Among the usual suspects of “white-shoe” law firms, A&K had a distinctive reputation for taking on high-profile cases with newsworthy clients, most of whom were titans of industry, from studio heads to college dropouts turned app inventors. The corporate lawyers closed deals that single-handedly moved Wall Street. I’d been warned by more than a few of my professors that even though it was one of the strongestchoices in terms of reputation, the culture was cutthroat, and the hours were brutal.
The elevator opened to a receptionist who saw me coming a mile away. I stepped into the firm lobby, which was starkly decorated with splashes of expensive artwork and framed accolades.
“Samantha?”
Susan Klein, the firm’s head of HR, was nearly six feet tall in heels, with short hair styled the way Demi Moore made famous inGhost. Height aside, she had the presence of a woman who’d spent decades watching associates come and go or rise to partnership. She started her career overseeing the secretarial pool and was running HR twenty years later.
“Welcome. I’ll show you to your office,” she said crisply, guiding me back to the elevator. She put on tortoiseshell readers and looked down at the folder in her hand.
“Your employment file from last summer lists you as Samantha Walker.” She glanced at me as the elevator door opened. “Congratulations, then.”
I swallowed my pride and stepped confidently into the elevator. “Thank you.”
I was prepared for everything except explaining my new last name.
We stopped in front of a door at the end of a long hallway. She paused to knock lightly, which confused me until I saw that the office had been converted into a shared space with two desks and a small partition in between.
“Charlie Bronstein, Samantha DeFiore. She starts today.”
Susan pointed to my side of the office as she explained the firm had recently poached sixty partners and associates from a competing firm, and now first-year associates needed to double up.
He jumped up and shook my hand. “I heard you were starting today,” he said with an approachable smile.
“Charlie was with us as a paralegal during law school and is one of the few to be offered an associate position. So I’m sure he’ll be helpful in getting you up to speed.”
She handed me a sealed manila envelope. “Here’s the orientation schedule for your first week. If you have questions, you can set a time with my office.”
She closed the door behind her. I was still clutching my Longchamp, floating uncomfortably in the middle of the room. My eyes landed on a sealed MacBook box sitting on my desk.
“First things first, I guess?” I said, trying to look like I wasn’t surprised to be sharing an office.
“Oh yeah. Set that thing up first. It’ll take all morning to get through the security prompts,” he said.
“I knew I should have taken that cybersecurity class at Georgetown,” I said half jokingly.
“Ah, a DC draft pick. That’s refreshing.”
I lifted the silver laptop out of the box. “What about you?”
“Fordham, but originally from outside Boston. Still not sure how I ended up here,” he said good-naturedly. His dad was a history teacher, and his mom was a nurse. Most of his friends had gone to community college, but he went to Boston College. On a whim, he took the LSAT with his girlfriend their junior year. She got a 164, and he got a near-perfect 177.
“I actually got into Yale and Columbia, but Fordham gave me a partial scholarship,” he said. “Less debt and law school in the city seemed like a no-brainer.”
He moonlighted as a paralegal for A&K during his second and third years to cover living expenses, and the firm promised him a job if he passed the bar. Somehow, we’d landed in the same place, only I had a quarter million in student loans.
Charlie had started a week before me. “I know they like me, but I just want them to see me as an actual associate now, instead of a paralegal, you know?”
I nodded along, grateful to have an officemate. It somehow made everything feel less intimidating.
“We have tech training at 10:30, but after that I can take you down to the cafeteria and show you what’s safe to eat. Almost everyone takes lunch back to their office. It’s a real scene. Associates running into each other, too busy looking down at their BlackBerrys so they can race upstairs the second they get an important email. Luckily the food is decent, and the service is fast.”
He clicked his pen. “What else can I tell you ... oh. Make sure you take the billing tutorial sooner rather than later. They just started docking pay if you’re late entering your time.”
“Have you been put on any interesting cases yet?” I asked.
Charlie took off his glasses and I noticed one eye was greener than the other.
“So far, just one of the cases I worked on as a paralegal. It’s been going for eight years. But I’m keeping an eye out for new ones. If you hear of anything ...” He winked.
