work on it in the down time if there is any.

[lawyerdown27]

Thanks for the advice guys I think I'm just going to suck it up and try to do it in the first few days. If worse comes to worse I can try to do it after work/ take the competition to work and work on it in the down time if there is any.

This is the right thing to do. Good luck, and it can be done. I did both LR write-on and the brief portion of the MC competition in the first 2 weeks of summer job. It isn't particularly fun, but it's worth it.