Easily the Best Summer Associate Perk I've Heard Yet

Holy shite. As if it weren't enough that these fucks get paid $3k/wk even though they haven't even graduated yet, now there's this.

Yes, I'm jealous. Fucking bastards.

A question for everyone here

If you end up (or endED) up receiving and accepting an offer at the end of your second summer, how will / did it affect you 3L life? My schedule next semester is already fantastic (all req blocks out of the way; no class on Fridays), and my class ranking is more or less set in a good place. If I have a job lined up I can't imagine I'll be working very hard.

Thoughts?

To facebook or not to facebook?

One of the first things they told us in 1L orientation was to delete our online social network profiles. They must have known that then we wouldn't (after all, then what the hell would we do in class), because the next thing they said was to at least put them on restricted viewing... or at the very minimum, clean up all content to a level you wouldn't mind a potential employer seeing.

So this cautionary direction came to mind when I sat at my computer earlier tonight deciding whether or not I should send friend requests to the associates at the summer firm I'm working for. The very first alert that shot up in my mind was ABSOLUTELY NOT--ARE YOU FUCKING DEMENTED. But the more I thought about it, the more I was tempted. What would I gain from doing this? Just about nothing. And despite the obvious fact that I don't want people gathering around a computer tomorrow laughing at pictures of me lying on the floor with a watermelon on my head, I still kind of think it seems like a good idea.

Aha!

I finally realized today that the whole "thinking like a lawyer" thing is really just law school orientation jargon for "using a balancing test to justify whatever conclusion you want." My first year my head was so focused on getting the issues, facts, and holdings of every case that I failed to recognize--until now--that balancing tests control the world. In just a shade under three semesters too!

Balancing tests are also a great tactic for a court to use when it already knows what it wants to do (because of the majority's own personal beliefs), but can't think of a legitimate legal justification for doing so. Just throw two parts competing interests on the scale, garnish it with two parts policy rationale, and viola--you've just created a legally sound balancing test to suit your desired result! One of my professors accurately calls this process (esp. in the context of S. Ct. constitutional decisions) "balacing your rights away."

In other news, the interview process is winding down, and I've had a decent run of it so far. Nothing in stone for the summer yet, but a couple of promising things on the horizon. And here's a little gem to give hope to some of you fellow non-top 20%-ers... I was talking to a friend the other day who is on law review, and she has not had a single callback, while several other folks not even in the top half have gotten multiple callbacks, and even offers, from some of the same firms with which she interviewed. Exact same thing w/ a dude I also know on LR. Thus, the dictum seems to have a little truth to it--great grades and LR will of course land you more interviews, but once it's interview time, attitude and personality, not grades, win the day.

MORON OF THE WEEK (month?)

Last but not least, there's a grumpy old somewhat obese, bulbous man who I see in the gym every day "walking" around the track. "Good for him," right? Well, maybe, if he didn't move as fast as an inbred paraplegic sloth. But that's not even what bothers me; the real fuck of it is he always has one of those motherfucking wireless cell phone ear pieces in and holds extremely loud, angry sounding conversations during the entire duration of these"workouts." I'm a firm believer in the fact that if you're talking on the phone, you aren't fucking exercising. And while I'm at it, who the hell are you to shoot me dirty looks just for living? I'm not the one making your exercise attmpts completely and utterly futile. Plus I think he's actually getting fatter. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he shows up one of these days with a TV tray strapped around his chest slurping up a can of Crisco.

But I digress...

Interview Douche

Interview season is upon us, and with it the golden opportunity for conceited douchebags aplenty to sign up for every single firm that comes to campus--even ones they have no intention of joining if selected--solely because it will give them increased chances to wear a suit to school and thereby tell everybody "hey, guess what... yeah, that's right... I'm interviewing today."

Now of course everybody competes and wants to get an interview. That's a natural part of the process. But some of these firms are pretty selective about class standing, which is why it's superbly obnoxious when somebody who interviews with all the fancy firms decides to apply for interview spots with the much less selective firms which he or she knows with 110% certainty they have zero interest in accepting a summer offer from. So several interview spots are wasted; meanwhile the other 80-85% of students, who would all love a job from that firm, are excluded from interviewing because these elitist slawbags* want to use the smaller firm spots as practice for their "real" interviews.

*If you're unsure who these people are, look no further than the dipshit actually using a "Big, Rich & Pretentious, LLP" koozy at school. A particularly douchy classmate of mine had one forcibly stretched around a lukewarm 20-oz Coke on the first day back from summer.

To those law students also in the job race

Has anyone (2Ls or 3Ls) had any experience cold-mailing resumes and cover letters? Everyone keeps telling me this is a necessary complement (even though responses are generally meager) to the job search process, but it seems like a huge waste of time.

I have somehow managed to dupe a few firms into giving me an interview, so I'll see how that goes...

The Job Search begins

So now that I've finished my first year and my first summer, I can start the interviewing process. The problem, as many of you know, is that to start the interviewing process, you have to be selected for the opportunity to beg for a job.

And it's tough to say the least, especially when every single interviewer's page in the career services database reads something like...

Required:
- Rank: Top 10%
Required:
- Law Review
- Moot Court

Hey, that's great! This on-campus interviewing thing seems like a terrific resource for the 15 people that actually fit these credentials. But for the other 400+ students frantically clawing around for next year's Summer Associate positions, this means lots of time spent writing emails and cover letters that are ignored, resumes that go directly to the trash, and staring at the ceiling imagining what the mother hell you're gonna do when you graduate law school and nobody will hire you.

And hey, new 2L Law Review members: BOO FUCKING HOO for you. So you're camping out in the library on Thursday night, missing a little bit of sleep. You get to brag to recruiters, even to your family. You DON'T however get to loudly "complain" about it in class. Congratulations, you got marvellous grades. The rest of us couln't give a fat tit about it because we're too busy being tortured by images of a future spent enforcing debt collection or doing real estate closings. But hey, check back with me in eight years when you have no one in your social or love life to help you spend the substantial wealth you've amassed.

Bitter? Motherfuckin right! I know it's only August, but SOMEBODY GIVE ME A FUCKING INTERVIEW!!!