Week 6: No Workshops but Plenty of Activity
Week 6: No Workshops but Plenty of Activity
Ella Biggins, Florida State University
Living in Tampa for the summer has its perks. For example, going on a boat ride with your colleagues to end the work day. After work one day this week, partner Allan Rotlewicz took some of the Tampa attorneys out for a cruise. We enjoyed some food and drinks while catching up. Of course, it isn’t Florida without an afternoon thunderstorm, which rolled in just in time to cool us off on the ride back. We had a blast!
Mary Hudson, University of Florida
The team at RumbergerKirk places great value on staying abreast of changes and advancements in the law, and for good reason. Learning and growing within the legal industry does not stop after the Bar, in fact it seems to begin anew. This firm is a good place to continue to learn and grow.
The mock trial looms large in the background. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the fact pattern and to find out who will be my teammate. Despite the friendship and good will between the summer associates, it will be fun to have a little friendly competition and put some of the lessons and feedback from the workshops into action.
Evan Thomas, Florida International University
Week 6 was all about experts. This week, we were given the prompt for our writing competition. The competition focuses on an expert’s opinions that we are seeking to exclude. I am not familiar with the law set forth in Daubert and its progeny, which governs our writing competition. Because of this, the writing competition has been challenging.
Chris Jablonski, Washington and Lee University
On Tuesday, partner Steve Klein released our prompt for the 2022 Summer Associate Writing Competition. We will be drafting a Daubert motion. The assignment has definitely been difficult, but I have already learned so much and I haven’t even finished yet! I am very excited to complete this assignment and receive feedback that I know will be very insightful and improve my writing skills.
Finally, on Friday, I got to tag along to a lunch with some associates to welcome one of RumbergerKirk’s newest attorneys Alex Melvin. It was great to see how new attorneys are welcomed with open arms and how excited everyone was to begin working together.
Hannah Klonowski, Stetson University
I’m very excited about all of the different things that I’ve been able to experience this summer and I feel as though I have received a wide exposure to various areas of law and different types of writing within the law. Prior to starting this program, I had not written any motions, so I’m glad that I’ve been able to practice this skill.
Although having work to do is very exciting, my goal for the coming week is to make sure that I’m able to get all of my assignments done and make some time to start working on our assignment for the Writing Competition. Hopefully, all of my practice writing motions will be useful in trying to write this Daubert motion!
Jordan Benatar, University of Florida
It was also my week to present cases at the weekly attorney lunch. I reached out to partner Steve Smith for some case ideas and unbeknownst to Steve, he sent me a case that I actually worked on the previous summer for my internship at the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Palm Beach County. It was a full circle moment for me because I remember during that internship, I was stressed about finding a summer internship for the next year. Now, here I am a year later, working at a place I could not be happier about. It was also cool presenting a case I knew so much about.
Madison Buckley, University of Florida
If you can’t tell by the look of my desk, things are really busy around here right now! Although we are finished with our workshops, that doesn’t mean that things are slow around here—we are still full speed ahead on the writing competition and other case assignments. I’m also working on a couple very intense research projects right now (at least I think they are research intense), which is why I have so many papers on my desk. There is an abundance of case law to review, but so much work just makes the day go by that much faster. But despite all the work that needs to be done, this week my mentor and I went out for lunch and it was such a nice change of pace. I really love how even as summer associates we get a mentor, and my mentor, Sara Kallop, has been such a wonderful resource for me so far (and I know she will continue to be)!