My First Day at Internship

This is a picture of the side of the building I'm working in. The trolley runs right through it! I found that really cool.

This is a picture of Downtown, San Diego. It was a beautiful day. I absolutely love working in Downtown. It makes me feel professional, and I just love the atmosphere.

At lunch I had a friend take a picture of what I was wearing on the first day.

This is a picture of a stack of paper that I have to read through in a few days. It's all background information on the lawsuits I'm studying.

This is a picture of the desk in my office (yes, my own office!). I got all set up with a computer, phone, printer, and supplies. The only thing missing is a view of Downtown, which I know for a fact I can live without.


This morning I woke up tired as usual. I was feeling a little unenthusiastic about my day, figuring I would be doing the same work I was doing over summer, while my classmates were doing exciting projects. I was more rushed than I usually am because I had to leave fifteen minutes early to catch the bus, so I grabbed my brother's book, Into the Wild, and a half of a bagel and ran toward the bus stop. I barely caught the bus, and rode it down Balboa Avenue to Clairemont Boulevard, where I caught my next bus. I was fifteen minutes early, so I sat in Starbucks and continued my book. A couple minutes before 8:30 I went upstairs to the 4th floor, and asked the receptionist where Kristy was. She told me I could find her in the kitchen. "Hey, Libby." she said as I walked into the kitchen. We stood there and chatted for a little bit. It was then that she informed me what my project was going to be. I will be researching two current cases, and helping the lawyers with those. She then told me "Go ahead back to your office, get settled in, and I'll get some work for you to do." I started by beginning reading the background history, complaints and evidence. This will take me a few days, because it's a pretty thick stack. For lunch I met up with two friends that are also doing their internships downtown. We went to Horton Plaza, and ate there. When I returned I continued reading, and decided to write my blog! I'm really excited about getting the opportunity to directly help the firm, instead of filing all day. I think this is going to be a really great experience.


When my mentor came in to sign some paperwork for me, I conducted a short interview with her regarding how the recession has affected the firm:
*Keep in mind, the following questions and answers are not even close to word for word because I was taking notes*
Libby: ...One more thing. I would like to ask you a few questions about how the recession has had an effect on the business.
Kristy: Oh, sure. It's definitely affected us a lot. As you know a majority of our clients are construction companies, and because of the recession, they're building less. This means they don't need us as much.
Our two biggest clients are Barratt American and McMillin Companies, and just recently Barratt filed for bankruptcy. We were in the middle of a couple of cases with them, but we had to drop them because of the circumstances. As it turns out, it's more expensive for us not to show up in court, so that set us back pretty far.
Overall our biggest issue is the real estate crisis. It started out with a big real estate boom, so there was lots of building. Eventually it crashed, meanwhile they're still building, and they had to pay off loans that they had taken out to start building in the first place, but at that point they don't have money to pay off the loans. Luckily McMillin isn't just construction. They have many other parts to their business, but if they didn't, they would be in the same position as Barratt American.

Libby: This may seem a little redundant, but how has the economy affected your number of clients?
Kristy: Well, it reduced by a few. Obviously we lost Barratt, but other than that we didn't lose very many clients due to the recession. Luckily we don't just do construction, we also do employment law, business law, other stuff like that.

Libby: Has your firm seen more competition over the last few years?
Kristy: I don't know if I would call it competition. People seek out lawyers, so we don't really communicate with other firms, other than hearing things through word of mouth.

Libby: Have you had to narrow spending down to what the business' necessities are?
Kristy: For sure. We used to do a lot more client development, like gift baskets and stuff like that. Nobody got raises this year, which was big. We don't do as many firm functions. And we don't buy as many things that we don't really need.


Because of privacy issues, I had to censor some of the images. Here are some pictures I took on my first day: