A Day in the Life of A Young Associate

From our friends at Vault ("all the fluff of a fashion magazine, without any of the fashion") I found this helpful description of A Day In The Life Of A Bankruptcy Associate (it may be the "next big thing," readers). I'll write up my own Day in the Life one of these days, but I need to defer that until later and spend right now actually being a bankruptcy associate. Today I'll be up to my neck in agricultural agreements, poring over contracts and ordinances involving sewage. Glamorous, kiddoes, for sure. I'll be researching antitrust questions and some basic contractual interpretation caselaw that I should probably already know, learning about industries I never thought to wonder about before, and I expect to be absorbed and fascinated by what I discover. And there will be a million little administrative interruptions, and calls from clients for whom I'm handling littler, simpler matters. A dozen or so cups of tea, and a lot of trips to the restroom. People from the office who want to kill time falling into my easy chair and joking with me. A few moments of terror or shame remembering something I was supposed to do and didn't and wondering if it means I'm totally incompetent. Today, a trip to the Farmer's Market to get some new flowers. There's a day in my life. I'm looking forward to it.

I also found this description of the life of a young associate, and think it paints a realistic picture of how depressed and time-deprived associates develop spending habits that tend to trap them. I don't know whether the cruelty and paranoia and wierd sports jocularity he describes is typical, but the chronic time deprivation and the sense of hopelessness it creates doesn't sound too far from what Patent Pending and Math Class for Poets talk about, what I witnessed at my summer at BIGLAW, and what I see in my friends who are there.

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I forgot to point out the word error in the...