Always Do as Best as You Possibly Can for the Firm
[00:00:00] I'm a 2L headed to a V20 in a major market this summer.
A few days ago, my firm reached out and offered me to spend a few weeks of the summer in-house. I'm not particularly interested in this company and I would like to have to relocate to a very random state, but I figured it could be nice change of scenery and bolster my resume. On the other hand, I'm wondering if I would be missing out on network opportunities to try to establish myself within my desired practice group.
The secondments would provide an opportunity to engage with that practice area as well. I'm very torn. I've heard that secondments are what associates are asked to do when they're expendable or what senior associates are asked to do when a class is too big. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Okay. When law firms will ask you to go and to work with a client, many times, they may be doing a favor to their client.
They're not doing that because you're a 2L. They're probably doing that to be nice to the clients and give the clients some work. They're certainly not doing that because they have negative judgement about you.
Whatever a law firm asks you to do, you want to do with as much enthusiasm as you possibly can. You need to be happy and enthusiastic over it, and do the absolute best [00:01:00] you can.
I don't think a secondment is something that happens when a law firm is trying to help out a client or it may not have room for you at the top sometimes, but there's nothing or doesn't have the work in-house. There's no work for you there.
I think it's actually a good thing. Not that the law firm would want you to be a representative of them. I haven't heard of people doing that for that much time because you could certainly make mistakes.
That would make the firm look bad, but I think it's a good thing. I wouldn't worry about it. And I think. I would do the best I could.
Your objective, by the way, any time you go into a summer associate job is to get an offer. So you don't question things, you don't question motives.
Don't worry about what other people are thinking. Just go into the job and do the absolute best you can and that would be my piece. That would be my advice to you.
Don't worry about why the law firm is having you do it, just do it. Do the best you can. If you do that you're going to be much better off.
But yeah, get the offer and depending on what you learned there over the summer, certainly you can look at other offers if you were able to get into a V20 firm as a 2L. You get an offer [00:02:00] from there over the summer.
