Originally published on April 13, 2009 in our free BigLaw newsletter.
Picture it: New York, summer 2008. Summer associate programs remained orgies of expensive lunches, Broadway shows, and casino nights, but the economic tide had begun to turn. Unbeknownst to a group of summer associates at a certain large firm, the sword of Damocles was about to fall.
Queen Bees of the Summer Associate Program
By all accounts, there was a group of about ten partiers in the summer class. They showed up to the office on time, stayed late, and then went out late to bars after work. They were smart and they turned in solid work, but they were intent on having a hedonistic summer program like the ones they had heard so much about from their predecessors. You only "summer" once after all.
This roving pack of summers had struck up friendships with several male junior partners at the firm. These partners were self-professed "work hard, play hard" types, whose offices had Yankees Jerseys pinned to the wall or framed pictures from Vegas outings displayed on the desks. They, too, came in on time, stayed late, and went to bars after hours.
Since they were involved in the firm's summer associate committee, these junior partners selflessly took it upon themselves to initiate the bar expeditions with the summer associates. Typically, they would swing by summers' offices in the late afternoon and ask them if they wanted to hit up a midtown lounge that night — all on the corporate card, of course. Whether it was because free drinks were involved or because saying no to a partner was out of the question, the partier summers usually accepted the invitations. The partners jokingly harassed those other summers who hesitated or claimed that they couldn't go because of work. You'll have the rest of your career to work, they said, one night out won't hurt you.
Or could it?
What Happens Outside Work Does Not Stay Outside Work
The debauchery at these bar nights was fairly tame. Nobody stripped naked and jumped into the Hudson, nobody vomited in public. A typical evening included dancing, flirting and partners ordering shots and taking them alongside the summers. The group would sometimes stay out till 4 a.m. and then the following day at work its members would commiserate about hangovers. To the summers, these partners seemed more like friends than bosses.
At the end of the program, the summers were called in one by one to a senior partner's office to receive their final review and, hopefully, their permanent offer to join the firm after law school.
Since the firm had always given 100% offers, "Henry" one of the partier summers, sat down at his review fairly confident that he would receive an offer. The senior partner first read him two positive reviews of his work, and then read the review of a junior partner with whom Henry had been out at night a number of times.
"Bob's review said how he thought my memo was good," Henry says, "but he also thought I didn't seem to take my job seriously enough and wondered if I displayed good judgment. Pretty hypocritical because every time I went, Bob was there too. I did not see this coming."
Due in part to the negative review, Henry did not receive an offer to join the firm. He was not alone; in total eight people out of a class of 50-something did not receive offers. Five of the no-offered were the partier summers, who, like Henry, received positive reviews of their work, but negative reviews of their social calendar from junior partners who partied right alongside them.
Partners Are Not Your Friends
Henry and his fellow summers found out the hard way that partners, however "cool" they might seem, are still the bosses. No matter how many how many shots they order on a summer's behalf, they're still watching, scrutinizing and reporting back. Their allegiance is to the firm and the firm's bottom line, not to any friendships forged with summer associates.
In this climate of firm layoffs in which summers and associates alike must prove their worthiness of continued employment, it is especially critical that they not taint their candidacy or give partners any opportunity to doubt their commitment to the firm. Had Henry summered in 2007 or earlier, he may have received an offer, but a 2008 summer piddling away firm funds at bars was a cost just waiting to be cut.
Hopefully the 2009 summer class will learn from the 2008 class' follies — we're not in Oz anymore.
Assuming that Henry is not leaving out damning details about the late night bar runs, his story begs the question of why partners would condemn summer associates for the very festivities in which they themselves partake. Maybe it was convenient to blame it on the partying rather than admit the firm could not make universal offers because of the economy. Maybe these partners were just regular old snakes in the grass. We will never know the answer, but the takeaway is the same:
Just because a partner behaves a certain way does not mean you can. Partners have a modicum of job security; everyone else in BigLaw does not.
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