Welcome to my summer associate blog! I'll be popping in periodically throughout the summer with updates on life in WilmerHale's Denver office. I'm a rising 3L at Harvard Law School and am interested in environmental law and litigation. I lived and worked in the mountains near Vail, Colorado for eight years before law school, so I am thrilled to be in Denver this summer and eager to return to this beautiful state after graduation.
Coming into law school, I honestly wasn't convinced that I wanted to work at a law firm. But WilmerHale, and particularly the Denver office, have changed that. During 1L year, I had the opportunity to meet several WilmerHale attorneys. To me, the most important thing in a workplace are my colleagues, and I've been consistently impressed with the lawyers I've met from WilmerHale. After having so many positive interactions with the firm, I was excited to learn that WilmerHale was hiring their first class of summer associates in the Denver office.
Having worked in a small resort town before law school, a tight-knit, collegial and laid-back office environment is important to me. During my interview, I met partner and former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in jeans and cowboy boots. Then I greeted counsel Nora Passamaneck in her office, which was practically overflowing with inflatable beach toys. I figured that WilmerHale Denver might provide precisely the office culture I was looking for, and I was right. In my two weeks here, I've learned that those beach toys can pop up in anyone's office at any time, discovered that half of the office convenes to do planks and pushups every afternoon, and found that jeans are almost always acceptable. I've also been welcomed warmly and generously by everyone in the office.
In planning my career, I also knew that while I craved the complex legal work that one can only find at a firm like WilmerHale, I wanted to work in a small office where I wouldn't feel lost in the crowd. Fortunately, WilmerHale's Denver office fits the criteria remarkably well. The Denver office is small, with only 16 attorneys, 10 support staff and two summer associates. As a result, I met almost everyone on my first day. When the office held a welcome lunch for the summer associates, everyone who was in the office that day attended and sat around one big table. And that interesting legal work that I was craving? I'm already up to my eyeballs in it, and loving it—more to come on that in my next post!