Everything in this section can be summarized in two sentences: Be nice to everybody at work. Assume that anybody’s vote can make or break you, whether they’re a lawyer or not.
In the permanent associates section, I talk an awful lot about support staff issues. Here we’ll focus on issues relevant only to summer clerkships.
1. Handling support staffers in general. Remember: Their opinions count.
The last thing you want during your summer clerkship is to develop a reputation for being rude, abusive, demeaning, or demanding of the support staff. You may be better educated than they are, but every single employer I talked to said that if you can’t play nicely at the office, you’ll get bounced at the end of the summer.
For one thing, it’s simple human decency to be nice to people. Treat other people as you’d want to be treated.
If the golden rule doesn’t float your boat, there are a lot of selfish reasons to be nice to support staffers. At plenty of employers, support staffers get a vote on whether or not summer clerks will be invited back. Secretaries will tell if a summer clerk has been abusive or demanding, and you won’t get an offer. They value their support staff. Support staff members won’t hesitate to make their impressions and opinions of summer clerks know to attorneys and recruiting committee members. One hiring partner told me that at his firm, the partners make a preliminary decision about who they want to invite back, but before they make final choices, they call in the secretaries as a group, and ask, “Who do you think we should give offers to?” “Their vote is important,” he said.
Beyond simple decency, acknowledge when a support staffer has gone above and beyond the call of duty for you. If you’re working your butt off on a tight deadline and you have paralegals and secretaries busting it for you, do something nice for them—give them candy or something like that. If someone at the office sets up a special reception or other social event, be it a support staffer or a partner’s wife, send a thank-you note the next day. So many summer clerks treat social events as an entitlement. A lot of work goes into them, and a thank-you note recognizing that effort makes a big impression.
CAREER LIMITING MOVE
Summer clerk at a large firm. He has occasional bouts of mistreating various staff members. The recruiting coordinator pulls him in and gives him a talking-to. He consequently turns on the charm and receives an offer. He decides to go somewhere else, but after a year or so, decides he wants to come back to the employer after all, and he reapplies for a job. The firm thinks about it, and remembering his temper problems with secretaries, decides not to reopen the offer.
CAREER LIMITING MOVE
Summer clerk, splitting the summer between two firms. When he arrives at his second firm, he spends fifteen minutes with the recruiting coordinator, as she familiarizes him with the firm. He slouches in his chair, chewing gum, appearing totally disinterested in what she has to say. When she finishes, he gets up and spits his gum in her wastebasket, saying, "I gotta get rid of this before I meet anyone." She waivers on whether or not to report this to the hiring partner, but decides to do so. His response: "If they're going to treat you that way then we don't need them." His career at the firm was over before he worked on his very first project.
2. Handling secretaries/assistants.
It may well be that you don’t get secretarial help at all during your summer clerkship. If you do, it may be the first time in your life that you’ve ever had a secretary, and your first thought may be, “What the heck am I supposed to give him/her to do?”
Relax. Nobody expects you to know how to handle a secretary. And anyway, it varies from office to office.
There are certain universal truths, however. No matter where you work, never ever expect a secretary to get you coffee! That really torques them off. Also, don’t assume that they’re called “secretaries” at all. In some offices, they’re referred to as “assistants” and if you say “secretary,” it’ll get on their wick. When in doubt, it’s always safest to call someone an “assistant” rather than a secretary. You won’t offend anybody that way. The best way to figure out what to get your secretary to do is to ask around, either the recruiting coordinator or a trusted junior associate or any other mentor you have. McGuire Woods’ Pam Malone says that “Secretaries generally help with time sheets, for instance. But it varies from firm to firm. Listen to the advice you get from people who are there already.”
Incidentally, it’s not always a good idea to figure, “If I do everything myself, I can’t possibly misuse anybody.” Some employers want yon to learn the habit of relying on a secretary. They want you to get started delegating work, so that you focus efficiently on the work for which they can bill clients for your time.
When it comes to needing overtime help with secretaries, paralegals, word processing, or anyone else, ask your mentor and/or a trusted permanent associate how much advance warning is typically needed to secure overtime secretarial help or word processing. The costs may vary widely, and you need to learn the firm’s preference and policies. Ask your assigning attorney about the perimeters for using overtime or special support for a project. These additional costs will have to be borne by the client in most cases, and they can be substantial. If you run up a bill a client won’t pay, it will reflect very badly on your judgment.
Also, keep in mind that if you do have a secretary, you’re probably sharing that secretary with several other people, so you should be extra careful about timing your requests. Try not to make unreasonable demands, and provide plenty of time for a secretary to complete your work, keeping in mind those other demands your secretary has on his or her time.
LAWCROSSING CAREER ADVICE
Summer clerk finds out that both the firm's receptionist and his secretary have their birthdays during the summer. He brings in a flower for each of them on their birthdays. They're thrilled, and become strong allies of his. There's buzz all over the firm, "Pssst—where did the rose come from?" After that, he can do no wrong.
CAREER LIMITING MOVE
Summer associate, large firm in New York. He breezes through the summer, on track for a certain offer. Throughout the summer he has shared a secretary with a senior partner.
Toward the end of the summer, on a Friday, he says to his secretary, "What are you doing this weekend?"
She responds, "I've got plans both days."
The summer associate nonchalantly responds, "I'll need you Saturday from nine in the morning until six o'clock." [Mistake #1: never approach a secretary on your own initiative to do overtime. It's very expensive, and it's not your call to make! Ask a supervisor first.]
The secretary replies, "Well... my plans are pretty firm. Are you sure it's an emergency?" The summer associate assures her that it is.
She cancels her plans and shows up, as requested, on Saturday morning at nine o'clock. The summer clerk doesn't show up at nine ... or ten ... or twelve ... or two. The secretary is terrified to leave, in case the summer clerk shows up. Finally six o'clock rolls around, and she gets up to leave. Just then, the summer associate rolls in. Without acknowledging her wasted day, he asks, "Are you leaving already?"
She sputters, "Yes. I've been here since nine o'clock."
He responds, "But I need you!"
She shrugs and says, "Too bad," and she leaves.
He calls her at home for the rest of the weekend. She leaves her answering machine on, refusing to answer his calls or call him back.
On Monday morning, the clerk races furiously to the recruiting coordinator's office and vents, "I can't get my work done around here. I'm getting no support from my secretary."
Just then, the recruiting coordinator's phone rings. It's the partner with whom the clerk shares the secretary. He says, "You wouldn't believe what happened." The partner has the secretary in his office, and he recounts the story over the phone to the recruiting coordinator. With the summer associate sitting right in front of her, the recruiting coordinator keeps a poker face, occasionally muttering, "Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm."
When the recruiting coordinator gets off the phone with the partner, the recruiting coordinator tells the summer clerk who it was, and gently explains to the summer clerk about the cost of bringing secretaries in on weekends, and general advice about the proper way of doing these things. She adds, "By the way, what was the emergency?"
The summer clerk responds, "I haven't done my time sheets"—the time he should have been recording on a daily basis the entire time— "all summer. I needed her help."
3. Walking a fine line with recruiting coordinators and mentors.
Recruiting coordinators and mentors are in a funny position. On the one hand, they’re definitely there to smooth your way for the summer. There is just about nothing you can’t ask them: What to wear, who to talk to about a work-related issue, which summer events you can blow off and which you have to attend, tips for dealing with difficult personalities at the office, all the way to very serious matters involving ethics and harassment. The recruiting coordinator is an important ally and often has a strong ‘informal’ influence on whether or not you receive an offer.
But the fact that they’re usually so friendly—for recruiting coordinators, it’s a job that depends on great people skills!—often leads summer clerks to suspend their good judgment in talking to them. You can go talk to them, and they’re often advocates for you. There are many issues they’ll treat confidentially, but remember they still work for the firm!
For instance, if you tell a recruiting coordinator about an incident of sex harassment, you’re putting the firm on notice legally and the recruiting coordinator is not allowed to keep it a secret, no matter how much you may need a sympathetic ear (look for one outside of work to figure out your next move, unless you want the matter to be pursued). If for any reason you need to vent about anything involving your work, “Call your law school’s career services office instead,” says on law school career services offices counselor. “Resist the urge to ‘spill your guts’ or ‘let your hair down’ with recruiting personnel.”
CAREER LIMITING MOVE
As one hiring partner reports, "Our recruiting staff members are told unbelievably personal things. 'I had an abortion.’ 'I don't like this partner.' What the summer clerks don't realize is that the recruiting personnel are looking after the firm first and the summer clerks second. They're not appropriate confidants. You can't count on confidentiality. If you stayed out all night, and you came in in the same clothes you wore to the office yesterday, don't tell the recruiter, 'Hey, look! I was out partying all night!' Recruiters are very nurturing people, but they're not your Mom!"
4. Recognize the employer's law librarian is a very valuable resource.
If you go to an employer large enough to have its own law librarians, get out of your mind the image of a dowdy old lady in wing-tip glasses whose duties seem to consist entirely of putting a finger to her lips and saying “Shhhh!” Law librarians can make your life a ton easier, and make you look like a genius to your assigning attorneys. As Joni Coleman Fitzgerald says, “The firm’s law librarian is a great resource for summer associates, especially in assisting with the proper use of computer research tools. Law librarians typically conduct a great deal of legal research for firms, and they can be invaluable to you in helping you get started with a research project.”
Remember, you can’t completely offload projects on librarians no matter how capable they are; you’re there to be judged for your research skills. But when it comes to getting a push in the right direction, your law librarian can be a godsend.
