If you’ve followed the advice in The Art of Taking Instructions, you’re just about ready to get down to work. But before you get started, you still need to consider three vital things: scope of work, budget, and deadline.

We briefly touched on all three items in The Firm, Its Clients, and You, but we’re going to give them a little more attention here. That’s because they make your summer-associate assignments quite different from anything you’ve ever done in law school. As you’ll see in this...