One Summer Associate You Definitely Want To Take To Lunch
In the next few weeks, summer associates will be arriving at large law firms around the country. And they’ll get treated to lavish, three-hour lunches, paid for by Biglaw shops that want to win them back on a permanent basis.
But the summer lunches may be a trifle rushed over at Dewey Ballantine. Here’s a rumor (unconfirmed) that’s making the rounds:
The word on the street is that Dewey Ballantine announced today that summer activities/lunches/etc. won’t count towards the billable hours minimum of 2000 for a bonus (cliff effect: 1999 you get nothing, 2000 you get market).This sounds like a recipe for recruiting suicide. Do most firms with minimums exclude summer associate activities from the total? I like lunch at Nobu57and karaoke as much as the next guy, but I’m not giving up $40,000 for it.
We see our tipster’s point. But we think that many (if not most) firms don’t count such activities towards billable minimums. Did Dewey count them in previous years, as this rumor implies?
Update: We are getting some vague rumblings from sources that the Dewey rumor above is incorrect (although they won’t spell out how). We warned you to take this gossip as unconfirmed. Anyway, the real point of this post is what appears below…
In any event, our correspondent isn’t actually at Dewey, whose Los Angeles office will be hosting this comely young law student (as profiled in Stuff Magazine):
A quasi-racy picture, after the jump.
We think it would be criminal to throw this “warm body” onto a document review or due diligence project:
Additional photographs of this aspiring lawyer are available here.
Women’s Studies [StuffMagazine.com]
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Wow. Committed to practicing law AND trashy to boot. Great recruiting job by the firm.
Please keep me posted on the office antics. I'm sure the summer will bring some great stories.
Recuriting has never counted toward the 2000 hrs at Baker Botts. 2000 means billable, pro-bono, and work for which BB is a client.
no you don't get bonus credit for going out to lunch, drinking, or any other social activities. What counts at most big dc firms is billable, accomodation, some pro bono, and some work that should be billable but for a cheap client (i.e., some clients won't pay for travel, reviewing local counsel's bills, etc.)
Some firms allow you to count recruiting hours towards billable requirement?
I'll echo 4:14's comment for billable hours here at MLB - summer associate and fall recruiting lunches and activities do not count towards our billable our requirement.
I'll echo 4:14's comment for billable hours here at MLB - summer associate and fall recruiting lunches and activities do not count towards our billable hour requirement.
Soft recruiting hours (lunches, dinners, parties, etc.) do not count towards billable hours requirements ay any firms. Don't be ridiculous. Some firms allow hard recruiting hours (on campus and call back interviews, recruiting committee work etc.) to count towards bonus hours.
I can't believe any firm gave people credit for doing those activities! You shouldn't feel bad because that is the first I have ever heard of it. It's one thing to get credit for doing interviews, but quite another to get credit for doing the summer social activities.
Are you kidding? Firms don't count summer associate lunches towards your bonus, that would be nuts. Pro bono, some professional developmetn and client-billable hours count. This post makes me think the person in charge of this site has never worked at a law firm.
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the time spent on recruiting activites counts for bonus purposes, but we have to hit the mininum billiable requirement with substantive legal work. If we don't hit the minimun, then all the summer stuff doesn't count for anything.
I never heard of lunches counting towards the minimum billing requirement. Most associates just pad to cover them.
some firms will count recruiting, training, professional development, and committee work after a threshold number of billable hours has been reached. I believe that Wilmer Hale, Arnold, Hogan, Fulbright, and Mofo....all have some variation of this system. In essence you must have some magic number of regular billables and the firm the looks at other non-billables in looking at whether you qualify for the bonus. The short of it at some firms you can bill 1875 but have 125 of committee work, recruiting, training, article writing and the like and the totals will be added for 2000 billable hrs qualifying the associate for a bonus.
4:27: "This post makes me think the person in charge of this site has never worked at a law firm."
Lat worked at Wachtell Lipton, which doesn't have minimum billables or tie bonuses to billable hours.
Why is no one speaking about the girl. HOT!
Don't most NYC-based firms not have an articulated minimum, anyway? At my firm, we have a minimum billable and bonus requirement and these kinds of events are actually a sore point in that the same people tend to get saddled with two hour lunches over and over again. To meet your billables for the day, you end up staying late, which sucks. I've heard that some firms give credit for a limited number of hours (maybe 20) spent wining and dining summer associates/recruits.
I see the social activities as just as much of a chore as interviewing, etc. - more so, really, because during summer activities I'm expected to sell the firm and be charming to a bunch of drunk 25-year-olds. Three hours at the firm is three hours you didn't spend at home, regardless of the content of those hours. If nobody shows up for summer associate events, the firm doesn't look good and recruiting suffers. I don't see how these activities aren't bottom-line driven. It's not as if I'm spending two hours at lunch with a friend.
Question: what's the limit for summer associate lunches in NYC?
4:38 here: Should've cleared up that my firm does not count summer associate activities toward one's minimum or one's bonus.
At Paul Hastings there is no billable credit for recruiting. If there were, I'd eat lunch out everyday with the little bastards.
4:44: does PH have a minimum for billables/bonus?
4:44! Is that you, Holly L.! I'd know that delicious partner-track loathing anywhere!
I will take her for lunch.
You all miss the point. other firms don't give billable credit for lunches, but most big firms either don't tie bonuses to hours worked (i.e. other big ny firms) or they have graduated bonuses based on hours. Here it is nothing if a few lunches make you miss the 2000 mark.
And is Dewey LA still accepting applications?
4:13, you are right on. This girl had a threesome in the dean's office, and all the comments are filled with a discussion of billable credit.
4:57 - exactly! Unless you want to be partner, who gives a shit what your billables are if your comp/bonus isn't tied to it? So long as they're not ridiculously low, you're fine.
Where did Lat learn she's working at Dewey? I don't see it in those links.
If I were a partner at DB, I'd not only leave my office door open and unlocked, I'd stay in it as long as she was still at work. Sounds like a good show.
Well, this girl and one of our summers last year would have gotten along just swimmingly.
Ron Hedges for 3rd. Cir.!!!!
409 is either a girl, and jealous, or a gay guy.
Dewey simply followed the lead of their erstwhile merger partner, Orrick, who also has a minimum hours requirement for their new allegedly "market" bonus, and they also give no credit for summer lunches, etc.
Their whole salary and bonus "leadership" has been accompanied by thinly veiled threats along the lines of "be careful what you wish for".
Seriously? People get billable or even bonus credit for recruiting activities? For taking summers to lunch? If your firm gives you credit for that, I never want to hear about your hard life again. Ever.
Taking summers to lunch is just a way to get your meals paid for.
Our billables (and bonus) are billable hours, pro bono (capped), and pre approved firm/professional development credit (capped at 50 hours). Drinking with summer associates? (Still not worth it...)
5:23: hilarious. Don't let the naysayers tell you any different.
No need to guess here - 5:24 is a law student.
4:47,
You might want to consider the fact that there's only one Holly L. in Paul Hastings's directory before you start making public comments about "delicious partner track loathing."
At White & Case I think fall recruiting (interviews, including interview lunches) counts towards the 2000 hour bonus eligibility threshold, but not summer activites. That would be nuts.
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6:06 - I think I "met" your wife. I'm going to enjoy having her. Around. -The Recruiter.
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i can't speak for this year, but as of last summer dewey counted all "recruiting" hours towards your billable/bonus requirement including lunches with summers and nights out, etcc...
yawwwwn
an anorexic law student who lied to Stuff about having a threesome (come on, 3/4 of the shit in those mags is made up) and a bunch of Biglaw associates whining about their salaries. how boring.
How do you figure she's anorexic? She's thin but looks quite healthy.
I predict you're fat and jealous.
I predict everyone on this board is fat and has never been laid. Except me, of course, because I have no opinion about a random law student I've never even met.
Dewey used to count all lunches (interview lunches, summer associate lunches) as part of the billable hours. Now summer associate lunches don't count anymore, but other summer activities do.
I'll take her out. For "Hot Lunch"
What a bunch of pathetic losers you people are. You share your thoughts on the internet because you're nobody in real society.
8:57:
What does that make you?
This girl looks like she'd fit in in GeeneParmesan's harem. That kid pulls all the fly lazy-eyed honies.
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"...these kinds of events are actually a sore point in that the same people tend to get saddled with two hour lunches over and over again. To meet your billables for the day, you end up staying late, which sucks."
There's a magic word that solves this problem: "no."
As in, summer associate says, "will you take me to lunch?" and you respond, "no."
"...these kinds of events are actually a sore point in that the same people tend to get saddled with two hour lunches over and over again. To meet your billables for the day, you end up staying late, which sucks."
There's a magic word that solves this problem: "no."
As in, summer associate says, "will you take me to lunch?" and you respond, "no."
Go Ron GO!!!
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Dear Cleveland Steamer | May 17, 2007 07:57 PM:
Is "Hot Lunch" as you employ it [“I'll take her out. For ‘Hot Lunch’”] so kind of scatological reference?
Dear Cleveland Steamer | May 17, 2007 07:57 PM:
Is "Hot Lunch" as you employ it [“I'll take her out. For ‘Hot Lunch’”] some kind of scatological reference?
12:14
I do believe that both "Cleveland Steamer" and "Hot Lunch" are scatological references.
My firm actually stated in orientation they will give associates billable credit for recruiting activites. CA firm though.
409 - I stand by my statement that you are either a jealous girl, or gay guy.
By the way, I graduated law school in 2000.
And remember, ice cream can never fill the void where daddy's love should have been. . . .fatty.
"There's a magic word that solves this problem: "no."
As in, summer associate says, "will you take me to lunch?" and you respond, "no.""
Should've cleared this up - the pressure comes from the partners in charge of the summer program and our recruiting department. I've never had a summer come out and ask me to take him or her to lunch. I sense that at my firm, however, if an associate flat-out turned down summer associate lunches (especially more than once), he or she would hear about it from the powers that be.
Hey, I'd take her out too. For some musical samplings.
One thing is for sure: she will be universally hated by the female associates. It will not be lost on her that she will need to make friends with male partners early on.
2:27 - I'm a female associate and I don't hate the pretty 25-year-olds who come through here during the summer. Not every woman is an insecure, manipulative ass. Must just be the ones you date.
Is she at UCLA for law school? Or was that just undergrad?
UCLA for undergrad, University of San Diego for law school.
BRAINS and beauty- what a lucky girl~
She´s probably to smart to give half you sexist pigs the time of day.