Week 1

I never seem to have time to catch up during the week, so here are some random insights in to what my summer clerkship has been like so far:

Before work started, I purchased a new suit for to wear on my first day. I could have sworn in the dressing room that it was gray, but when I took it home, it had turned brown. I thought it was weird, but I liked the suit and kept it anyway. On Monday morning, I wore my new brown suit with my new brown pumps. And when I got to the office, the suit turned gray again. This would have been fine, except I was wearing brown shoes. Embarrassing. I was betrayed by my own wardrobe. 

On the first day, I was almost immediately given an assignment--a no-evidence motion for summary judgment. I have drafted exactly zero of these motions (or really, an motions) in the past, so it took me about 12 hours total. Also embarrassing. I think these things take the regular associates about 30 minutes. And they made me use a dictaphone to draft it. So I turned in about 30 minutes of me giggling on tape to the word processors, and another 30 minutes of actual voice recording. 

I also have about ten million research memos to finish. But I am so afraid they are going to be terrible that I won't stop researching. I have probably run up a $30k tab on Westlaw, and I have nothing to show for it but a bunch case law that is at best tangentially related to what I am supposed to be writing about. My goal this week is to stop being such a baby and turn something in, so it can be destroyed and rewritten as soon as possible. 

Also, I am this firm's only summer associate (the firm is fairly small) so there is no one to commiserate with except the bobcat (who, I suspect, is telling everything I say to the partners. If he weren't already dead, I'd kill him.). I like the work, and I like the people but no one prepared me for this. I'm just sitting at a big fancy desk, trying to play lawyer and avoid peeing in my brown/gray traitor suit. 

The saga continues...