A Day in the Life of a Summer Student at Parlee McLaws

Written By: Isabel Brodt

Each day for me begins the same with a short walk to work. Today happens to be Friday and sunny, a perfect day. After taking the elevator up to the 33rd floor, I walk over to my desk. There are two other summer students I work alongside, I put my bag down and join them to grab a coffee.

Once thoroughly caffeinated, I log onto my computer and pull up my calendar, as I do each day, to see if I have any meetings or appointments to attend. After consulting my calendar and looking over my to-do list, I begin to get to work.

Right now, my main project that I am working on is drafting an Initial Report for an associate (who also happens to be my mentor). Her office is directly across from where I sit, and we chat a bit until she has to shut her office door and attend a virtual questioning. She had invited me to join her and take notes, but I had an event scheduled this afternoon, so I’ll be joining her on one next month instead!

I worked away at my Initial Report for a while and then edited some notes I had taken from sitting in on an appearance a partner had with a Justice and plaintiff the day before.

Later, I receive an invitation on Teams from an articling student, soon to be associate, who was inviting us summer students to attend a questioning on an affidavit Monday! I eagerly accept and thank him for extending the invitation, then spend some time reading the affidavit and familiarizing myself with the case.

Next, I move on to working on creating a list of documents, reviewing documents provided by the client, for a different associate at the firm.

Suddenly, lunch has arrived. One of the associates at the firm had previously invited us summer students to come along with her to attend an event at the Petroleum Club downtown. The four of us took the +15’s together and talked about what we had been up to so far today and what plans we had for the weekend.

After lunch, I reply to a few emails and go back to working on my tasks from this morning.

With the end of the day approaching, I glance at my to-do list once more and decide it is a great time for me to write a bit about my day.

Now, it is time to head home and rest up for what I am sure will be another exciting week at Parlee McLaws!