Day in the Life of a High School Corporate Intern: Part 1
As many of you know, I secured an internship at the prestigious Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP this summer. However, this left many people with a few questions. Questions such as, what does that mean? What is it like to work in corporate law, especially at a young age? And how can I get started as well? Two of those three questions I can answer today, the other is going to have to wait until the school year starts and I go over how to get internships in law.
First, what does a corporate law internship even mean? For me, and everyone under 18, not what you’d think. Most people probably imagine corporate law as Mike Ross and Harvey Spectre parading around New York while Greenback Boogie plays in the background. However, for interns, life in corporate law is much like life in almost every other field, plus a few perks. Every day, I show up to the office at around 8:45, get a coffee, get ready for my first meetings of the day, and get to work. For the most part, it’s a simple 9-6 job, however, the interesting part comes when I decide to look into the work that I do, instead of just blindly filling in Excel Spreadsheets. One of the first projects that I was put on involved updating dockets and calendars for a plethora of New York Supreme Court Cases, which gave me the ability to read a huge amount of motions, subpoenas, events, and anything else relating to the case at hand. Because of this, I’ve been able to learn an unbelievable amount about what corporate law is really like. I also get to work on a couple of other projects, most of which are just general housekeeping, but it helps keep the firm in order, and with a firm as big as Simpson Thatcher, with offices across the globe, any little bit of housekeeping makes a huge difference. I’ve also been given a few research assignments, but if I told you about that, I’d have to kill you ( or get fired ).
Second, What’s it like to work in Corporate Law, especially at my age? The short and easy answer, easier than Junior Year was. No, but in all seriousness, it is not that bad. For my internship, it’s a lot of reading and filling out thousands of Excel Rows ( I think in the last three days I’ve counted over 5,000 rows that I’ve filled ), but none of it is boring. I could sit at my desk, look out the windows of the tallest building in Texas, and just work for hours on end, in fact I did. My first week, I was given a project with a two week deadline and I completed it in 7 hours, and subsequently spent the next 48 hours of my internship not doing anything, a blessing and a curse. The office in general though, everyone is amazing. I’ve learned that, unlike many other large corporate firms, Simpson Thatcher values keeping its employees long-term, having some of the lowest turnover rates of any firm I’ve ever seen or been to. Everyone there is so nice, and I’ve met more people that have been at the firm longer than I’ve been alive then I can count, and they’re all amazing.
Before I end, I want to leave you with this. This post is purely about my experience. I only know about the intern life at Simpson Thatcher, and am the only one who does. Simpson, in its ~140 years of service, has never had a High School Summer Intern, and the Houston office, the best office in my opinion, has never had an intern at all. Because of this, I’m kind of the guinea pig. However, that guinea pig status has allowed me to meet and connect with some of the biggest names in law, people that do $100 Billion transactions and deals like its nothing.
If you want to learn more about my experience at Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, the current issues facing the world, and, most importantly, how you can help, I highly recommend you tune in to all of our future blog posts, and attend our meetings where my colleagues and I will help you learn more about Law in Action.
Thank you,
Zain Kundi (x8596)
Student Intern - MCO
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
600 Travis St #5400
Houston, TX 77002
T: +1-713-474-7696
