Pucker up

At my firm, after your summer, you don't just get a general offer to come back, you get an offer to a specific practice group. So for example, you could be asked to join the public finance group, or the white collar crime group, or the labor group, etc. Coming into the summer I expected it to be like a choice of death- would you like the knife or the gun- but it turns out that there actually is one group I really like, and could see myself working with. Unfortunately, this group happens to be the most popular one, and for good reason, so I'm up against some of the other summers for the limited number of spots available. It's been interesting to watch the dynamic play out, as you start to see a LOT of asskissing going on. There's all this maneuvering for who goes to lunch with what attorney, and who gets an assignment from who. I've been trying to stay out of that as much as I can, and just do a lot of good work, but I'm getting the feeling that I'm going to have to play the game to get a spot, and I only have a couple of weeks left. I gave up what little soul I had when I went to law school and then worked for a law firm, but there's some spark, some gleam of moral fiber left deep within me that says I should rise above, be myself, avoid the schmoozing, and take the beating like a man when they stick me in products liability.

Good thing it's just a gleam. Can I pick up your drycleaning sir?