This afternoon, we told you about a summer associate from Harvard Law School who has already been fired from his firm. After the story went up, the HLS 2L called Above the Law to "set the record straight." He has a different version of what went on during his brief stay at McDermott, Will & Emery.

According to the former summer associate, who asked that we maintain his anonymity (so please don't name him in the comments), he was let go because his work visa hadn't yet come through. As many of you know, non-citizens need to have a work visa in order to work -- and get paid -- in America.

But according to the HLS 2L, his work authorization papers were delayed because MWE didn't tell him he'd be able to start working as a summer associate until late February. In case you're wondering, you cannot apply for a work visa until you know when you will actually be working (in terms of specific dates). The HLS 2L did apply for the work visa in late February, but he's still waiting for the papers to come through.

As the HLS 2L put it:

I was never officially a summer at McDermott, so I really wasn't fired.

More details about the HLS 2L's "heated conversation" with a MWE partner, after the jump.

Summer associates have landed at offices across the nation. They're working harder this year, even if some of the work is fake, and they're eating out less often. But the Biglaw recruits are still having fun -- sometimes too much fun.

We've been asking you about the big events for this year's summers -- concerts, movie previews, booze cruises, etc. Look out for contest finalists soon!

Cadwalader may have already established itself as a front runner in the competition. Last week, the firm took its summers to see a Mets game. Afterwards, some of the attorneys and summers went from Shea to shady. [FN1] From a knowledgeable source:

After the game, some of the male associates took some of the male summers out for some "after-event" bonding. The problem with this bonding is that it was a trip to the strip club. I'm not sure if the firm knew about the afterparty event or if it was sanctioned by or expensed to the firm, but this certainly seems to send a message of exclusion to women; or at least -- even if any female summers attended (which none did) -- that the firm not only tolerated but supported the objectification / degradation of women that occurs at these venues.

The firm was aware of the outing, but it doesn't support these Cadwalader cads. The official response, after the jump.

Man down! We're not even into July, and it seems that one summer associate has already gotten himself fired. (We're fairly sure it was a him, but please correct us if we're wrong.)

Generally SAs are terrified this summer, and therefore on their best behavior. But one fellow apparently didn't get the memo. Interestingly enough, according to multiple sources, the fired summer is a student at the hallowed Harvard Law School.

Details are a little sketchy, so please treat this as an early draft. The story will surely evolve, as summer associate stories often do. E.g., Skadden Cristal Boy (original version here, alternate version here); Kirkland & Ellis's Bruised Booze Cruiser (original version here, alternate version here); the Sapphic Smoochers (compare the different versions of the story by scrolling down through the Lindquist & Vennum archives).

Here's the abridged version:

There are rumors floating around among HLS students that a summer got himself fired. As far as details, I had heard that he talked back to a partner.

A more detailed account, suggesting that alcohol was involved, after the jump.

It's been quiet here at Above The Law in terms of chatter about the summer associate experience. SAs seem a wee bit scared to reach out to us this year. We're trying to gather submissions for the SA Event Contest, and we've only gotten five submissions! And one is a fishing trip.

Is the summer associate experience really that lame this year? Or are you all just terrified to send us an e-mail with a little braggadocio about your summer events? There are workarounds, you know. One SA printed an event announcement and sent it to us snail mail style.

(Just a reminder that all tips are anonymous, so send us more submissions. Just do it from your personal account, or on Facebook, or via carrier pigeon.)

Okay. Okay. We understand your reticence. SAs are stressed out about getting job offers in this competitive environment. Georgetown Law sent out a memo to its students predicting that most firms will be offering jobs to 50 to 80% of their summer associates. They then offered some advice for current SAs, which basically consisted of "things to think about doing in case you don't get an offer." Georgetown also advised checking out a piece that appeared in Massachusetts Lawyer Weekly: Some Words of Advice for Summer Associates of 2009 [PDF].

In case you didn't surf over to it, we'll boil it down for you, along with some of our own advice, after the jump.

On Monday, we offered you a blind item about a major law firm giving "fake work" to its summer associates. Some commenters thought we were criticizing the practice, but if you go back and read our original post, you won't find any criticism. To the contrary, we enumerated the advantages of this policy (which found defenders in the comments as well).

We now bring you an update, based on a number of interesting emails we received. Here's one:

My former firm, Day Berry & Howard [now Day Pitney], did this with first years back in the 80s. Several of us found out we were researching the exact same issue having to do with business trusts. I proposed we do a joint memo and that's what we did. I don't think they did that again.

And here's a second:

Fake-work has been happening for years. I have given it to summers at the two firms I've been at and have practiced this art since 2005.... [T]his practice will greatly increase this year.

It is very easy, especially in areas like tax, where you can give a summer associate a discrete set of facts year after year (sans client names) and see if the summer can get to the answer you already know is right (or find some of the authorities that are directly on point). I actually think it is a GREAT way to test a summer's research and writing ability without having to take as fact the lame "I couldn't find very much on point" excuse. Of course, it is essential that the summer not know you gave him/her fake work until he/she does a spotty job and then you hand them the memo you (or a former summer associate) wrote so that they can see that they should have put a bit more effort in getting the project right before handing it in. In prior years, it was fun to see the sense of dread come across an SA's face if they did, in fact, half-ass it and you caught them in the act (since the SA would likely get an offer anyway). This summer, pulling something like this would probably bring the SA to tears or worse.

I gave three separate fake work projects to summers back when I was at Locke Lord. The partners absolutely knew I was doing it and liked the comparison potential that the practice fostered. The practice was not widespread when I was doing it.

Additional discussion, plus the name of the firm that was the subject of the original blind item, after the jump.

Here's an interesting rumor we've heard. We're a little short on details, and we're trying to chase down additional confirmation. We thought we'd toss it out as a blind item and solicit the missing information from you, our readers.

This is what we're hearing. One large law firm is so hard up for work that it is starting to give some summer associates what we'd call "fake work."

To be sure, much of the work given to summer associates, in any economy, is make-work -- e.g., write a memo to file on a legal issue that will never actually arise in the litigation. But this isn't mere make-work; it's fake-work. Summers are being given assignments for projects that have already been completed. For example, summers are being asked to draft research memos for briefs that have already been filed. And, interestingly enough, multiple summer associates -- but located in different offices of the firm, to reduce the likelihood of their comparing notes -- are being given the same fake-work assignment.

What are the advantages of this approach? After the jump.

Many summers can already see the writing on the wall. It's going to be a no-offer party this fall. Law school career service professionals are trying to prepare their students for the inevitable.

The career services offices at Georgetown University Law Center sent around a very thoughtful letter, on Friday. Summer associates should take heed. Let's get the obvious news out of the way first:

What are we hearing?

I have been speaking with many of our close contacts in law firms across the country to assess what firms are planning in terms of post-graduate offers to their summer associates. Most firms indicate that they are waiting until the latest possible date to finalize their strategy so as to take into account as much market information as possible, but a few themes are emerging:

1. Unlike past years, many firms will not be making offers to all or almost all their summers. I hear of offer rates that range from 80% at the high end to 50% at the low end. Note that there is significant variation from firm to firm and region to region, and all the firms I speak with are trying their best to make offers to as many of their summer associates as possible.

2. Many firms are considering making deferred offers to some or all of their current summer associates to begin work sometime in 2011, and some have already announced that they will do so. Firms are not clear as to what stipend, if any, they will pay deferred associates in the coming year, and what conditions (e.g. working in the public sector) must be met to receive a stipend.

The class of 2009 thought that they were the "lost generation." But would they want to switch places with the class of 2010?

After the jump, more bad news from GULC career services.

* Justice may be blind, but she needs to see your face in Michigan. [True/Slant]

* Lawyers for Allen Stanford, the Texas financier accused of a massive swindle, want Baker Botts off the case. [Reuters]

* Convicted terrorist Jose Padilla can sue John Yoo for the legal memos he wrote at the Justice Department defending torture. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* Renowned legal scholar Lawrence Lessig stars in a new film. Stanford Law is getting the publicity shout-out in the articles about the documentary, but Harvard recently snatched Lessig for its faculty. [DCist]

* Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So hot right now. [Wall Street Journal]

* Is this year's cutthroat BigLaw environment worse for summer associates or for the hiring partners they are stalking? [Fulton County Daily Report]

* Does Obama have big plans for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan? [Chicago Sun-Times]

Don't get too close to any Ivory Tower in your town today. The news that Cravath is leaving the class of 2010 out of work for a year has sent monocles flying as students at top law schools learn a powerful lesson about free market capitalism.

Harvard Law School sent out a letter to all of its rising 3Ls in the wake of the Cravath announcement. It essentially warned them that you can't trade in an HLS degree for food and shelter:

Dear Rising 3Ls:

We hope you are getting off to a great start in your summer jobs. We write to alert you about a situation that may require action on your part. As you know, many law firms deferred the start dates of class of 2009 associates from 2009 to 2010. Without clear indication that the economy will turn around by 2010, some firms are planning ahead and already notifying summer associates from the class of 2010 that their start dates are likely to be deferred until 2011 or later. See, e.g., Cravath and Skadden. Generally firms have been generous in providing fellowships or stipends to the class of 2009 given the surprise to that class, but firms may not provide such options to you in the class of 2010 because you have more advance notice about economic conditions. If you are at a law firm this summer and hope to return after graduation, you should ask yourself now what you might do to fill the 2010-2011 year if necessary. [Emphasis in the original.]

What should the class of 2010 do for post-graduate employment, "if necessary"? Stipends look like they are going to be less generous, so people might actually need to earn some money for a year.

So, what can you do with a law degree once Biglaw decides that they don't want you? I hear law firms in Baghdad are booming right now.

Harvard has its own ideas, after the jump.

The venerable firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore has entered the building, and it's asking up to half of its incoming first-years to take a year off.

Cravath is offering a voluntary deferral option to its incoming associates, according to multiple Above the Law sources (as well as Bloomberg News). If the incoming associates are willing to take a year off, they will receive an $80,000 deferral stipend, health care coverage, and $1,000 a month in loan repayment assistance. This appears to be the top of the deferral stipend market, more generous than both Weil and Latham.

A tipster reports that there are no strings attached to this deal:

[T]hey don't have to do anything but sit on their ass. No public interest, nothing. And they are assured a job in fall 2010.

But wait, weren't the current summers at Cravath right now -- the class of 2010 -- supposed to start in fall 2010?

We detail their fate after the jump.

For the last few months, media outlets covering the legal industry -- present company included -- have predicted lean, mean summers for this year's summer associates.

Well, now you summer associates are ensconced in your Biglaw offices. Welcome! (Again.)

We know that most programs are leaner in terms of the number of summer associates. Firms have brought in fewer SAs, presumably knowing they will have fewer full-time spots to fill. And we know firms have cut back on their meal budgets.

But what about the big events -- the concerts, the booze cruises, the sneak previews of eagerly anticipated movies? Are they generally intact and as indulgent as in summers past?

We want to run a CONTEST -- because we love contests, and because we welcome the opportunity to celebrate old-school Biglaw indulgence. We plan to crown one firm's summer associate event the best of 2009. (And knowing us, we might have a crown of thorns for the worst event as well.)

Please send submissions to us at tips@abovethelaw.com with the entry "SA Event Contest." Please include the firm name / office, date of the event, and a short description. You will be kept anonymous.

We're also curious about the first week(s) of Great Recession summer associate life. Do you really feel McWined and McDined? Tell us in the comments.

Earlier: Summer Associate Event Watch: The Dark Knight at Simpson Thacher

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

ATL-

I'm a summer associate in Texas (3,500 sq. ft., wife, etc) and I drive to work where I park my car in the office's parking lot. My car is a 2005 BMW. Should I be concerned about looking like a jackass?

Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car

Dear Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car,

You should always be concerned about looking like a jackass, whether it's rolling up to work in a Beemer or wearing a fedora at Sunday brunch. In any other year, normal associates might look forward to the summer class arriving; but this year, the summers are viewed as intruders, freshly arrived to snatch associates' jobs out from under them. Despite the ludicrous scavenger hunts and game nights concocted in your honor, make no mistake; you're persona non grata at terra law firma, and your goal this summer should be to be as unobtrusive as possible. Your car should reflect your humility as well as your groundling status at the firm, and a BMW, no matter how ancient, will never do that. You'll need to lease, but what should you get?

Driving up in a car of the Ferrari/Lamborghini/Lotus ilk is obviously out, since you're not Richard Gere from Pretty Woman and this is not a "dream date" with Jillian on the The Bachelorette. Jaguars are for eccentric billionaires, Ford Probes are for high school sleazebags and Mercury Sables are for drug dealers. Since you're in Texas, you may be tempted to trade in your BMW for a pickup truck, but I strenuously advise against this since pickups indicate that spend your free time listening to Toby Keith while patrolling the Mexico border with a rifle and Coonhound named Rusty. Toyota Priuses are for wimps, and minivans are for people who drive carpool or own florist shops. DeLoreans, Pintos, GMs and other cars that are dangerous and/or no longer made are always cool.

When I worked as an intern in Newark, I drove a 1997 teal Toyota Camry with Cobra rims (not kidding). The smooth handling and tape deck made many people very jealous, and when someone stole my front left rim, I learned firsthand the dangers of driving flashy cars. Go with something junky, like a Kia or an Isuzu, but if you don't feel like shelling out the extra cash, your best bet is a Huffy. Get the one with the basket so you can take your laptop home.

Your friend,

Marin

Elie loses his sh*t while parallel parking, after the jump.

The New York Law Journal brings us a distillation of the numbers (subscription) for this year's summer associate classes in New York. We wrote about SA programs back in March, when NALP numbers were first released. As firms deal with the cold water that is the recession, there's been some serious shrinkage of the SA programs.

New York offices appear to be in the coldest waters. Of the top 25 largest firms in the Big Apple, those shrinking their classes greatly outnumber those bringing in greater numbers of 3Ls-to-be. Here are the five firms that have most dramatically slashed the sizes of their summer associate programs:

Many of these names are familiar to those who follow our layoff coverage.

Not every firm has downsized their SA ranks, though. Debevoise & Plimpton went Cookie Monster on this year's 3Ls, increasing the size of its New York summer class by over 50 percent (from 68 summer associates last year to 104 this year). And it's keeping its SAs around for 12 weeks -- which seems generous these days, when 10 weeks is in vogue.

See the other firms with bulked-up programs, after the jump.

At least one summer associate in the Chicago office of Mayer Brown appears to have contracted swine flu (aka the H1N1 virus), according to a firm memo that was circulated within the past hour. In addition, a second associate has been showing symptoms.

Quipped one of the many tipsters who sent this our way: "As though summer associates didn't have it bad enough already this year:" Said a second source: "Rumor is that a lot of people are not feeling well."

The Windy City has been hard hit by swine flu. As Tim Hadac, a spokesman for the Department of Public Health, told the Chicago Tribune, "This virus is spreading everywhere in the city right now." On Sunday, a 22-year-old man -- roughly the age of an average summer associate, maybe a bit younger -- died of swine flu.

A spokesperson for Mayer Brown confirmed the news but did not offer much in the way of additional detail. One of the summer associates had a nasal swab test come back positive for swine flu, but this test is not definitive. According to the spokesperson, doctors have not performed a blood test -- which would be definitive -- because such tests are being reserved for the elderly and the young.

The affected summers and their officemates, who started at the firm just last week, won't be coming into work for the rest of this week. From the memo:

Mayer Brown has been notified that a summer associate in the Chicago Office may have contracted the H1N1 virus. Another summer associate is also showing symptoms of this virus These summer associates are under medical care and will be staying at home. As a precaution, we have instructed the summer associates who share an office with the affected summer associates to remain at home for the balance of the week.

Read the full memo, after the jump.

Last month, we brought you a summer lunch memo featuring the comedic stylings of lawyers from Cleary Gottlieb.

This week, a lunch memo is going around the offices of WilmerHale:

Year in and year out, our Summer Associates tell us that what they remember most is the time they spent with the lawyers of WilmerHale. And there is no better way for each of you to get to know these 38 lawyers-to-be than to take them to lunch and chat them up a little bit.

Look around your floors today and take notice of the new Summer Associates. And yes, those of you on floors 21 and 31 may have to put in a little more effort and look around other floors on your way to meetings. Keep in mind, Summers tend to (a) have full heads of hair, (b) be a touch overdressed on their first day, and (c) have nice WilmerHale paraphernalia that even those of us who have labored here 5, 10, 15 years don't get. Make a point to invite those folks to lunch a few times over the next 10 weeks.

The memo goes on to parody the Boston-area furniture store that famously gave away a lot of merchandise for free when the Boston Red Sox won the world series.

While we at Above the Law appreciate any attempt at levity during these difficult times, some WIlmerHale tipsters are less than impressed:

[O]bviously written by someone who is on the cusp of having a sense of humor not quite there. [It] lacks the risqué-ness of the Cleary memo (e.g. class distinction - "you can go to McDonalds," etc) but is what you get from the most rigid firm in Boston.

Everybody's a critic. And while we admit that the memo is a little bit inside (Boston) baseball, at least WilmerHale is joking. That has got to be better than the lunch memos that came out of Simpson Thacher.

Read the full memo after the jump and see for yourself.

People are already calling the class of 2009 the "lost generation." We've detailed the difficult market facing the class of 2010. But yesterday we received some news out of Morris Manning, an Atlanta-based firm with approximately 175 lawyers, that suggests tough times are ahead for the classes of 2011 and beyond.

Morris Manning managing partner Bob Saudek sent around this firm-wide email:

FYI, the firm has decided not to interview on law school campuses this fall, which of course means that we do not plan to have a formal summer program next summer. This decision was made because we don't know when the economy will pick up, we feel that our first obligation should be to making sure that our existing lawyers are productive rather than committing to bring in a whole class of additional associates, and we believe that when and as we need to hire additional lawyers there are very likely to be a lot of well-qualified experienced lawyers available as well as well-qualified third year law students, since so many firms have contracted significantly and reduced or eliminated their summer programs.

Is this a wise strategy? In a post late last year over at Adam Smith Esq., Bruce McEwen expressed doubts:

[Y]ou cannot introduce a gap into that supply chain. You need to be in the business of continually recruiting new talent, in order to feed the continually moving production line of senior to mid-level to junior staff needed to manage cases and transactions. You cannot, in other words, inflict on your own firm the equivalent of a "lost generation."

So counter-intuitive as it may seem, I recommend continuing to feed the associate pipeline from the start, summer associates and first-year hires, even at the cost of some mid-year enforced "attrition." Aside from what I believe to be sound long-term reasons to continue investing in the firm's future in this way, there are as well both an abstract and a prudential argument for same.

Of course, there is always a counterargument. Let's get into it, plus take a reader poll, after the jump.

Summer associates started at Skadden yesterday, and it doesn't look like the firm hid the ball when it came to talking about market realities. We have news about expected offers and start dates for the class of 2010 -- and it's not even Memorial Day.

At one of the summer associate welcome meetings, summers were told something like "the offers are there, but you have to earn it." At that point, the collective sphincter-tightening among summers in the room made an audible noise. As one summer puts it:

They said the usual bs about how if they brought us in it's cuz they wanna offer us, how we're not competing against each other, there's room for everyone, etc, But what wasn't said is as remarkable as what was said. They didn't point out the 98 percent offer rate the year before, they didn't even ever explicitly say they expect to give most of us offers. They only said that we're all eligible to earn an offer based on merit, as every year. The room got VERY quiet and awkward the whole time the guy was speaking, and other partners felt the need to interject with reassurances throughout.

But other sources have told Above the Law that Skadden does plan on making offers commensurate with previous years. The specific "you have to earn it language" was apparently on a PowerPoint slide -- the same slide that is shown every year. We've heard rumblings that some firms will have summer offer rates of 50% or less, but none of that talk is coming from Skadden. Our understanding is that Skadden fully expects its offer rate to remain unchanged.

So, as long as you can breathe out of your nose instead of your mouth, things should be okay.

But after you get your offer, when can you start? After the jump, we have a clear indication from Skadden.

Earlier today, we welcomed summer associates to Above the Law. It looks like Linklaters had the same idea. Here is today's welcome memo from the firm.

We offer some more "frequently asked questions" after the jump.

Summer associates have started trickling into Biglaw offices around the country, so we at ATL wanted to take a minute (or approximately an hour as that's how long we usually let a post sit at the top of the page) to say, "Welcome!" We hope to see you around these parts often this summer. This is where Biglaw comes for its news, gossip, and water cooler talk.

While we do occasionally cover law school stories, most of our content is aimed at those with JD degrees in hand. So we expect you may not yet be familiar with Above The Law (a.k.a. "ATL"). We like to do what you might call "tabloid journalism." (Please see our tagline at the top of the page.) We also do what you might call "public service journalism." In that light, we encourage our readers to use this opportunity to offer advice to incoming summer associates. What can they do to secure an offer at the end of the summer?

Let's be honest here. Your summers are not going to be as awesome as the summers of past SAs. You've had the bad luck to be diving into Biglaw in the middle of a recession. Expect events to be scaled back in comparison to past years. Expect lunches to be scarcer and cheaper. Expect first year associates to eye you warily.

To help relieve your misery, feel free to send us tips. We can be reached at tips@abovethelaw.com. We like stories that show the scandalous light side of the law. Our tipsters are always kept anonymous.

We love Summer Associate stories. We are the ones who brought the legal profession the tales of river-jumping Aquagirl, the lip-locking Sapphic Summers, and the Partner-headlocking "Randy Savage" SA. We expect that many of you will try to be on your best behavior this summer, knowing that offers will be hard to come by. Over at the WSJ Law Blog, they've got legal consultant Peter Zeughauser predicting doom and gloom for this year's SAs:

And what about the end, Peter? Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

It's not going to be over before the end of the year. I think you're going to see dramatically reduced offers to summer associates at the end of this summer, and dramatically reduced offers for people to come in as summers in 2010. These cuts could be very dramatic, as much as slashed by 90 percent.

With that in mind, if things aren't looking good halfway through the summer, start drinking heavily at firm events. Have fun and let loose. And then send us your stories.

Will BigLaw Slash Hiring by 90 Percent? [WSJ Law Blog]

Junior associates have been expressing concerns to us about the pending arrival of summer associates. One in particular summarizes many of the issues associates seem to be worried about right now:

I have a question that perhaps you can find the answer to by asking questions we are too frightened (hate to admit this) to ask: How are firms like mine [a Vault 10 firm] going to handle Summer Associates, when they have so many first rate first-years who are sitting around hangdog, empty handed, and mentally reaching serious levels of clinical depression?

I know we should be grateful to have salaries, but we are literally wasting away. Not all of us. Some of the 1st years had Partner Mentors as summers who look out for them, are busy themselves and keep them busy. Some like me, and others were not so lucky. I went to a T3 law school and took this job because I was told [my firm] had super smart lawyers, that were also sane, cultured, congenial and humane. That was before the downturn. Now it's every person for himself here.

Come on, buddy; it's not going to be that bad. Summers are going to be writing so many "memos to file" that I'd buy stock in Redweld.

And the "every person for himself" mentality was always there, even before the downturn. Why do you think some associates have partner mentors while others do not? Maybe you can spend the summer learning the political game as it is played at your firm, instead of honing your privilege log skills. Don't worry about summers taking anything from you; worry about taking something from someone else.

Yay, Biglaw life!

But after the jump, we see that our tipster might be inconsolable.