Summer, Months II and III

The past two months have just flown by! My internship was only 8 weeks long, so I barely got settled in and it was time to think about wrapping up projects and packing up luggage. As I mentioned in my previous post, my job was mostly related to transactional work which turned out to be much more interesting than I had expected. I got a lot of responsibility as the summer went on, to the point that I was drafting and editing agreements by myself near the end. Probably the most valuable part of my internship was learning firsthand just how important single words and phrases can be (and also the value of precise language and brevity) - I definitely feel that my time summer work gave me a new appreciation for the "real world" practice of law.

I also had the great fortune of finding a YLS alumna in the city where I was working who was willing to be a great mentor to me, taking me to interesting events and introducing me to both the city's legal market and her own unique career path since becoming a lawyer. I really enjoyed spending time with her, and it was cool to find that even in a "secondary" market, there are alumni excited to connect with current students.

In the past week or so, a lot has happened: my internship finished, I left to go abroad for a quick exotic vacation [picture above], and I had to bid for OCI (on-campus interviewing). While planning and executing all of those tasks was harrowing, the last was probably the one where I was most in the dark and stressed....even though the Career Development Office did a good job of telling us that "the economy isn't great but don't worry you'll be fine," I wasn't sure how many interviews to bid for or whether to concentrate all my bids in once city or expand a bit. Big, well-known firms or smaller boutique places? Firms that haven't laid anybody off (indicating a strong position), or firms that have done layoffs (indicating they've already trimmed the fat)? Too many questions, not enough answers - and not time to think through it all in the midst of everything else.

In the end, I'm quite pleased with the just-under-20 interviews I have scheduled for next week. I have a good selection of geographies, firm type, and practice areas of interest. While I have a couple days where I have five or six interviews, on others I only have one or two. I'm hoping that by Monday afternoon (when my first interviews are), my Sunday international dateline-crossing jetlag will have worn off, and that I'll have something clean & coordinated to wear. Cat, how're you feeling about OCI?

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