So Which Client Do You Bill When You Take A Summer Associate To The Manicurist?

Top law firms single-handedly prop up New York’s economy in the slow summer months:

Each May, thousands of second-year law students from around the country descend on New York’s largest and most prestigious corporate firms for two-plus months of eating, drinking, Web-surfing and perhaps a little casework — a sacrifice they solemnly accept for the sum of more than $3,000 a week. This is the life of the summer associate.

It all culminates in The Offer, when the firm formally invites its summer associates back for real work the following year. Offer rates at most of the top firms hover around 100%, a statistic that leads many summer associates to wonder what, exactly, they would have to do to blow it. More than a few have attempted to find out.

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The polished Davis Polk & Wardwellians have a swish dinner at the Rainbow Room — cutting loose is highly discouraged — and associates can even petition for reimbursement for joint manicure/pedicure bonding sessions with summer associates. “We get people who are very nice and pretty conservative,” said one associate of Davis Polk. “It’s full of people who know what’s appropriate and what’s not. I know a lot of people who wouldn’t survive here.”

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Hard to believe it’s been two summers since Aquagirl made her waves [by drinking too much at a fundraiser at Chelsea Piers, taking off her dress — maybe handing it to one of the firm’s partners — and jumping into the Hudson]. But she was only one in a long line of boundary-pushers. Before her in the Summer Associate Hall of Infamy is Jonas Blank. While a summer at Skadden in 2003, he accidentally sent 40 fellow lawyers an e-mail intended for a friend. Just making dinner plans, right? Not exactly. “I’m busy doing jack shit,” he wrote. “Went to a nice 2hr sushi lunch today at Sushi Zen. Nice place. Spent the rest of the day typing e-mails and bullshitting with people.” Mr. Blank worked at Skadden until this spring.

The summer is still young, but a fellow Skaddenite has already emerged as this year’s legendary associate. According to blog posts on AboveTheLaw, the unidentified summer successfully charged $3,000 worth of drinks at a firm after-party at the Lower East Side bar Libation. Like clockwork, gleeful colleagues forward the details of these hijinks to office inboxes citywide. New York thanks them.

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“Crab cakes are only fun when you eat them once every few weeks,” says one associate. It may be time to dial it up a notch: What about Le Cirque? Jean Georges? The Four Seasons?

Come July, summer associates are pretty much the only diners cracking open the menus anyway. “The people next to us are from Davis Polk, the people across the room are from Skadden,” said one former associate, describing the midtown “power lunch” scene. “Many times you’re sitting next to people, they would be having the exact same conversation, and you’re thinking, ‘Are you a summer associate? I think I interviewed you.'”

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Davis Polk and Kaye Scholer summer associates, with lunch budgets of $75 a head, seem to be in the best position to indulge fully. Still, going over budget usually results in little more than a gentle warning to be more careful next time.