A Day in The Life of a Varnum Summer Associate

As a summer associate at Varnum, I am finding that my days can be as varied as I want them to be. Yesterday, I woke up early to get into work and finish a memo on nonprofit dissolution before noon so I could attend a deposition that afternoon.

After a tasty lunch with another summer associate and two partners at Bistro Vella Vita, I observed my very first deposition. During the deposition, I was captivated by the partner's ability to circle from seemingly mundane inquiries into finely tuned questions eliciting information required for our case. By the end of the deposition, I was invigorated by the prospect of conducting a deposition of my own some day.

Today, I decided to come in closer to 9:00 and complete some research on a project involving the analysis of a corporate structure and potential liabilities. To a budding litigator such as myself, there are few more exciting tasks than putting one’s recently honed skills of issue spotting to actual, practical use.

Around 11:45, I noticed the lunch hour was approaching, and I remembered that I had a scheduled lunch with my associate mentor. We have had several lunches to discuss the nature and amount of projects I am receiving, whether I am attending as many out-of-office events as I would like, and generally how my summer is progressing. Today we will be going to lunch at the Penn Club and I plan to order the infamous Penn Club turtle soup.

After lunch, I met with a partner who asked me to draft my very first motion for summary disposition. After a few minutes of briefing me on the background of the case, he handed me a binder of all the litigation documents and the case file. He told me to stop by if I had any questions, and said to let him know where I was with the motion in about a week. I left his office, excited to begin the project.

A few hours later, the firm treated the summer associates and some of the attorneys to dinner at San Chez and a Tom Petty concert. I enjoyed both the tapas and sitting in a suite at the Van Andel Arena. It was a perfect ending to an exciting day.