One of the most delicate dances performed by every summer associate is the “try to never pay for one single morsel of food that crosses your lips between your starting date and the last day of work” dance. Apparently, part of convincing young law students that working at a law firm is fun is achieved by plying them with fancy food from expensive restaurants in the city that they would never be able to afford on their own. In fact, associates at my firm make jokes about the “Law Firm Fifteen,” a la freshman fifteen, which is really not a funny joke to tell a 27-year-old whose metabolism just isn’t what it used to be anymore.

The other summer associates should get gold medals in lunch. Every single day they let it slip that they have lunch with this associate or that partner set up at Swanky Hip Restaurant. Every day I panic a little, because (a) I don’t actually want a three-course lunch most days and maybe is there some associate out there who just wants to get a light salad and maybe sit in the park for half an hour enjoying the sunshine? and (b) holy crap I am bad at approaching near-strangers and asking them if they’d like to take me to lunch. And pay for it.

Which is why I was so excited yesterday to be invited, along with all the summers, to a charity lunch at which my firm had bought a table. This was going to be great! I didn’t have to do the awkward “hey, I’m new, please take me to lunch” spiel AND it was for a charity! One that actually does really kickass work! Huzzah! This lunch was attended by one partner, one associate, and six summer associates. (Apparently real working lawyers are too busy to be bothered with charity luncheons, because every single table in the spot had a similar breakdown- one or two full-time employees chaperoning a herd of summer associates. I saw so many people I know from school that it was like a freaking class reunion.)

The food at this lunch was actually pretty good (though I definitely heard one summer from another firm mumbling about how “this stuff sucks compared to sushi wabi,”) and the speeches were interesting and entirely partisan (nothing is more fun than putting a room full of largely conservative corporate lawyers together with a few dedicated public interest people set on calling the current administration to the carpet. Good times!) In fact, I was having a great time- lunch was easy, not stressful, the topic was interesting, they even had a vegetarian option- until dessert came. We had to pass around little plates of miniature lemon meringue tarts, and man I must have had one diet coke too many or something because I became Pseudostoops the Incredible Butterfingered Woman and managed to (a) grab a tart in such a way that it exploded onto my plate, and a little onto my lap, (b) knock my water glass over as I tried to pass the plate to the partner sitting next to me and (c) (my favorite part) pass the plate in such a way that the meringue-encrusted tongs became a sort of projectile that I watched, in slow motion, fly directly into the partner’s lap, splattering his suit jacket and pants with meringue.

Needless to say, today I plan on going to Subway for a sandwich. By myself.

I survived corporate fin-ants. It seems I even did an okay job, as evidenced by the fact that I wasn’t immediately called into the assigning partner’s office for an “editing discussion” as soon as I turned it in. I have also been given a litigation project- sort of. The group for whom I am doing the litigation project? Corporate fin-ants. Someone up there is laughing.

Summer associates at law firms get their own offices, (and their own secretaries- I could write a novella about how weird it is to have a secretary, or have someone say to me “ask your secretary to do that”) with a window and everything. From my office I can even see the shiny bean. And I believe I’ve already mentioned the embarassment of riches in office supplies. It’s pretty cool. But I hadn’t counted on it being so damn lonely. Last year, when I was working in public interest, all the interns worked in what we came to affectionately call the “intern corral”- a hallway about three feet wide lined on both sides with computers. There were 8 of us working in a space smaller than my current desk. It was near-constant hillarity in there, and I made good friends with all the other interns (except for the evangelical vegan), and we’d go out drinking after work, and go to music festivals….Sigh.

When you have your own office, and when that office is a 5 minute walk from the next-closest summer associate office, and when one of the other summer associates looks like Winnie Cooper (EXACTLY LIKE HER) and wears a ring set with a diamond the size of a gobstopper (well, okay, that’s not really part of the problem but I thought you should know about it because she looks EXACTLY LIKE WINNIE COOPER AND IT’S KIND OF FREAKING ME OUT) it’s hard to get to know people, or to have any human contact. You spend a lot of time quietly reading and quietly drafting memos and quietly going insane.

It gets better as you get more experienced, I think. Partners, for example, go to a lot of meetings, talk to clients on the phone, and get vacation days. Who knows- maybe this is part of the reason young lawyers are drawn to corporate practice, because transactional lawyers seem to spend most of their day on the phone, when they aren’t reading urinal contracts. But for young litigation associates, a lot of the work seems to be wading through mountains of paper, reading case law, and writing, preparing for trials that will probably never happen because when the parties realize how insanely expensive high-stakes corporate litigation is their incentive to settle may increase dramatically. So maybe it would get better if I stuck with corporate law for a decade, but for now? For now I would kill to have a day back in the intern corral.

I was tempted to do a Twelve-Days of Christmas-type rundown of my first 12 days at a law firm (“on your second day at a law firm, you’ll go to a “required” dinner where the associates will buy you two rounds of “required” Patron shots in addition to the 3 rounds of margaritas you’ve already ordered….” sing along now!) but I thought that might get tiresome.

So instead, I will regale you with my tales of woe (woe is becoming kind of a theme around here, isn’t it?) in corporate finance.

Here’s how I know I am not cut out for corporate finance work: I can’t even say it right. I say it “fine-ance” with a long i , which makes a lot of sense when you’re thinking about things like “financial aid” (long i) and “refinancing your loans” (long i). People who practice in corporate finance say it “fin-ants.” Short i. Said very quickly, with an emphasis on the “ants.” Which pretty much only makes sense if you’re thinking of the word “financier” (short i and silly french flourish at the end.) I, obviously, am in the wrong frame of mind for this practice, since even typing the word “financier” makes me laugh at how far outside my league I am here.

So yesterday I get my first assignment, and it’s in corporate fin-ants, and it’s a 50-odd page asset purchase agreement, and I’m supposed to look at it and “identify which elements are particularly pro-seller and which elements deviate from the norm for this kind of transaction, with your take on why we might see those deviations in this agreement.”

Shit.

I tentatively interjected: “um, I haven’t taken secured transactions, so it’s going to be kind of hard for me to identify things that deviate from the norm when, you know, I don’t know what the norm is. Sir.”

“Oh. Have you taken bankruptcy?”
“no.”
“Securities?”
“no”
“Real Estate Transactions?”
“no”
“Contracts?”
“Yes! It was a first year course! I took that!” (and got one of my weaker law school grades, but I didn’t volunteer that part.)

“Well, okay, good! Um, this is not really like anything you’d see in contracts class except, you know, its a kind of contract. Have a memo on my desk by the end of tomorrow.”

Let me spare you the suspense: reading a 50-odd page contract where one urinal maker wants to buy another urinal maker (you can’t make this stuff up!) is so. awesomely. boring. Holy crap its boring. Sunset provisions on reps and warranties? Boring. Indemnification clauses? Boring. Due dilligence? Oh dear god.

So, here’s hoping I get a litigation assignment next!