Monday

Morning
9:00 a.m. I’m up and ready for the first day of Litigation Week. There are no workshops today, so dress is business casual. I’m excited to meet the summer associates in the DC office.

9:30 a.m. Breakfast is served in the conference room. Partner Karen Ventrell welcomes us and gives us an introduction to Litigation Week.

10:30 a.m. The summer associates attend two workshops, one on taking and defending depositions, and the other on arguing motions.

Noon. Lunch is served in the conference room. We receive our groups for the mock deposition workshop that will be held the following morning.

Afternoon
12:45 p.m. I meet with my deposition workshop group, which consists of myself and two DC summer associates. We represent the doctor in a medical malpractice case, so we will be defending her deposition and taking the deposition of the plaintiff, her patient. We divide up the questions, and mine pertain to the defense of contributory negligence.

2:00 p.m. I’m back in my hotel room drafting questions for tomorrow’s deposition.

3:30 p.m. We head back to the office for a scavenger hunt that will take us throughout DC. I’m on a team with one OC summer associate and one DC summer associate who happens to know the city like the back of her hand, so I’m feeling pretty good about our chances of winning.

6:00 p.m. We arrive back in the office just in the knick of time – two minutes later and we would have been penalized points. My team is sweaty and exhausted, and at this point, running on adrenaline. The highlight of our hunt is asking guest services at the Willard Hotel to allow us to take a picture on a bed in one of their hotel rooms. They graciously let us enter the only room they have available at the time, the Jefferson Presidential Suite, where the President of Mozambique stayed the night before.

6:30 p.m. Points from the scavenger hunt are tallied as we sit around the conference room table eating pizza and sharing our different experiences. Results are in…victorious!

7:30 p.m. A group of us decides to stick around the office for a game of Texas Hold ‘Em. Not so victorious…

10:30 p.m. I need to finish preparing for my deposition tomorrow. I use an office computer to type out my questions, lest I be forced to decipher my own handwriting in the morning.

11:30 p.m. An OC associate and I decide that a midnight snack is in order, so we take a cab into Georgetown for some onion rings and chicken strips. Now is not the time to think healthy.

1:00 a.m. Goodnight.