LawWriter's Blog » Law School

Summer Associate Tutor Time | 5 Top Tips to Nail the Offer

Jane Simon — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:43:00 +0000

Ahh, summertime. A time of slow down and disconnect for most law professors. However, I must have an unusually close relationship with my students because I inevitably end up entertaining questions like this from Summer Associate students all Summer:

A partner is hitting on me! What should I do?

I have 2 memos due on Friday and another partner who has a reputation for being an offer killer just gave me an emergency project. What should I do?

I'm supposed to write a brief on informed consent, and I have no idea what that is. Help me Professor Simon!

These questions always take me back to my days as a Summer Associate at a big Denver firm where I saw numerous fellow Summers making blunder after blunder on their way to a no offer Summer. One Summer Associate blew off the end of the Summer shin dig at the big partner's Cherry Creek mansion to fly to San Diego to attend her boyfriend's firm's end of Summer party instead. Huh? Another Summer Associate feigned illness because his memo was due and he attended the Joe Jackson concert at Red Rocks the night before instead of finishing the assignment. Doh!

That is why today I offer Summer Associates all over the world this bit of advice:

1. First and foremost, you must do great work. This cannot be emphasized enough. Your offer for permanent employment starts and ends here. No matter how charming you are or how many asses you kiss, I am sorry to tell you that you will never receive an offer of full-time employment if your work is sub-par. The competition for these jobs is fierce, so you must fully understand the project, research the hell out of it (without spending too much of the client's money on Westlaw or Lexis), and present a beautifully written product. If you do not do this, you will not receive an offer.

2. Closely related to # 1 is the fact that, in order to do great work, you must understand the nature of the beast, and this is where most Summer associates fail. You must understand exactly what the partner is asking you to do. You have to ask questions, because most partners often assume that law students have much greater knowledge and experience than they actually have. They forget that you have had a total of 4 semesters of law school and may never ever have had a class on Securities Regulation, the actual assignment you are being asked to give an opinion on. It's up to you to figure it out.

3. Attend all Summer Associates social events that you are invited to. Do not let work interfere with these social commitments even if there is a looming deadline. Find a way to make it happen. Believe me, the partners are evaluating you as much on this level as they are on the work level. They are asking themselves: Is this a person who has the social skills to attract business and who can entertain clients? This is a skill that is so important because there are a lot of legal minds who can do the work. The greatest skill set is doing great work but also having a great personality so that clients will want you to do their work, and that is what partners are evaluating during these social outings.

4. You must get to know at least one influential partner, closely. When decision time comes in the board room, you will need someone to go to bat for you.

5. Don''t be a whiner. This is a job. If you haven't figured it out yet, the practice of law is difficult, let's face it. Part of the rigor of law school, the Summer Associate program, and the bar exam is to weed out those who do not handle stress well. Those who can manage stress well will reap great rewards.

These five tips will help all Summer Associates who follow them. But if you think you need someone to personally guide you through your Summer program — if you think you need more focused, customized, personalized help and feedback to get where you need to be to get the offer from the law firm you're visiting this Summer — well, luckily, that is what I do during my Summer. I love to help students during this transition period because my experience uniquely positions me to help you start doing many of the things you probably don't even know you should be doing.

If this is you, I invite you to have a look though all the experience I believe has uniquely prepared me in my role this Summer as your guide. If you're ready to make sure you're doing everything you can to get the offer you want, e-mail me or call me at (312) 321-6477. I only take a limited number of Summer Associates I think that I might be able to help, so let's see if we can partner to get you the offer.

Twitter Law U Gameday: Where’s the Band? > The Bad and The Ugly

Jane Simon — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:26:27 +0000

This is the final post in the series, Twitter Law U Gameday: Where's the Band? So far, we have examined what law schools are on Twitter http://blog.lawwriter.com/2010/05/ , why all law schools need to have a Twitter presence http://blog.lawwriter.com/2010/06/, and the law schools that are doing a marvelous job http://blog.lawwriter.com/2010/06/.

This post examines the law schools that really need a lot of help in implementing their Twitter campaign. Notice I didn't call it "Twitter strategy" because "strategy", according to Webster's Dictionary, implies a "plan of action designed to achieve a major or overall aim." That these schools lack a plan is evident. These schools think that because they have signed up for Twitter, their job is done. Their comprehensive social media strategy consists of signing up and sending out a few tweets every now and then.

Instead, a comprehensive social media strategy should be a well-thought out plan orchestrated to fire on all cylinders. The plan must take into account who the target audience is, different ways to reach that target audience, strategies to attract new audiences, and the accounts should be updated almost daily. To see the difference between the Good, and the Bad and the Ugly, compare the Twitter accounts of the schools listed on my previous post at http://blog.lawwriter.com/2010/06/ with the schools listed below. It's a no brainer.

The following schools, while valiant for trying, have failed to make the grade and should devote the necessary resources toward developing a social media strategy:

No News is Good News

drakelaw 0 Tweets

BoydSchoolofLaw 0 Tweets

First Impressions are the Most Lasting

Can't you tell from their Twitter handles what law schools these are? Of course interested people will be able to find these schools on Twitter:

875Summit William Mitchell College of Law

LawandHistory Massachusetts School of Law

FaulknerLaw Jones School of Law

dpulaw DePaul Law School. Why not choose DePaulLaw?

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

St.ThomasLawMiam They tweet once every 6 months or so.

FaulknerLaw Tweets are protected because they don't want anyone to see that which should be made public.

Alphabet Soup

auwcl American University College of Law

CUALaw Catholic University Columbus School of Law

CWRU_Law Case Western

So, that's the end of the series, Twitter Law U Gameday: Where's the Band? The great news is that more law schools than ever have joined Twitter and other forms of social media. A few schools have really have figured out a great strategy. UChicagoLaw's "Tweet Chicago", the Snapshot of the Law School, has left an indelible impression on me. These schools will be the ones that benefit by having a better pool of admissions candidates and more alumni gift-giving because they are getting their message out. Hopefully, the schools that aren't on social media, as well as the ones that are on it in name only, will wise up lest they miss the social media stream (which is now a tidal wave) and fall even further behind.

Twitter Law U Gameday: Where’s the Band? > The Good

Jane Simon — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:00:06 +0000

This is the third post in the series, Twitter Law U Gameday: Where's the Band? So far, we have examined what law schools are on Twitter http://blog.lawwriter.com/2010/05/ and why all law schools need to have aTwitter presence http://blog.lawwriter.com/2010/06/.

Today, we give credit to those schools who really get it. A lot of schools think it's enough just to have a Twitter and Facebook account–that's their comprehensive social media strategy. Then they can go back to their constituents and report that they are on social media, and their job is done. They are sorely mistaken.

A comprehensive social media strategy is a well-thought out plan orchestrated to fire on all cylinders. The plan must take into account who the target audience is, different ways to reach that target audience, strategies to attract new audiences, and the accounts should be updated almost daily.

The following schools have made the grade and deserve their just recognition:

All Roads Lead to Rome Award

These schools really get social media. They have several different social media accounts designed to reach their target audiences in many different forms:

UVALaw is on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and has its own YouTube channel

Harvard_Law is on Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, and has the following Twitter accounts: the law school, class of 2010, registrar, international legal studies, housing and the library. Yes, 6 Twitter accounts in all for the law school.

MULaw is on all the usual suspects, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, and it also has a faculty blog. More law schools definitely need to get their faculty involved with blogging.

Pied Piper Award

If you tweet it, they will come:

Harvard_Law 7,078 followers

UChicagoLaw 2,871 followers

UVALaw 1,698 followers

UMichLaw 1,465 followers

Go the Extra Mile Award

These schools are constantly bombarding their followers with the school news:

WidenerLaw 3588 tweets

UChicagoLaw 2297 tweets

Harvard_Law 1989 tweets

First Impressions are the Most Lasting Award

These schools have great descriptive Twitter handles, not to be confused with any other school:

UTexasLaw

IUMauerLaw

IowaLawSchool

StanfordLaw

UChicagoLaw

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover Award

These schools don't quite understand branding, but they are doing a decent job tweeting:

sjquinney Huh? University of Utah's law school, of course.

MULaw Montana University Law? Nope. Maryland, perhaps? Nope, it's Marquette.

dpulaw Of course, DePaul Law School

Master of the Retweet Award

These schools have mastered the art of retweeting, something so many schools seem afraid of:

AlbanyLaw

ChicagoKentLaw

So, that's The Good. Our next and final post will reveal The Bad and The Ugly.

Twitter Law U Gameday: Where’s the Band? > Why Law Schools Need To Jump Into The Stream

Jane Simon — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:02:34 +0000

This is the second post in a four-part series: Twitter Law U Gameday: Where's the Band? This post highlights why law schools need to have a Twitter presence.

When I talk to law schools about jumping into the Twitter stream, the most common protest I get is “but we have a website, isn’t that enough?” The answer is NO, and here is why:

“A website, while a valuable informational tool, is viewed in today’s world as static, in contrast to the “real-time” communication stream of Twitter. Twitter doesn’t replace your existing information resources, such as newsletters and websites—it is used in conjunction with them. Twitter gets your information out to the public in a direct and immediate manner. A law school’s website is often updated without anyone even knowing about it. With Twitter, the school can Tweet about the content as soon as it’s updated on the website, thus reaching a vast audience and immediately letting them know about the new content.” Jump Into The Stream, www.Techcrunch.com, May 17, 2009.

So, the greatest value of Twitter is the immediacy of the message delivery—it streams live in real time. The immediacy of the message is so great that Harvard Law School even used it on February 10 of this year to update snow predictions for its students and faculty! RT: Boston Tweet: Boston has downgraded the snowstorm to an advisory with less than 6" of accumulation – the snow emergency ends at 6pm.

Law schools should use Twitter daily to promote their brand name, expertise and knowledge. Law schools can use Twitter to do everything from announcing press releases and awards, to messaging existing students, to recruiting new students and promoting alumni relations. For example, the University of Chicago Law School had this recent tweet: color:#262626">Alumni News: Alan Meese '89 Receives William & Mary's Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence

The value of Twitter is keeping the school’s brand name in front of students, potential students and alumni every day. For a law school, keeping the name of the school in front of a student who has applied to law schools and consistently bombarding him or her with news of great happenings on campus is invaluable in influencing that student to attend that school. Nobody is perhaps doing a better job of this than Widener Law School with 3588 tweets, or University of Chicago Law School with 2,297 tweets, It is also a useful tool to persuade alumni to make donations for the same reason.

Yet another advantage of Twitter is so schools can control their own content and message. The school is the author of the Tweets and can control the message about the school that it wants delivered. Moreover, if a negative message about the school is distributed by a disgruntled student, for example, the school will have a direct and immediate method to counter-attack the student’s negative message on Twitter.

Finally, the competition is already using Twitter effectively to target new law students and to service their existing students and alumni. The University of Virgina Law School, for example, demonstrates its social media prowess by not only having a Twitter account, but also a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Linkedin account. For many Generation Y students and alums who are on-line constantly and don’t respond to traditional methods of communication, that will be an important consideration in deciding which law school to attend and which donations to make.

So, kudos to the law schools who have joined Twitter and, in the process, created their own personalized news magazine. To the rest of you, what in the world are you waiting for?

Twitter Law U Gameday: Where’s the Band? > The Trend Continues as More Law Schools Jump into the Twitter Stream

Jane Simon — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:34:51 +0000

I'm on a personal mission to convert law schools from Twitter apologists into Twitter disciples. The good news is that since @Rex7 on the Social Media Law Student Blog last compiled the list of law schools on Twitter in February, 2009, 35 law schools have joined Planet Twitter. While that is significant progress, some law schools still refuse to see the light.

This is the first post in a four-part series: Twitter Law U: Where's the Band? This post delivers a list of the law schools who have jumped into the Twitter stream. Post #2 in the series will highlight why law schools need to have a Twitter presence. Post #3 will hand out awards to the law schools who are rocking the Twitter world and explain why. Finally, Post #4 will point out the law schools on Twitter who, although they at least have an account, are encountering the fail whale and could use some Twitter coaching.

Today, with the help of @ Rex7 and @LawSchoolFacts, I have compiled an updated alphabetical list of all U. S. law schools on Twitter. This is a list of only official law school Twitter accounts; it doesn't include accounts affiliated with law schools such as admissions, law journals, law libraries, law professors, student feeds, alumni or unofficial accounts (i.e., see @ FSUCollegeofLaw http://twitter.com/FSUCollegeofLaw where the unofficial site obviously created by someone other than the law school brags about making the list of top party law schools in the nation). By the way, Florida State is # 4 best party school. I knew you were wondering. So, here we go:

Albany Law School –http://twitter.com/AlbanyLaw

American University Washington College of Law – http://twitter.com/auwcl  

Ave Maria Law School – http://twitter.com/AveMariaLaw

Barry Law School – http://twitter.com/BarryLawSchool

Baylor Law School – http://twitter.com/BaylorLawSchool 

Boston College Law – http://twitter.com/BCLAW

Boston University School of Law – http://twitter.com/BU_Law

Boyd School of Law – http://twitter.com/BoydSchoolofLaw

Brooklyn Law School – http://twitter.com/BLSIT 

California Western School of Law – http://twitter.com/CWSL_news 

Cardozo School of Law – http://twitter.com/cardozoLaw 

Case Western Reserve Univ. School of Law – http://twitter.com/CWRU_Law 