Last Location: Wilmington, DE
Arrival Date: May 21, 2011
Departure Date: June 25, 2011
Current Location: Washington, DC
Arrival Date: June 25, 2011
Departure Date: August 14, 2011
Next Location: Wilmington, DE
Arrival Date: August 14, 2011
Departure Date: August 26, 2011
Being hired as a summer associate at a big law firm may be one of the best things that has ever happened to anyone who doesn't mind working.
In the morning I pass my key fob against a dark grey pad and it makes a soft “beep” confirming that I belong. I enter the main atrium of the building which is enclosed by seven-story high glass walls that keep out the undesirable weather and let in the light. The atrium gracefully connects two buildings; the new building and the old building. The new building is wall-wall glass, even the inside walls are made of glass so that you can’t go anywhere in the building without natural light seeping through. The old building has a grey stone exterior and has its own granite entranceway that has a classic elegance of understated importance. Semi-transparent frosted glass walkways lead between the two buildings and a glass elevator that would be at home in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory shoots up through the middle of the atrium to the seventh floor.
I stop by the heavily subsidized café for breakfast where I can get a bowl of oatmeal or grits with raisins and sunflower seeds for $1. I climb a set of stairs up past a two-story tall waterfall up to my office. I say good morning to the two women who sit right outside of my office and they smile back enthusiastically.
My office has a large street-facing window, two desks, and an empty bookshelf. Between my assignments and firm-sponsored social events I am always busy. My work is interesting and challenging. The social events are extravagant. Pricy lunches, open bars, elite dinner parties and trips to the Supreme Court, the National Gallery, the White House, and a National’s baseball game. My firm always provides a vegan, gluten-free option. It makes me feel welcome.
I can't tell if I like it more here or at the Chancery Court, where I work backstage with the biggest rockstars of corporate law.
I got lucky and managed to split my 2L summer equally between Jones Day in Washington, DC and The Delaware Court of Chancery. I wish I could do ten weeks at each, but Georgetown only offers a fourteen-week long summer. I remind myself that this is why I took a career-worth of vacation before I started law school.
Love,
Melissa
