The short answer is that you are right and that life in a corporate law firm is most likely quite different from life in a big corporation. However, because I did not have a summer job this past summer at a big firm, there is almost zero chance I would be hired by one now coming out of law school. I accept this, although I did not know it when I started. When I entered law school, I did not know any lawyers, nor were there any lawyers in my family to advise me of how to handle law school.

If there are any aspiring lawyers out there, my recommendation for handling law school would be to do roughly the opposite of what I did. The first year is such a key to everything that comes after it that you should put a ton of effort into it. I am talking about 15-18 hour days, seven days a week. Live in the library. Buy every study guide you can find and use them religiously. This should position you to be quite highly ranked in your class, which is the key to almost everything. You might even grade onto journal from this, or you might have to write on, but do try to get onto the main law journal at your school. The first year summer should be spent working with a professor. Ideally it should be someone you like and agree with or someone who is well published. Then you come back after the first summer and do the on campus interviewing. Put a ton of energy into this. Apply everywhere you can and interview as much as possible. This should get you a firm job for the following summer. After that you can sit back and enjoy law school. You will find that the knowledge and habits you developed the first year will carry you through the last two working just eight hour days 5-6 days a week (which is basically a normal workweek for the rest of the working world). The job you get for your second summer almost always turns into an offer for after you graduate. Even if you decide you want to do something else instead of that big firm, most employers are obsessed with your GPA/class rank and this is determined heavily by your performance during the first year, so by concentrating on the first year classes, you should be in great shape for anything you want to do.

I, on the other hand, have a family and did not have a desire to put in that kind of time and risk a divorce. I treated law school the first year (and the second and the third) as a full time job, putting in 8-9 hour days all week and not even taking reading home with me so I could spend more time with my family. I had a good law job my first summer and have developed a wide variety of skills and knowledge and I should be fairly well positioned for some form of governmental job (I hope) but I do recommend the other approach instead (although I still most likely would not do it that way were I to do it again as I value my family time more than anything else.)

Nonetheless, I do plan on enjoying my third year.