To everyone who has been reading along everyday (or some days), thanks for taking this 41 issue journey with me (did you catch the numbering mistake in the middle 😬). Thanks for adding me to your daily routine. And thanks to so many of you who have written in with suggestions, gratitude, and anecdotes about lessons learned.

Honestly, I started SSA last year on a whim and decided fairly haphazardly to do it again this summer. But I am so glad I did. That said, in the rush to get ready for the new school year its time to call it quits for this summer. Plus its August 6 and if I haven’t had a chance to share a piece of advice for this summer, its probably too late now 😉.

What’s next for me? If you want to keep in touch feel free to subscribe to my podcast How I Lawyer (subscribe here) where I interview lawyers from across the profession about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well. We’ve been on a hiatus for a bit but will be start back up later this year. I am also going to continue my “day job” teaching legal practice and writing about the intersection of technology, legal ethics, legal communication, and the legal profession. Best way to follow my work there is on LinkedIn here.

I am also really hoping to continue writing in a newsletter format and have some ideas about how to make that happen. If this is something you’d be interested in hearing more about or discussing more please just reply to this e-mail.

But most of all, I hope you’ll take a minute to think about everything you’ve learned so far this summer. Not just from SSA but from your summer experience. Take it with you. Learn from it. And let it help you figure out where you want to head next. Or, to repeat one of my favorite all-time quotes from Adlai Stevenson II,

When you leave, don’t forget why you came.

Keep standing out and keep in touch,

Jonah

PS. If this newsletter has been helpful to you, I’d appreciate it so much if you let me know by replying to this e-mail. It helps me figure out how to spend my time on it in the future and also helps me create materials to encourage others to subscribe in the future.

Coffee.

That’s how I powered through my early years of legal practice. By the time I was a mid-level associate, I was drinking 4, 5, 6, sometimes even 7 cups a day. Coffee played a lot of roles: it gave me a jolt of energy when I needed it, offered a break in the middle of my billable day, and served as a great excuse to network with future friends and mentors.

But it also wrecked my sleep and gave me daily 4PM headaches. I didn’t make the connection until my doctor pointed it out. Turns out: that was too much coffee. Now I stick to two cups before 10AM, and that’s it.

More importantly, I finally learned how critical sleep is to my performance as a lawyer (and a person). This is something I wish I had understood when I was a summer associate.

As I mentioned last week, one of the biggest shifts during your summer experience is how you manage your time. Unlike law school, where the rhythm is a sprint-and-recover model (finals week → collapse → school break), working in a legal office is a marathon. The work is steady, the learning curve is steep, and showing up every day as your best self is essential.

The never ending treadmill of work is often less pronounced during an internship or summer associate position. But even as a summer, your days may already be full of trainings, meetings, lunches, and the occasional 5PM research assignment. What often gets squeezed out is sleep.

That’s a problem.

Sleep isn’t just about rest. It’s a performance tool. That late-night document review, the early morning partner meeting, or your next assignment will go better—much better—if you’re well-rested. It might feel like you’re proving yourself by staying late, but what actually impresses is consistent, clear, high-quality work.

And you can’t do that if you’re running on fumes.

That’s why prioritizing your sleep is essential. Here’s how to make it work:

1. Set Your Non-Negotiables. Pick a consistent wake-up time (yes, even after events). Identify your minimum sleep need (most people need 7–8 hours). Plan your morning routine before you go to bed and try to keep it consistent. Most of all, know your best work hours and optimize for them (I’m a morning person, so I protect that time)

2. Manage Events Strategically. Find a time every week (Friday afternoon? Sunday night) to decide which projects you’ll work on when, which events you’ll attend, and which events you’ll skip for the next week. Try to find a good balance and be realistic about how many working hours you have a day and a week.

3. When Work Runs Late. Ask about real deadlines—not everything is “ASAP.” A simple question like “When are you looking for a reply—tomorrow COB OK?” is a good way to handle it. And if something lands late in the day, clarify expectations about your bandwidth to get it done. And most of all, use your core office hours well so late nights stay the exception.

4. Don’t Sacrifice Sleep for Show. Your summer isn’t about being the last to leave. It’s about building sustainable habits and delivering excellent work. Sleep is part of that. Your body—and your supervisors—will thank you.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

I’ll be travelling tomorrow and next week will be the last week of Standout Summer Associate. See you Monday for a great last week. - JP

Think about everything you’ve accomplished so far this summer: the people you’ve met, the projects you’ve worked on, and the opportunities you’ve had. I hope it has been a great and memorable summer and I hope you’ve learned a ton.

But let’s be real for a second. Maybe it doesn’t quite feel that way.

Maybe you never got the project you hoped for. Maybe the event you were helping a lawyer prepare for was postponed until after your position ends. Or maybe the projects you completed were successful but did not show the full range of your abilities.

That sometimes happens. I know because it happened to me (more than once).

If that sounds familiar, take a step back. Alongside “What did I accomplish?” ask another question: “What did this experience teach me how to do?”

In other words, what metaskill did you learn?

By metaskill here I mean something broad you learned while completing a specific task. For example, if you hoped to draft an appellate brief but instead worked primarily on a removal petition, ask what that petition taught you that will make you more prepared when the appellate brief comes your way. That is the metaskill.

After all, a postponed hearing can teach you how to prepare for future on-your-feet opportunities. A project that never goes anywhere can teach you how to communicate about uncertainty. And even a routine assignment can teach about a new substantive area of the law but also how to work carefully, manage your time, or ask better questions.

Thinking about the skills you are gaining at a higher level of abstraction is key both emotionally but also to grow as a junior lawyer. After all, the best lawyers do more than accumulate experience, they also extract broad lessons to carry into the next (often very different) assignment.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

At this point in the summer you probably have a number of different tasks that you are focused on completing. Some of them are substantive (e.g. “Draft a memo on defenses to removal in Iowa”), others are interpersonal (e.g. “Schedule lunch with Sam who sits on my floor”), and others don’t relate to your summer job at all (e.g. “Get back to the gym” or “schedule 3L classes”). As a result, I’d be shocked if you are not keeping some kind of “to do list”—and if you aren’t this is your reminder to stop storing your tasks and projects in your brain and to start storing them instead in some sort of external system.

Last year, I listened to Oliver Burkeman’s powerful little book Meditations for Mortals (probably time for a relisten) and he proposed what I think might be an equally powerful tool to start using this summer (I am going to try it myself):

A Done List.

It reminds me a little of the suggestion I made in one of the earliest issues of the newsletter: to track experiences using the “Post-It Method” I introduced earlier this summer. But where the Post-It Method focused on the big stuff—the memorable, resume-worthy moments—a Done List brings the same energy into the everyday.

The idea is dead simple: at the end of each day (or as you go), write down what you actually did. Not what you meant to do. Not what you should have done. Just what you did. Emails sent. Conversations had. Pages written. Coffees completed. Workouts survived.

Even the small things. Especially the small things.

Burkeman’s point is subtle but profound: so much of our anxiety doesn’t come from what we are doing—but from what we think we’re not doing. The to-do list is infinite. The done list is real. That’s the shift.

The to-do list never ends. It can become a monument to ambition but also to guilt.

The done list, by contrast, is a record of reality. It focuses our attention not on how far we have to go, but on how far we’ve already come.

And let’s be honest: that’s usually more impressive than we give ourselves credit for.

This is an especially powerful practice to start right now. As a summer associate, you’re not just being evaluated—you’re evaluating yourself. And if your inner monologue is anything like mine was, it might sound like:

“Was that assignment good enough?”

“Should I have stayed later?”

“Do they think I’m smart?”

“What do they actually mean by ‘own the case’?”

The done list allows you (and forces you) to create a concrete record of all of the things that you’ve already done to answer these questions in ways that help you focus on how far you’ve come even if you have a good distance still to go. In other words, it builds confidence, not from self-congratulation, but from documentation. You’ll start to see the patterns of your own growth. And on the hard days (and there will be a few I promise) you’ll have something honest and solid to look at.

So try it. Start with a simple rule:

At the end of the day, list 5–10 things you did. That’s it.

Use a notebook, your Notes app, a fancy journal, whatever. You don’t have to share it. This is for you. I’ll be experimenting with this technique along with you!

Keep standing out,

Jonah

One of my favorite books on personal development is James Clear’s Atomic Habits. In it, Clear talks about the power of always trying to get 1% better.

1% you say? That doesn’t sound like a whole lot. But actually its massive. It dramatically lowers the stakes on a situation-by-situation basis but over time has the potential to compound in powerful ways.

As Clear explains:

“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them.”

So what is my message? Don’t assume you’ll be perfect the first time. And don’t assume you’ll get drastically better most of the time. Just try to get a little better each time. That way, your legal career can grow through quiet, compounding improvements. Small habits. Tiny changes. Consistent gains.

The Myth of the Summer Blockbuster

Many summers think their job is to deliver a knockout memo, charm a partner, or say something brilliant in a meeting. But law isn’t a summer blockbuster. It’s more like a prestige drama: layered, long-form, character-driven.

And the best characters? They develop. They learn. They refine.

Clear puts it this way:

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”

So don’t obsess over whether that one assignment went perfectly. Ask: Did I improve since the last one? Did I learn something new I can apply next time? Did I add something to my process (a checklist perhaps) so I don’t make the same mistake twice.

How to Actually Get Better

Here’s how you turn this theory into practice:

• Debrief Every Assignment. After each task, take 3 minutes. You don’t need a journal. Just a sticky or a mental note. Ask:

  • What worked?

  • What didn’t?

  • What will I do differently next time?

• Keep a “Lessons” File. Create a document with lessons (or a set of sticky notes like I have proposed before. One insight per line or sticky. By the end of the summer, you’ll have a personalized summer manual you can bring with you into 2L, 3L, or even your first job.

• Ask the Magic Question: “How could I have made this easier for you?”

• Study the Pros. Don’t just *do* the work—*watch* how real lawyers think, write, and speak. How do they organize arguments? Email a client? Introduce themselves at lunch? Copy what works.

The sooner your realize you are not supposed to be perfect (especially at the beginning), the. better. Every redline is a vote of confidence that you can improve. Every comment is an investment. You don’t need to be flawless—you need to show that you’re learning and you need to set up systems to consistently implement what you’ve learned to get better. Again to quote Clear:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Keep standing out,

Jonah

Happy Friday!

When I was in high school, I made a commitment to read my hometown newspaper, The Washington Post, cover to cover every morning. I had my own subscription and I was diligent (almost crazy) about reading the paper everyday. And I am not sorry I was. It helped me learn about the world and shaped the person I am today.

But let’s be real. Things have changed. What we consume, where we consume it, why we consume it, and how we need to consume it is vastly different—and it requires a more intentional approach. Today I want to talk about the importance of building an intentional media diet as a junior lawyer.

What is a media diet, you might ask? It’s the content we consume every day. When most options were limited to newspapers, magazines, books, and radio, it wasn’t hard to “manage” your media diet. The choices were limited and easy to optimize. I even remember as a young lawyer, my firm would circulate printed updates on substantive areas of law—passed physically from lawyer to lawyer (you just had to ask to get on the list).

Today couldn’t be more different. We still have all those sources, but now we also have newsletters, blogs, podcasts, social media, and more. More new content comes out every second than we could possibly consume—even if we wanted to. If we’re not careful, we could spend our whole day consuming content—and not be any better for it (maybe worse).

That’s why I find it helpful to think about media consumption the way we think about food: Be intentional. Focus on your goals and interests. Everything in moderation. This is a great time to start building your media diet—because what you consume shapes who you become. It can make you a better, smarter, more interesting, more informed, and more well-rounded attorney (and person).

1. Decide When and How You’ll Consume Content Before Deciding What. I wish I could eat all day long—but that wouldn’t be good for my body. The same is true for media. Before deciding what to consume, decide how much and when you’ll consume it. It’s easy to let content fill every waking minute—and every pause in your day—but is that how you want to spend your time? Check email and social feeds less often—or check them intentionally and on your terms.

2. Add Some Professional Content to Your Diet. If your media diet is centered on hobbies and personal interests, that’s great. But you’re early in your legal career, and now’s the time to ask: What else can I learn? Who else can I learn from? What are my bosses and clients reading? Start consuming that. Already on social media? Start by following legal professionals and thought leaders. Check out some responses to a post I shared on LinkedIn earlier this week for ideas. Better yet, ask people a few steps ahead of you what they read regularly.

3. Don’t Live in the Media Cycle. The modern media cycle moves at lightning speed. The “big story” of the day is now the “big story” of the moment. Unless the issue directly affects your work, you likely don’t need to hear about it first—or follow the full cycle of coverage. Stay engaged, but don’t chase immediacy.

4. Niche Down. Here’s my spicy take (see I buried it in the middle of the list). You don’t need to read The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal every day. I don’t.
   Instead, build curated set of sources and people I trust—ones who regularly surface what matters most to me. I pick up the rest in passing: conversations, social scrolls, or a TV at a restaurant. This lets me go deeper on topics that matter most to me—professionally and personally—and saves time. Honestly, I am more likely to know about the biggest trend in legal recruiting then about the latest scandal—and I am OK with that!

5. Share Good Stuff and Read What Others Share. It’s noisy out there. When you find the signal, share it. It’s a great way to stay connected (“Hey Professor, I thought of our class discussion when I read this”), and a great way to spark useful conversations. Yes, not everything shared is worthwhile (e.g., your great uncle’s memes), but building a reputation for sharing useful, thoughtful content is a professional asset.

6. Don’t Treat Your Media Diet Like a To-Do List. I’m awful at this, but it’s important. Being plugged in 24/7/365 isn’t a viable strategy for long-term success or satisfaction. We live at a media buffet—and not in a good way. Start now to build a more sustainable relationship with media. Once it becomes routine, it’s exponentially harder to stop.

7. Work Backwards from the Goal. I’ve kind of said this already but I want to be 100% clear: when building a media diet ask yourself, “What am I optimizing for?” If your goal is professional growth, seek out content that deepens your expertise and broadens your awareness in those areas. But that also means not feeling like you need to be an expert in everything the algorithm throws at you.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

TL;dr: Only use generative AI for your summer job in ways that your firm or organization allows.

To be clear, I am a regular user of generative AI tools and think its importance is only going to grow for everyday lawyering. But today, as a summer associate, my advice is pretty simple and pretty dogmatic: ask for permission, not forgiveness.

That was my advice last summer, and it remains my advice now. But the longer answer has become more complicated. More legal workplaces have approved AI tools. More lawyers are experimenting with them. And more summer associates are arriving with experience using AI in law school.

That does not mean every tool is approved, every assignment is appropriate, or every use is interchangeable. “My firm uses AI” is not the same thing as “I may paste this document into any chatbot and ask it to draft my answer.”

Before using AI on a summer assignment, answer five questions:

1. Is this tool approved? Your workplace may permit one internal system and prohibit public tools. A client, court, or individual matter may also have additional restrictions. Do not infer permission from the fact that a tool is available on your phone or that another summer associate uses it. Ask your supervisor or the person responsible for your organization’s AI policy. (NB. My own view is that some firms are being far too restrictive when it comes to generative AI adoption, but that is obvoiusly no my call).

2. What information may I enter? Never put client information, privileged material, confidential work product, personal data, or internal documents into a tool unless your organization has approved both the tool and that particular use. Even an approved system may have limits. (If you want to see my views on what the policies should be you can check out my forthcoming article on client confidentiality and generative AI here.)

3. What job am I asking AI to do? If permitted, AI can help you brainstorm search terms, identify questions, outline an approach, test an explanation, or copyedit a document. Those are tasks where a fast second perspective may help. But AI should not decide what the law is, which facts matter, what advice to give, or what conclusion your supervisor should trust. Those are judgment calls—and developing that judgment is one reason you have a summer job.

4. How will I verify the output? Read every cited case. Check every quotation in the original source. Confirm every factual assertion. Make sure the answer addresses the actual assignment rather than a similar question the tool found easier to answer.

5. Should I disclose how I used it? Your supervisor may want to know that you used an AI tool, what you asked it to do, and how you checked the result. A client or court may require disclosure. Do not make up your own disclosure rule. Determine what your workplace expects, then follow it.

The goal is to become the kind of lawyer who can decide when a tool will improve the work, when it will create unnecessary risk, and what must happen before anyone else relies on the result.

That is not just AI competence. It is professional judgment.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

Depending on your summer program, you may have a few weeks left—or only a few days.

That can create two opposite impulses. One is to coast because the biggest assignments and events seem to be behind you. The other is to panic because there are still people you have not met, projects you have not completed, and experiences you meant to have.

Neither response is especially useful.

Instead, take thirty minutes for a final-weeks reset. Open a blank page, go for a walk, or sit somewhere away from your inbox and ask yourself six questions:

1. What work needs a clean finish? Review every assignment you have received. What is complete? What is waiting for feedback? What remains on your desk? Confirm deadlines and make sure your supervisors know the status. If you will leave before a matter ends, prepare a short handoff so someone else can understand what you did and what happens next.

2. What feedback do I still need? Do not wait for a formal evaluation to discover whether there is something you could improve. Ask a focused question: “What is one thing I could do better on my next assignment?” or “Is there anything I should work on during my remaining time?” Specific questions are easier to answer—and more likely to produce useful advice.

3. Who do I still want to meet? Think about the people whose work interests you, the lawyers who have been kind to you, and the staff members who helped make your summer possible. If you have been meaning to ask someone for coffee, do it now. A calendar invitation sent after your last day is much harder to accept.

4. What should I preserve? Update your brag file, while the details are fresh. Identify a possible writing smaple and ask permission to use it. Save personal contact information for people who have agreed to stay in touch. But do not take client information, privileged material, confidential work product, or anything else you are not permitted to keep.

5. What did I learn about myself? Look beyond whether you received praise or an offer. What work gave you energy? Which people brought out your best? What kind of environment helped you learn? What surprised you? Your answer does not need to determine your entire career. It should simply give you better information for the next decision.

6. Whom do I need to thank? Make a short list now. Thank the people who assigned work, answered questions, invited you to meetings, fixed technology problems, scheduled events, or made the office feel welcoming. Be specific because “thank you for showing me how you prepare a witness” means more than a generic farewell sent to everyone.

Finishing well does not require squeezing a summer’s worth of ambition into its final days. It requires closing loops, paying attention, expressing gratitude, and leaving with a clearer understanding of what you learned.

You still have time. Use it intentionally.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

Today’s issue comes from Gina Nicotera, an associate at Vedder Price. Gina advises clients on employment-related risk, workplace policies, labor relations, and employment litigation.

Here’s Gina:

People are always surprised when I tell them I almost became a biomedical engineer instead of a lawyer.

For most of my life, law school was not part of the plan. In fact, if you had asked my family who was going to become the lawyer, everyone would have pointed to my sister. She did mock trial, loved debate, and seemed destined for the profession.

I was the kid who loved history, writing, foreign languages, and storytelling. Yet somehow, after a teacher convinced me that biomedical engineering was the future, I found myself taking multivariable calculus at UConn feeling utterly lost.

Spoiler alert: engineering was not my future.

Over time, I gravitated back to the subjects I had always enjoyed most—political science, Spanish, history, writing, and eventually international law. I studied abroad in Spain, became fascinated by global policy, and took a class during my senior year that changed everything. A professor encouraged me to take the LSAT, and before long I was headed to law school.

Looking back, the path seems logical. At the time, it felt anything but.

What I once viewed as a collection of wrong turns and unexpected pivots was actually preparing me for the work I do today. It taught me how to communicate clearly, think across disciplines, stay curious, and connect with people. All skills that are central to my practice as a labor and employment lawyer.

I share this because many summer associates feel pressure to have their careers figured out immediately. My experience suggests otherwise.

One of the most useful things you can do this summer is treat every experience as information. Not every assignment, practice area, or opportunity is meant to become your long-term path. Sometimes an experience is valuable because it helps you understand what does not fit. Realizing engineering was not for me was not a setback; it was a course correction.

It is also worth paying attention to what energizes you, not just what you are capable of doing. Most law students can succeed in many different areas of practice. The harder question is where your interests naturally pull you. For me, the common thread was always communication. Long before I became a lawyer, I loved writing, languages, history, and storytelling. Today, one of my favorite parts of practicing employment law is helping clients work through complicated workplace issues in a way that is practical, clear, and human.

Another lesson is to look beyond the work product. As a summer associate, it is easy to focus on producing a strong memo or research assignment. Those skills matter, but so does observing how experienced lawyers interact with clients. The best lawyers do more than provide legal answers. They bring clarity to uncertainty, exercise judgment under pressure, and help clients make difficult decisions with confidence.

Finally, remember that your reputation is already taking shape. You do not need a niche, a personal brand strategy, or a perfectly crafted career story. People notice curiosity, reliability, preparation, follow-through, and professionalism. Those qualities often leave a stronger impression than technical expertise alone.

There is no single path into this profession. Some lawyers know exactly what they want from an early age. Others arrive here after exploring different interests, careers, or academic disciplines. A winding path is not a weakness. Often, it becomes one of your greatest strengths.

As you move through your summer, spend less time worrying about whether you are following the “right” path and more time paying attention to the work, people, and experiences that resonate with you. You may not have the entire journey mapped out yet, but you are learning more about it every day.

Keep standing out,

Gina

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

Programming Note: I’ll be at the national Legal Writing Institute Conference for the rest of the week so I’ll be taking Friday and Monday off of SSA. More to come next week. Now to our regularly scheduled episode:

Something I learned early in my career is that no matter how many compliments or kind words I receive, I tend to fixate on the negative feedback.

As a professor, I can focus on the one negative course review instead of the fifty positive ones. As a young lawyer, I focused on the one typo or mistake instead of the high-quality work product I had created. The reality is that it is hard not to fixate on the negatives.

That is especially true during a summer associate position. You may remember the awkward meeting, the confusing assignment, or the sentence your supervisor redlined. Those moments can start to feel like the whole story of your summer.

They are not.

One way to keep them in proportion is to create a brag file: a running collection of the positive feedback, accomplishments, and moments of progress you receive.

Here is how to use one:

1. Save specific praise. Keep emails, comments, and notes that tell you what you did well. “Nice work” is encouraging, but “your analysis made the issue easy to understand” is also useful information about a strength you should keep developing.

2. Record your progress. Add a short note when you complete a first assignment, learn a new skill, handle a difficult conversation, or make a process easier for the next person. Your file should capture growth, not just compliments.

3. Protect confidentiality. Do not keep client information, privileged material, confidential work product, or anything else you are not permitted to take. If you save a work-related example, make sure it is allowed and fully sanitized. When in doubt, keep a description of what you learned rather than the document itself.

4. Read it when your brain is keeping score unfairly. The brag file is not a way to ignore constructive criticism. Feedback helps you improve. The file simply makes sure that one mistake does not erase every indication that you are learning, contributing, and doing good work.

At the end of the summer, review the file. What strengths show up more than once? What kinds of assignments brought out your best work? What would you like to do more of? Those answers can help you prepare for a performance conversation, update your résumé, ask for a recommendation, or decide what you want next.

And when you leave, take the brag file with you—so long as there is no confidential information in it. Your future self may need the reminder that you are defined by your best qualities, not by your weakest moments.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

I remember the nervous energy: what if they don’t give me an offer. You might have thought that too. (If not, skip this issue 😜).

Let’s be clear: there is a good chance it is just in your head. Don’t stress just because partner walked past without saying hello. The work coordinator has not mentioned return offers. Another summer associate seems busier. Someone received an invitation to a meeting you did not know was happening.

Is that a sign? Probably not. According to NALP’s most recent recruiting data, 97% of 2L summer associates received offers to return to their firms as entry-level associates in 2025. That number was unchanged from the year before.

In other words, at most large law firms, a return offer is the normal outcome. That does not mean you are guaranteed an offer. 97% is not 100%. It is just a national average.

But it does mean that if nobody has expressed concerns about your performance, you probably should not spend the final weeks of your summer inventing them. Like I’ve said before. No news is probably good news.

The reality is that most lawyers are busy. They may not give you a daily grade. They may assume that a short “Thanks, this is helpful” tells you everything you need to know. And they are almost certainly thinking less about that slightly awkward comment you made at lunch three weeks ago than you are.

So how can you distinguish ordinary end-of-summer anxiety from an actual warning sign?

• Look for evidence. If a supervisor has directly told you that your work is missing the mark, take that seriously. If you have received the same criticism repeatedly without showing improvement, take that seriously too. Missed deadlines, unresponsiveness, dishonesty, confidentiality problems, or significant lapses in professional judgment are not imaginary signals.

• But a quiet week is not necessarily a warning. Neither is a heavily edited draft, a busy supervisor, an assignment that went to someone else, or the absence of constant praise. Sometimes work is simply slow. Sometimes the other summer knows more about a particular subject. Sometimes a supervisor edits everything. And sometimes no news really is good news.

• If you remain concerned, do not try to decode facial expressions or compare calendars with the summer associate down the hall. Ask a calm, professional question: “I want to make the most of my remaining time. Is there anything about my performance that I should work on or address before the summer ends?” Then listen to the answer.

• Do not argue with the feedback. Do not explain why the problem was someone else’s fault. Identify what you can still improve, make a plan, and finish the summer well.

And what if the answer you eventually receive is no?

I will not pretend that a no-offer would be painless. It would be disappointing. It might create financial and logistical problems. It could also feel embarrassing, especially when classmates begin announcing their own offers. But it would not be the end of your legal career. Sometimes a no-offer reflects a real performance problem. If so, you need to understand it and learn from it. Sometimes it reflects fit, economics, office politics, or circumstances you cannot see. Either way, ask for a candid explanation, respond professionally, contact your law school’s career office and trusted mentors, and begin figuring out what comes next. One employer’s decision is information. It is not your permanent professional identity. So pay attention to real warning signs, but do not create imaginary ones. Ask for feedback. Address the problems you can address. Finish strong. Accept that you cannot control every decision made in a room you are not in.

If the good news comes, celebrate it. If it does not, regroup and take the next step. Your career will be much longer than one summer—and much bigger than one employer.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

Your summer job is not just a summer job. It is part of the story you will tell when you apply for your next position. And one of the most useful things you can take from it—besides the experience, relationships, and perhaps a job offer—is a strong writing sample.

But you should not wait until your last afternoon to figure this out.

By then, your supervising lawyer may be busy, the document may have disappeared into a larger filing, or you may no longer have easy access to the version that best reflects your own work. So while there is still time, identify a possible writing sample and ask what you need to do to use it appropriately.

Here is a short checklist:

1. Choose something that represents your writing. The longest or most sophisticated project is not necessarily the best choice. Pick a document that is clear, organized, polished, and substantially your own work. A ten-page research memorandum may reveal more about your skills than three paragraphs buried in a forty-page brief written by six people.

2. Ask for permission—not forgiveness. Even if the document was publicly filed, do not assume you can download it and call it your writing sample. Your employer may have rules about work product, client information, attribution, or the use of filed documents. Ask the lawyer who supervised the project or the person responsible for the summer program. A simple question now can avoid a serious confidentiality or professional-judgment problem later.

3. Be accurate about what you wrote. Legal work is collaborative. Your supervisor may have reorganized the argument, added analysis, or rewritten important sections. That does not automatically make the document unusable, but you should describe your contribution accurately. If the final version no longer reflects your writing, ask whether you may preserve an earlier version instead.

4. Redact more than names. Removing the client’s name may not be enough. Facts, dates, deal terms, strategic choices, filenames, comments, tracked changes, and document metadata can all reveal information. Follow your employer’s instructions and ask someone to review the redacted version. Do not make that judgment alone.

5. Explain the document. Add a short cover page that tells the reader what the assignment was, when you wrote it, whether it was edited by someone else, and what steps you took to protect confidential information. Your future reader will not have the context that you do. Give them just enough to understand what they are reading and what part of it reflects your work.

And if you do not yet have a usable sample, there may still be time. Ask whether an upcoming assignment could involve a short memorandum, motion, letter, or other piece of writing that you could eventually use. You are not asking your employer to manufacture an assignment for your résumé. You are giving yourself one more opportunity to practice—and to leave with evidence of what you learned.

Your writing sample does not need to prove that you already write like a partner. It should show that you can think clearly, communicate carefully, and exercise good professional judgment. Securing it the right way demonstrates all three.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

At some point this summer, you may have a day when no one seems to need you.

You are waiting for feedback. The assignment you expected has not arrived. The lawyers you work with are busy, but somehow none of that busyness has made its way to your desk.

This can feel unsettling.

Summer associates are told to be available, enthusiastic, and eager to help. So when work slows down, it is easy to assume you are doing something wrong. You may start refreshing your e-mail, worrying that everyone else is busier, or asking for another project that you do not actually have the time or energy to finish.

Take a breath.

A slow day is not an emergency.

Legal work is cyclical. A quiet afternoon can become a very busy evening. A slow week can be followed by a deadline that consumes the next one. Learning how to use downtime well is part of learning how to build a sustainable legal career.

The key is to avoid both extremes.

Do not disappear into your phone for three hours. But do not perform busyness simply to prove that you are present. Instead, use the space intentionally.

Here are a few good options:

1. Close a Loop. Review your task list and e-mail. Send the follow-up you promised. Organize your notes. Make sure a completed assignment is actually complete. Quiet periods are a good time to eliminate the small open loops that become stressful when work accelerates.

2. Learn Something Useful. Read a recent opinion, client alert, deal announcement, brief, or practice guide connected to the work around you. Do this because curiosity compounds. Thirty focused minutes can help you understand the next assignment faster and ask better questions.

3. Help Someone Else. Ask another summer associate whether they want a second reader, a moot-court opponent, or help checking a citation. This is not about taking over their work. It is about being a useful colleague when you have capacity.

4. Build a Relationship. Invite someone for coffee. Check in with a mentor. Ask a junior lawyer what surprised them during their first year. Some of the most valuable parts of a summer job happen when no billable assignment is competing for your attention.

5. Recover a Little. If the culture and circumstances allow it, take a real lunch. Go for a short walk. Leave at a reasonable hour. Get an extra thirty minutes of sleep. Rest is not a prize you earn only after exhaustion. It is one of the ways you prepare for the next busy period.

Of course, you should remain responsive. And if the quiet continues, it is reasonable to tell the person coordinating your work that you have capacity. But one clear offer is usually enough. You do not need to walk the halls every twenty minutes asking whether anyone has found something for you to do.

The best lawyers are not busy every minute. They learn when to push, when to prepare, when to help, and when to recover. Downtime is where you can begin practicing that judgment.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

Happy Friday!

At this point in the summer, you have probably learned that when a supervisor asks for a “draft,” what they really mean is: send me your best work.

Not perfect work. Not final strategic judgment on every possible issue. Not the version a partner with twenty years of experience would write.

But your best work.

This is not always the most efficient workflow management technique, but it is an expectation in almost every legal workplace I have encountered. A supervisor may call something a draft because they expect to revise it, incorporate it into something else, or use it as a starting point. But that does not mean they are inviting typos, broken citations, formatting mistakes, unfinished sentences, or obvious gaps.

To be fair, as a summer associate or intern, you will not always nail the content, organization, or strategic choices in a legal document. That is part of being new. But you can control whether the document has mindless errors.

This matters because technical errors change how readers experience your work. When a reader sees mistakes on the surface, they start to wonder whether there are mistakes underneath. A typo does not mean your argument is wrong, but it can make the reader less confident in the argument.

That may not be fair in some cosmic sense, but it is real.

The best way to find a typo is still to submit the piece of writing. Ask me sometime about my college senior thesis in the religion department, which included a quote about “profits.” But here are a few techniques that can limit those moments to the absolute minimum.

1. Read the document aloud. I do not know why this works, but it does. Reading aloud forces you to slow down in a way that helps your eye see what is actually on the page instead of what your brain thinks is on the page. You will catch missing words, repeated words, long sentences, and phrases that looked fine on screen but do not actually make sense.

2. Change the format. Print it if you can. If you cannot, change the font, spacing, or screen size. Reading the same document in a different medium makes it much easier to catch mistakes because your brain stops auto-completing the old version.

3. Read in stages. It is almost impossible to catch every problem at the same time. Substance, organization, style, citations, grammar, names, dates, and formatting are different tasks. Read the piece more than once, but more quickly, and give each pass a job.

4. Check the boring things. The boring things are often where mistakes hide. Party names. Court names. Dates. Page numbers. Pin cites. Cross-references. Attachment labels. File names. Subject lines. These details feel mechanical, but they are exactly the details that make a document look careful.

5. Get someone else to read it if you can. For especially important pieces, another set of eyes can help. Of course, you have to be mindful of confidentiality concerns, conflicts, and office rules. Do not send work outside the organization or to someone who should not see it. But if you can ask a fellow summer associate, intern, or teammate who is allowed to see the document, you should.

A draft does not need to be flawless but it should be careful. Careful work tells your supervisor something important: this person understands that their work will be used by someone else.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

By this point in the summer, you have probably collected more information than you realize.

You have worked on assignments. You have sat in meetings. You have watched lawyers talk to clients, negotiate with each other, revise documents, prepare for calls, argue about strategy, or stare quietly at a draft until the answer finally appears.

Some of those experiences may have been exciting. Some may have been boring. Some may have been confusing. That is useful data.

One thing to try to learn this summer is not just what practice area sounds interesting. It is what kind of work gives you energy.

That is a different question.

You might like the idea of litigation but dislike spending long stretches alone researching procedural issues. You might think transactional work sounds abstract but discover that you enjoy helping a deal move from problem to solution. You might assume you want a public-facing practice but find that your best thinking happens in the quiet of a memo. Or you might learn the opposite.

None of that means you need to choose your whole career right now. You do not. But you should start paying attention.

Notice the moments when you lean forward. When does time pass quickly? When do you find yourself asking better questions? When do you leave a meeting wanting to know more? When do you feel tired in a good way?

Also notice the moments that drain you. That does not automatically mean you should avoid that kind of work forever. Every legal job includes tasks that are tedious, stressful, or hard. You are also still at the beginning, which means some work may feel frustrating mostly because you do not yet know how to do it well.

But repeated patterns matter.

If you consistently enjoy talking through a problem with a team, that tells you something. If you consistently like writing the first draft, that tells you something. If you light up when the work connects to business strategy, client counseling, courtroom advocacy, public policy, investigation, negotiation, or teaching someone else what you learned, that tells you something too.

So do a small audit.

At the end of each week, write down three things:

1. What work gave me energy?

2. What work drained me?

3. What do I want to try more of before the summer ends?

Then use the answers.

If something energized you, ask for more of it. If something drained you, ask yourself why. Was it the subject matter? The task? The supervisor? The deadline? The fact that you were still learning? Those are different problems, and they point to different conclusions.

Also look up the responsibility ladder. The work you are doing as a summer associate may not look much like the work lawyers are doing five or ten years into practice. If you dislike cite-checking, that does not necessarily mean you dislike appellate litigation. If you dislike redlining ancillary documents, that does not necessarily mean you dislike deals. Watch what the more senior people are doing before you decide the whole field is not for you.

The goal is not to find a perfect answer. The goal is to become a better observer of your own professional life.

Ultimately, the best thing you can learn from your summer job is what you want to do for the rest of your life. A close second is that you never want to do this particular job again.

Both are valuable. Just make sure you are collecting the right data.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

By this point in the summer, you may be juggling a lot.

Multiple assignments. Different supervisors. Training sessions. Social events. Coffee chats. Emails that need responses. Feedback you are trying to apply. A calendar that somehow fills itself.

That is not a sign that you are doing something wrong. It is a sign that you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

One of the most important lessons you can learn this summer is that not all work is the same. Some tasks are urgent. Some tasks are important. Some are both. And some, if you are honest, are neither.

Learning the difference is a real professional skill.

Urgent work is time-sensitive. It has a deadline, sometimes external and sometimes internal. The client needs an answer. The partner promised a draft. The associate needs your research before a call. Urgent work creates pressure because it demands action now.

Important work may not scream for attention, but it still matters. It is the research memo that will shape the brief. The outline you start early so the final product is better. The feedback you turn into a checklist. The relationship you build before you need help. Important work builds trust and competence over time.

The problem is that urgent work is loud. Important work is often quiet. And loud often wins (at least in my family 😂).

If you only respond to urgency, you may meet deadlines while missing the deeper work that would make you better. You may finish assignments without learning from them. You may look busy without being intentional.

So what do you do?

1. Name the category. When a new task comes in, ask yourself: is this urgent, important, both, or neither? This tiny pause helps you avoid treating every email like a crisis and every long-term assignment like tomorrow’s problem.

2. Clarify real deadlines. Lawyers often use phrases like “soon,” “when you can,” or “not urgent.” Those phrases do not always mean the same thing. Ask: “When would this be most useful to you?” or “Is there a deadline I should work backward from?” That question turns vague pressure into a plan.

3. Break important work into urgent pieces. Big projects get delayed because they do not always create immediate pressure. So create some. If a memo is due Friday, set a Wednesday deadline for a research outline and a Thursday deadline for a rough answer. Smaller deadlines make important work harder to ignore.

4. Put important work on the calendar. If deep work only happens after email, meetings, and quick tasks are finished, it may never happen. Block time for the project that requires real concentration. Treat that block as an appointment with the future version of you who does not want to panic later.

5. Watch your patterns. If you are always scrambling, always reacting, or always surprised by deadlines, that is information. You may need to ask better timing questions, check in earlier, or build more buffer into your work.

This is not about becoming a productivity robot. It is about developing judgment.

Good lawyers know how to respond to the urgent without letting the important disappear. They meet deadlines, but they also make time for the work that improves the final product and their own professional growth.

The goal is not to eliminate urgency. Legal work will always have surprises. The goal is to stop letting urgency make every decision for you.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

One of the biggest shocks when I started as a summer associate was that I had to track my time in six-minute increments.

Six minutes.

Not “I worked on the memo this morning.”

Not “I spent some time on the research assignment.”

Six-minute increments.

Substantively, it felt strange because I was being asked to account not only for the quality of my work, but also for how long it took. If I was too fast, I worried I would look careless. If I was too slow, I worried I would look inefficient. Practically, it felt almost impossible to track every task, every email, every meeting, every quick question, and every detour.

More than once, I found myself reconstructing my time at the end of the day. Or worse, at the end of the week.

Do not do that.

Time tracking is one of those professional habits that feels artificial until you understand why it matters. In many legal workplaces, time entries are not just administrative records. They can affect client bills, matter budgets, staffing decisions, performance evaluations, and the firm’s ability to understand how work actually gets done.

Even if your current summer job does not require billable time, your next legal job might. And even if you never bill a client in six-minute increments, learning to track your time can teach you something useful about how you work.

Here are a few rules.

1. Track in real time if you can. The worst habit is recreating time from memory. Memory rounds. Memory forgets. Memory turns a messy day into a vague guess. However you track time (on paper, in software, in an email to yourself, or in a note on your phone), do it as close to the work as possible.

2. Use the lowest-friction system that works. The best system is the one you will actually use. Some lawyers keep a running notepad. Some use timers. Some enter time directly into the billing system throughout the day. Some make quick notes and clean them up later. Do not make the system precious. Make it usable.

3. Do not write off your own time. Some summer associates try to look efficient by shaving time from entries before submitting them. That is not your job. If something took longer than expected, your supervisor can decide how to handle it. But they cannot make that judgment, or help you improve, if you hide the real number.

4. Do not overbill. This should go without saying, but it is worth saying anyway. Lawyers have a professional obligation to bill accurately. Do not pad your time. Do not double bill. Do not guess upward because the task felt hard. Bad habits start early. So do good ones.

5. Use time as data. Time tracking is not only about billing. It can help you learn when you do your best work, which tasks take longer than expected, when you need help, and whether you actually have capacity to take on something new. It can also help you see what kinds of work energize you and what kinds drain you.

The billable hour has plenty of critics, including me. But whether you love it, hate it, or hope never to see it again, you should learn how to operate inside systems that use it. That means being accurate. Being timely. Being honest. And being curious about what your time is telling you.

Because tracking time is not just about recording what you did.

It is about learning how you work.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

Today’s guest post comes from Allie Levene who is a solo law firm owner and an adjunct professor of law at Wake Forest.

Some people go into law school knowing exactly what they want to do when they graduate. They have a plan, a practice area, maybe even a firm already in mind. I was not some people.

I went into law school knowing one thing: I wanted to use my degree for good. Beyond that, I really didn’t know. I thought it might involve working with children somehow. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

Some people follow a straight, linear path after graduation. Whether that’s at a firm, in government, or in-house, they pick a lane and stay in it. I was not some people. My path was a lot messier than that.

The truth is that a winding career path is way more common than law school makes it seem. And for me, it became one of my biggest strengths.

My first job after graduating law school was in family law. Unlike some of my peers, I didn’t graduate with anything lined up. I felt pressure to take the first offer I got just to pay the bills. I didn’t even last a full year before I needed to change gears. I hated it. But I learned how to deal with difficult people, and I learned what I didn’t want to do.

From there, my path kept winding. I went in-house, where I learned how to balance legal advice with the practical realities of a business. After having my children, I moved to a real estate firm where I could work part-time. From there, I went into insurance defense, which sharpened my legal analysis and argument skills. I then took an in-house role at a nonprofit, which deepened my compliance knowledge and understanding of mission-driven work. I returned to insurance defense at a different firm and eventually took everything I had learned my varied experiences and founded Levene Legal.

What may look like a winding path can actually be a well-rounded foundation for a fulfilling career. I used to see my career as a series of detours. Looking back, it was actually a roadmap, just not the kind they hand you in law school. Here is what I learned along the way.

• You don’t need to have it all figured out. Not in law school, not at graduation, not even ten years in. It’s okay not to know exactly what you want to do. It’s okay to change your mind down the road. Let your path wind. What’s important is finding the work that is meaningful to you.

• Business skills matter. Legal knowledge is essential, but it isn’t the only thing that makes a good lawyer. Understanding how businesses operate, how clients make decisions, how organizations manage money, and how people communicate will make you better at your job.

• Client trust is built through clarity, not jargon. Clients won’t be impressed by how much legal terminology you know. They will be impressed if you can explain their options clearly, translate complex concepts into plain language, and help them feel supported in their decisions. The ability to communicate clearly is what separates good lawyers from great ones.

• Relationships matter more than you realize. Everything revolves around relationships. The people you meet in school, internships, volunteer work, jobs, and community organizations may become future clients, collaborators, mentors, or referral sources. You don’t need to network in a forced or transactional way. Just stay connected in little ways with people you genuinely respect. Congratulate people on their wins or offer help when you can. Those relationships will shape your career in ways you can’t always predict.

For me, the Winding Path became the point. A legal career doesn’t have to be linear to be successful. Every stop on my path taught me something. How different clients think. How different businesses operate. How to communicate with and serve all kinds of people. The goal was never to build a career that looked good on paper. It was to build one that was meaningful and fulfilling.

For students and young lawyers, the takeaway is simple: don’t worry if your path isn’t planned out or linear. Over time, the path may make more sense than it does in the moment. Sometimes the winding path gives you exactly the perspective you need to build something meaningful.

Keep standing out,

Allie

PS. Thanks to Allie for today’s guest post. I’ll be back again tomorrow for more SSA - Jonah.

My law students sometimes express surprise at how fast I respond to e-mail.

My usual answer is: “While you can take the boy out of Big Law, you can’t take Big Law out of the boy.”

I say that because, in my time in private practice, a very high level of responsiveness was drilled into me. And despite my best efforts, I have not fully adjusted in the years since I became a full-time professor.

But many new lawyers and summer associates experience the opposite challenge.

Although today’s students have grown up in the age of e-mail, they have not necessarily grown up treating e-mail as something that needs to be monitored constantly. That creates an expectation mismatch between junior lawyers, senior lawyers, and clients.

Here is the professional reality: lawyers are in a service profession.

Clients expect lawyers to be available when needed. In many practice settings, especially client-heavy or high-stakes ones, clients are paying significant fees for that access. That expectation often flows to the internal team. Senior lawyers may expect junior lawyers to be responsive because the client expects the team to be responsive.

This is not only about e-mail, but e-mail is a big part of it. I wrote earlier this summer about e-mail etiquette. Today I want to name the larger challenge: learning to be responsive while also setting boundaries.

I do not have perfect answers. Most lawyers do not. But I do have a few thoughts.

1. Responsiveness does not mean always on. I am not suggesting you need to drop everything at every ping. That is not healthy, and it is not a sustainable way to do good work. But during the summer, it is worth leaning into the expectation of responsiveness because it helps people trust you and helps you understand the work environment you are entering. If you do not want a job that requires high responsiveness, that is perfectly fine. Just recognize that some practice settings may not be the right fit. The point is not to pretend the expectation does not exist. The point is to learn what it requires and decide whether it matches the life and career you want.

2. Build deliberate habits. As a junior associate, I remember feeling like I could not even go to a movie without checking my phone. To be clear, that was not true. But I did learn that I needed to be more intentional about my availability. I kept my phone close when I was waiting on a client request or team deliverable. I checked e-mail more often than I had as a law student - not constantly, but deliberately. And if I was going to be out of pocket for a stretch, like a wedding weekend, a flight, or even just dinner, I gave my team a heads-up.

3. Respond in ways that create space. If you receive a non-urgent message as you are walking into a restaurant, you may not need to handle the task immediately. But a quick response can still be useful: “Got it. I will take care of this by end of day tomorrow.” That kind of reply shows that you saw the message, understand the next step, and have a plan. It also buys you room to prioritize because silence often creates more anxiety than a realistic timeline.

4. Use this summer to experiment. Responsiveness matters, but unmanaged responsiveness can become debilitating. It can contribute to burnout, resentment, and bad work. The goal is to build the reflex of being connected without treating every message as an emergency. Try different systems. Check e-mail at regular intervals. Ask your supervisor how urgent something is. Notice which practices help you stay available without letting work swallow the rest of your life.

Availability is not a personality trait. It is a professional practice. You can learn it. You can calibrate it. You can get better at it over time. The goal is not to be reachable every second of every day. The goal is to be trusted when it matters.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.

I get it. LinkedIn does not always feel like it is for you. It can be full of overly earnest posts, humblebrags, and people announcing that they are “thrilled” about things they may or may not actually be thrilled about.

But hear me out: this summer is a very good time to become a more intentional LinkedIn user.

Not in a performative way. Not in a #blessed way. In a practical way.

As a summer associate, you are meeting more lawyers in a few weeks than you probably have in the last few years. Fellow summers. Associates. Partners. Recruiters. Trainers. Clients. Professors. Alumni. People in practice areas you might someday want to join. You will not remember all of them. They will not all remember you. LinkedIn helps solve that problem.

Start with the basics. Update your profile with your summer role. Add a professional-looking photo. It does not need to be a formal headshot, but it should look like you meant to choose it. Add a short summary of your interests and make sure your prior experiences are current.

Then connect with people.

Connect with your fellow summers. Connect with associates you meet. Connect with lawyers who lead trainings. Connect with professors, mentors, and classmates from back home. These are people you may want to reconnect with later, and you will not know in advance which connection will matter. That is the point.

You do not have to post right away. You do not have to post ever. But you should start lurking with purpose. Follow people at your firm, in your practice area of interest, and at the intersection of law and whatever else excites you. Like posts when they are useful. Leave thoughtful comments when you have something real to add. Send a short note when someone posts about a case, article, award, or professional milestone.

These are small moves, but small moves matter because professional relationships are often built through repeated, low-pressure points of contact.

If you are comfortable posting, go for it. Share a takeaway from a public panel you attended. Link to a great article you read. Reflect on a skill you are building. Just remember the obvious but important rule: do not share anything confidential, internal, client-specific, or even close to the line. When in doubt, do not post it.

The goal is not to go viral. The goal is to make it easier for people to know what you are interested in, easier for you to keep track of people you meet, and easier to reconnect when there is a reason to reconnect.

I prefer “professional community” to “network” because it sounds less transactional. But whatever you call it, your career will be shaped by the people you meet, help, learn from, and stay connected to.

LinkedIn is one tool for doing that. Use it wisely this summer.

Keep standing out,

Jonah

PS. If you know a law student, summer associate, mentee, or career services office that would benefit from this newsletter, please forward this issue or share the subscribe link. The hardest part of writing something like this is getting it in front of the people who actually need it.