We are really in the thick of things now! This week flew by thanks to the writing competition. Associate Erin Weinstock was an amazing mentor throughout the week by helping me prioritize different assignments and events to attend.
I submitted an assignment to associate Brittney Polo that involved writing three different letters to opposing counsel with supplementary documents. It was my first time writing meet and confer letters and Brittney was generous enough to give me ample time to review my work before finalizing it. It’s such a cool feeling working on real projects that are sent directly to opposing counsel. Although my final product was not perfect, Brittney gave me great feedback and was encouraging about ways to improve.
On Tuesday, we had a check in with Orlando partner Brett Carey to go over billing and ask any questions around time entry. Fortunately, all the summer associates seem to be getting pretty comfortable with billing, even if it’s just practice. I have had some experience from previous internships, so I am used to contemporaneous time keeping!
The most fascinating part of my week was going to the 11th Circuit Courthouse with partner Josh Lerner and Ashley to sit in on a meeting of the Local Professionalism Panel of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, of which Josh is chair. Most attorneys were on zoom, but it was interesting to see how practicing attorneys discussed professionalism standards since there are so many potential issues that come up with different legal practice areas.
The weekly attorney meeting was moved to Wednesday this week because one of the firm’s founding partners, Bud Kirk, was presenting to the entire firm! We joined in on Zoom and he told some great stories of his time trying cases in different states, what his strategy was during jury selection, and how to always be yourself. After Bud’s presentation, I presented two cases to the Miami office. My topic was around the standard for exceptions to the hearsay objection. I remembered a few pieces of advice from Orlando associate Alex Melvin’s presentation around evidence last week and presenting helped me see real-world examples of it. Erin helped me practice before lunch so I felt totally comfortable sharing the facts, reasoning, and key takeaways from my cases. This was a great opportunity to practice my public speaking skills, and I got great praise afterwards from a few attorneys. Success!
On Thursday, Orlando partner Dan Gerber presented a Motion Practice Seminar. He is a very engaging speaker and gave us some great tips for interacting with different judges when arguing motions.
Friday was an amazing day! I finally submitted my writing competition submission and it felt SO GOOD to have it done. Before submitting, I made sure to print it out (thanks partner Samantha Duke for the advice!) and read it out loud to myself. I caught a lot of small grammatical errors that I would have missed otherwise. This was the longest legal memo I have written and it was very rewarding to finally hit “send.” Aside from our weekly workshops and seminars, our next big task is preparing for our mock trial at the end of the summer! We should be getting the problem and teams in the next few weeks.
To celebrate our submissions, the Miami office took Ashley and me to Puttshack in Brickell City Center. Puttshack is a modern mini golf course, but fortunately it’s all indoors so it’s perfect to combat the Miami heat and humidity. The office invited my girlfriend Julia to join the happy hour and mini golf, which was a really nice touch having her meet all the attorneys I am spending time with and learning so much from! I am an avid golfer, so I was disappointed not to win, but it was a blast spending Friday night with everyone. It’s crazy that after next week I will be halfway through the program. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!
