Summer Associates Take Trapeze Lessons, Attend Football Training Camp

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Summer Associates Take Trapeze Lessons, Attend Football Training Camp

Posted Aug 25, 2008, 06:08 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Summer associates got a taste of law firm life this summer. They also took trapeze lessons, sang karaoke and went rock climbing.

As usual, the big law firms appear to be trying to outdo each other in the quest for unusual and sometimes lavish activities.

Portfolio.com listed some of the events where summer associates show their social sides to potential law-firm employers. They include:

• At Davis Polk, trapeze lessons, a softball game at Shea Stadium and a welcome dinner at the Plaza.

• At Morgan Lewis & Bockius, karaoke singing, laser tag, go-kart races and a Manhattan Segway tour.

• At Proskauer Rose, the New York Jets training camp, the NBA draft and a cooking class taught by a professional chef.

• At Shearman & Sterling, a cocktail party at the United Nations and a casino night at the law firm.

• At Cooley Godward Kronish, rock climbing.

• At Bryan Cave, a white water rafting trip in previous years, a wine tasting this year.

Other activities included a Wii competition at a Nintendo store rented out for the occasion, a painting lesson from an artist during a wine and cheese party, and a trip to see the play Thurgood, ABAJournal.com reported in a previous post that cites Legal Times.

Those summer associate outings aren’t an elaborate ruse to hide the drudgery of law firm life, recruiters told Portfolio.com.

Rather they are part of an effort to learn whether summer associates have the ability to “mingle with clients, charm partners, and shine in social functions,” the story says.

Said Brian Manoff, a senior recruiter at employment firm Pittleman & Associates, “the more outside the box the environment, the more the individual shows his true self."

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Posted by 3Lwithjob - 3 months, 5 days, 22 hours, 27 minutes ago

How incredibly patronizing! Firms do this kind of stuff, and then complain about the immaturity of their new associates.

Nintendo?! Wii?! Go-carts?! Are we grade schoolers or professional students? I’ll take my biglaw job in a smaller city any day over that craziness. At least I know what my firm expects of me: work hard, be professional, and get along well with attorneys, staff, and clients.

I don’t need to put on a helmet and knee pads to do that!

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