If you're doing corporate work as a SA, you are in no way prepared.
Would you expand on this? I'm starting 1L in a few weeks and my interest is corporate law. I'm wondering whether or not my background (non-trad with extensive business management experience) adds to the preparation that is otherwise missing for the more traditional student?
thanks!
Law school is highly slanted toward litigation training. Your background may help some, but I doubt you did much in terms of due diligence or drafting complex agreements?
But, regardless, you've got no need to worry -- law firms understand and recognize that schools do very little to teach the skills necessary to be a good corporate/transactional lawyer. You will pick up those skills at your summer jobs and will continue to develop them once you start full time. I've only done 2 weeks of corporate work this summer out of 12 total, but I learned a hell of a lot about what corporate lawyers do during those 2 weeks.
I've responded to numerous due diligence inquiries when acquiring other companies or attempting to obtain funding from VC's for start-ups, changed articles of incorporation and negotiated contracts, as well as some ERISA stuff -- tho I have not drafted these agreements (well, I've drafted some employment related agreements) nor been responsible for filing them. My understanding is that this experience is nice for me to have and I should certainly highlight it on my resume that I understand these processes- well, there's no way to avoid it! but for me to keep in mind that the actual work the attorney does is a bit different -- and I probably shouldn't be
that guy (gal, actually) who constantly refers to what she did in her previous career just because it's related to what she's doing now.

Meaning, it sounds like I'll do well with the general domain knowledge involved, but of course there's much more to it than that ... which is why I'm going to LS in the first place.

Ok, I've effectively sorted out my head *thinking* aloud here. Thanks for your response!