I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend. Although this is my second week as a summer associate at Bingham McCutchen, I along with 600 other people saw our new office space for the first time today. This is because after two decades at 150 Federal Street, Bingham has moved across the street to accommodate the expanding business. It is a truly logistical marvel to pack, move, and set up everything from furniture to files to wall paintings for over 600 employees all during the memorial weekend. What is even more impressive is how functional everyone was today. They just all showed up for work at the new office and conducted business as usual. It made me appreciate that it's not just the lawyers who make this large law firm work - it's also the moving team, the IT people, the support staff, and of course the paralegals and legal secretaries. In fact, every attorney at Bingham is supported by two employees.

So I arrived at my office on the 30th floor of One Federal Street this morning and was immediately taken back by the amazing view of East Boston I had right behind my chair. There was a nice welcome package waiting for me on my desk explaining to me where everything was located complete with a tin of customized M&Ms. The best part has to be the fact my name was imprinted on the glass wall outside of my office. All this work enabled a extremely smooth and functional transition and I was up and running by 9:30AM. I'm looking forward to getting my first two assignments from two different practice areas later today. It's so exciting that we get to put our attorney hats on for 12 weeks and see the world from that perspective.

Posted by Wen at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sorry I have been MIA. As always, things got really busy during exam week, and I have not gotten a chance to update you since my stress-filled entry from two weeks ago. Well, I have officially survived the second year of law school. I thought it would be fun to share with you one of my favorite rituals in law school - the end-of-the-quarter purge. I finished my last exam on Friday exactly at 1:02 PM. I pass in my exam answer and head straight to the lockers. I take everything out of my locker and make three piles: 1) things that I never need / want to see again and have little resale value (this pile goes to the huge blue recycle bin), 2) things that retain sufficient resale value to pay for my victory lunch with fellow law students (this pile gets sold to the bookstore / half.com), 3) things that I want to have by my bed side when I go to sleep (I’m a code lover so that means the Uniform Commercial Code and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). As I take my trusty combination lock out and double check for anything left behind, I exhale a huge sigh of relief. It is done. All that stress, all those late nights, and all those pages of outline all lead to this singular moment when I get to clean out my locker. It is one of the best feelings in the world. I go to the bookstore and sell one of my casebooks for almost seventy dollars. Satisfied with my lunch money, I head to Uno’s where my fellow law students have been congregating for a while and I say to myself let the celebration / commiseration begin.

Posted by Wen at 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I won’t lie – law school has been very stressful this week. My law school schedule has been extended to 9AM – 10PM and I have been surviving on very unhealthy subs and burritos from various restaurants on Huntington Avenue. The countdown clock in my head keeps ticking while I desperately try to figure out how to best allocate my time. I try very carefully to avoid most social activities because no normal person wants to be around law students during final exam time. My family and boyfriend, unfortunately, do not get that protection. For the record, I have two in-class finals and two take-home exams, which most upper years will tell you is a pretty decent set up compared to all four in-class closed book exams during the first year. But as I am finding out, exam period will always be stressful regardless of format and volume. The more optimistic side of me actually, just for a little bit, enjoys all this pressure because I know it will be such a great relief and accomplishment come May 16th. I think a lot of the horror stories people tell about law school probably arise from this time of the year. So I am here to tell you that yes, law school will get stressful but keep in mind that it is limited to a specific time frame and as they say, if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger.

Posted by Wen at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)