Welcome to my summer blog! Be sure to like and subscribe to my updates as I share what it is like to be a summer associate at WilmerHale in DC. I am excited to be back in DC nearly two years after I left the city to start my 1L year at NYU. I am happy to report that, since I left, the number of great new restaurants, boutique fitness studios, and residents commuting to work via scooter has increased exponentially. In all seriousness, I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to spend the summer at an office handling so many fascinating legal and policy matters. In just the first two weeks, my fellow summer associates and I have already been asked to help out with headline-grabbing litigation, congressional investigations, and pro bono cases pending in the Supreme Court.
During our first two weeks at WilmerHale, my fellow summer associates and I received a crash course on the many, many research tools and workflow management systems that keep the firm running smoothly. We also met a number of wonderful staff members who have a deep knowledge of the resources available at the firm and are eager to assist those of us dealing with thorny research questions or struggling to master unfamiliar technology. It has been reassuring to work in such a supportive environment and see WilmerHale’s commitment to ensuring that everyone at the firm can thrive.
Among the highlights of my time at WilmerHale so far has been meeting my new colleagues. The firm clearly puts a lot of thought into matching summer associates with attorney mentors who share our interests and are invested in our success. Across the DC office, every attorney that I’ve met has been incredibly generous with their time and happy to meet over lunch or coffee to talk about their careers and their practices.
Of course, I have had a wonderful time getting to know my fellow summer associates. I have really appreciated the relatively small size of the summer class here in the DC office, which has enabled us to bond pretty quickly. Our group chat serves as a great source of updates about snack cart sightings and has developed into a secondary market for lunch invitations when scheduling conflicts arise. For our first big event as a summer class, we faced off in an iron-chef style cooking competition. Unfortunately, the judges overlooked the clear star of the evening (Team 1’s delicious breakfast tacos with homemade guac). Even so, the event gave us a great chance to get to know one another in a completely new—if equally high stakes—setting.