Well, I've officially been in Charlotte for two weeks and thought I would report on a couple of the highlights so far. As you all know I am currently working in the Charlotte office of the law firm Moore & Van Allen as a summer associate. I started on May 12th and will be working for them until June 28th. The goal: A permanent offer.
This is the Bank of America Corporate Building, my office is on floor 50.
This is a view of Uptown from our apartments, the B of A Corporate Building is the tallest one.
So as to the highlights:
1. My first large corporate law firm assignment was on a case being led by one of our head partners, you guessed it... defending a convicted terrorist.
2. The first weekend was pretty cool. We got off at about 2:00 on Friday and all headed down to Charleston S.C. for the weekend. I played 18 holes of golf at a course called Patriots Point right on the coast. It was pretty cool, there were alligators in the ponds on the course.
3. Later that night we took a catamaran out sailing in the harbor and saw dolphins.
4. On our way home from Charleston the car I was in started overheating so we pulled of the freeway to let it cool off. Luckily the driver had a GPS so we punched in "local auto repair" and started calling to see if anyone was open on Sunday. Well, it turns out that "Day's Auto Repair" in Gaston South Carolina was open. We put the address into the GPS and slowly started for the shop. Well, we started to get a little nervous as the route began winding through the SC backwoods with only an occasional trailer home to break things up. Everytime we would come around a bend it seemed like the GPS was adding more miles to the final destination. Well, just when we were about to give up there it was... in practically the middle of the woods a big open area full of beat up cars and a sign saying "Day's". Well, to make a long story short, a couple of hours later "Tatoo Mike" had us up and running (but not until after we had grabbed some snap shots of the two Jaguars w/o license plates in the garage - I'll see if I can get a hold of those pictures). We also grabbed some lunch at "Maurices BBQ" apparently Maurice is the biggest racist in the South and still thinks S.C. should secede from the Union (we of course didn't find this out until after) (Luckily Trisha, Naomi, and James weren't with me for this weekend excursion).
5. A few days after I got back I was going to a deposition with another partner and associate from the firm. A deposition is were you meet with the other sides attorney to question a potential witness for trial. Well, this partner likes to prep on the way so he asked if I would drive while he got looked over his materials in the back seat. Well, I was okay with driving his Lexus, what I was not okay with was the rinky dink white rice grinding pickup truck driver on the highway that didn't check his blind spot and practically slammed right into us on our way to the courthouse. Luckily I hit the brakes and there was no collision. But the thing that most fired me up was that I couldn't find the horn fast enough (b/c it wasn't my car) to give him a loud PO'd honk. Let's just say that it would not have been good to wreck the partners car --my fault or not--, and I just about soiled my britches.
6. We went Go-karting the other night, but before you laugh, go-karting in Charlotte NC is serious business. This is race country. Future home of the NASCAR hall of fame. Any way it turns out that there are professional Go-Karters with sponsors like Toyota, and Red Bull, and they are freakin amazing. It was fun, we had to wear racing suits and helmets and the whole get up. I rammed one of the other summer associates, going around one of the hairpin turns in the course and she hit the boundary tires and popped up onto two wheels, once again my future job flashed before my eyes.
7. Charlotte Speed Street. This week there is a big NASCAR race in Charlotte, the something 600, anyway to kick it off every memorial day they have "Speed Street" where they basically close the Charlotte Main Street down, invite a bunch of street vendors and performing artists, and anyone with a mullet within three states to come and drink beer and eat anything deep fried you can imagine. We went and walked around yesterday, it was pretty crazy.
Trisha and Naomi at "Speed Street"
8. Last but not least. To celebrate Friday and Memorial day weekend a couple of the associates at the firm invited us to play a little "hall golf" this is where you get some putters and golf balls and create a course through the office hallways from one office to another. Well needless to say Zach "Coordo" Champlin managed on his first shot (we were teeing off, off of a vacant office desk with a putter so the ball was about waist high) anyway I managed to scrape the top of the desk, break the putter in half, and send the lower half --you know the part with the metal head-- flying into the window of the office. Luckily the window didn't break or someone at Speed Street below would have gotten a putter through the head from 50 stories up. If I get this job it is evidence of a supreme being.
Well, thats the two week run down you'll have to check out Trisha's blog for more on the Speed Street adventure including pictures. Hopefully the next two weeks will be less eventful.
