“It’s Easy to Ask Questions.”
My name is Many Sarmadi, I am 2L here at NYLS, I am 24 years old and I am doing an externship here at ALB for the semester.
Q: What was your role here at ALB PC?
A: Initially when I met with him I told him I wanted to do some transactional work but Adam made it clear that it would be helpful to do a little bit of both, transactional and litigation. Because you can see how they interact and intertwine together so I got to do a little bit of both.
Q: What was it like working at ALB PC?
A: It was fun. They actually do give you a lot of responsibility so you can actually do a lot of work without having someone being constantly looking over your shoulder which is nice. You have some freedom in that aspect. And I just think that all the attorneys you get to work for are very clear and they understand that you are a law school student and they don’t pressure you too much to know things that you should know and it’s easy to ask questions, so that was nice.
Q: Did you get to work with Mr. Bailey directly?
A: I did get to work with Adam. I was writing an article for publication in the New York Law Journal. During the process of writing that article me and him interacted a lot to see what kind of things I should change in the article, how to kind of draft it better. So I learned a lot about drafting skills from him actually which was nice.
Q: What types of tasks did you perform?
A: Well, since I did a lot of transactional work, I would conduct closings, I would prepare closing documents, review closing documents, get in contact with banks, see what kind of documents they needed, transfer that over to the clients. Just a bunch of transactional work and on top of that, in the litigation department I did a lot of different case research and drafted a motion, some memos, a lot of interesting stuff.
Q: What have you learned from working here?
A: I guess one main thing I learned from working here is that communication is key. Adam wants… it’s not so much how you do your work as long as you communicate on where you are, where you are going. If you are going the wrong way you can fix it and if you are doing the right thing you can continue on that path. So just communication is very essential.
Q: What is the one thing or experience that would stand out in your mind that you gained from working here?
A: Probably my first closing. Because that was the first time I actually felt like an attorney. And sitting down in the same room with other attorneys that don’t work for Adam Leitman Bailey, they didn’t know I was an intern, they treated me exactly like an attorney would be treated. And all the responsibilities of an attorney. This is basically a foreshadow of what I want to do in my future career.
Q: What was the best aspect about working at ALB PC?
A: Just the resources that you have at your disposal. It’s pretty solid size firm and you have a lot of resources. And since I worked on so many different matters, it’s always something you can work on and help. Try to help, learn, things about different aspects of real estate law.
Q: Do you have any other comments or suggestions?
A: As far as other comments go I would say that this is an excellent opportunity for someone who is looking for working in real estate law. And externing here is interesting because you can learn things that you actually learn in some of yours law school courses that had to do with real estate and you actually see them applied in the actual field.
Q: Do we have your permission to post this on our website?
A: Yes, you do. Of course.