Careers

Tales of Deferred Associates: Your Waiter Could Be a Lawyer

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Andy Cohen waited tables when he was an undergraduate student at Emory University in Atlanta.

Now he’s a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and he’s still waiting tables, this time at the Midatlantic restaurant in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Cohen’s start date at Blank Rome was deferred until early next year, so he capitalized on his love of food by working at the restaurant. Two other wait staffers at the restaurant are also lawyers who will begin work in the military’s Judge Advocate General program in January.

Cohen is one of several deferred associates profiled by the Inquirer. The others are:

• Mike Duffy, a Temple Law School graduate who is a deferred associate at Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll. He is now working at the Greater Camden Partnership, a nonprofit working on the city’s redevelopment. He works on legal issues and also pitches in to help clear vacant lots.

• Kristina Moon, a former AmeriCorps volunteer who is a Temple law school graduate and a deferred associate at Dechert. She is working at the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, where she helped write an amicus brief on behalf of teen girls threatened with prosecution for texting sexually suggestive photos of themselves.

• Anthony LaGreca, a Georgetown University Law Center graduate and a deferred associate at Dechert. He is working at Philadelphia VIP helping nonprofit groups and businesses on transactional matters. “After the dust settled, I realized one of the positives was that I would be working for a smaller organization and that I would be given more responsibility right away,” he told the Inquirer.

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