Being a first-year corporate associate

Part of the reason I haven't felt inspired to post lately is that I am now an employee. My days don't vary that much and I'm wary about my blog being discovered and scrutinized. But I remember being eager to hear what being a junior corporate lawyer is really like.

Here's what it's like: I spend my days drafting agreements and consents, explaining things to people over the phone, and looking at spreadsheets and trying to figure out where all the numbers come from. A good chunk of the time, I'm doing something I have never done before, which can be anxiety-inducing when it's something with potential consequences like a securities filing. Sometimes I have three different people looking at what I produce, all of them giving me conflicting instructions. Sometimes I wish I could get someone to look at what I'm doing. I sit around for half the afternoon and just as I'm contemplating going home, I start getting phone calls with assignments that have to get done by the end of the day. (The end of the day really means the end, as in, when I'm too tired to stay awake any longer.) I do a fair amount of pro bono work with nonprofits, lots of venture capital financings of private companies, and the occasional random health care / FDA / hedge fund assignment. Like all the other associates, I worry about job security and whether I'm contributing anything useful. I like my job most when I'm interacting directly with a client (and actually know what I'm talking about) or when I can see the big picture of helping a nonprofit get tax-exempt status or helping a biotech client raise enough money to get through its next round of clinical trials. I like my job least when I'm feeling isolated in my office, needing guidance but not being able to find anyone to talk to me. I feel like there are so many different areas to learn about that it will take me years and years to get any real expertise. At the same time, I know there are documents I can draft in half an hour now that would have taken me three hours a few months ago.

It doesn't sound terribly exciting, and when I read PBB I feel like I should be doing something with a bigger impact, like maybe practicing corporate law isn't fulfilling my true lawyerly potential. I do help people. But not, for the most part, people who wouldn't otherwise be helped, and not in such an immediate way. Anyway, I am turning my altruistic inclinations in other directions for now, and I like the job so far.