It’s mid July. Seventy-five percent of the way through my summer internship. And I’m writing this while sitting in a meeting where the partners and paralegals are talking and us clerks are understanding each word individually…..but like not in the aggregate. They’re speaking sentences, in English, and I know what each word means, but as a whole the sentences feel as if I’ve been dropped in the middle of a conference room in the Sims rather than the US.
At networking events associates have said multiple times it takes a couple years to feel like you actually know what you’re doing, so I shouldn’t be surprised I still feel out of depth, but damn. It all relates back to the Round SpongeBob post, so that’s fun. But like. Is everyone just acting like they know what is going on? Are we all googling terms and rules civ pro didn’t teach us?? Is everyone counting down to the firm happy hour or time to go home to rest their brain??? The only thing saving my sanity is my fellow law clerks are one year above me and equally confused at times, so it is definitely comforting that I am not alone. Not to mention the fact that anytime I get a redlined paper back I have to decipher handwriting like it’s some codified secret language of hieroglyphs (WHY do attorneys have such atrocious handwriting?? Sorry to call you out Mark).
I’m sure my latest head injury doesn’t help either, but you know, what can ya do.
But all that has shown me the REAL heroes of any law firm are not the partners, not the associates, not the clerks, but the paralegals. Queens (and kings), all of them. They are so incredibly organized and have every detail of every active case memorized and juggle SO MUCH, I am simply well and truly in awe. I very much understand now the sentiment that a good paralegal is quite literally worth their weight in gold. They absolutely own the place, operate a foolproof schedule, run a tight ship, etc.
This is, at this point, a love letter to the paralegals at my firm, which is not the direction I had planned for this post but I digress.
Anyway. These women. They know more about what’s going on in these meetings than all the partners, honestly. And the case list to dos they provide for everyone??? Truly amazing. They must have more hours in a day than me because I do not know how they do it all.
They also have all the best gossip on reality tv shows (hello, the Love Island discourse is top tier), which is so fun because most of the partners here haven’t even heard of Love Island, and frankly, I’d be mortified if they had. And the associates don’t work with us much, we more directly work with the partners, so any gen Z connection comes from the paralegals. Whom, again, I adore. They’re the best.
Okay so this went from talking about not understanding what is going on in meetings to saying how much a good paralegal can help a firm out. Probably could have been two separate posts, but after three concussions my brain flows the way it does and I don’t question it, just thank it for continuing to work.
Long story short. Thank your nearest paralegal. And google unknown terms.
Song of the day: Young and Beautiful, Lana del Rey (because it’s a hot summer night, mid July!)
the blawg 
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