Summer Associates

The Few, The Brave, The Lucky (Or: The 2009 Class of Summer Associates in New York)

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The New York Law Journal brings us a distillation of the numbers (subscription) for this year’s summer associate classes in New York. We wrote about SA programs back in March, when NALP numbers were first released. As firms deal with the cold water that is the recession, there’s been some serious shrinkage of the SA programs.
New York offices appear to be in the coldest waters. Of the top 25 largest firms in the Big Apple, those shrinking their classes greatly outnumber those bringing in greater numbers of 3Ls-to-be. Here are the five firms that have most dramatically slashed the sizes of their summer associate programs:

Many of these names are familiar to those who follow our layoff coverage.
Not every firm has downsized their SA ranks, though. Debevoise & Plimpton went Cookie Monster on this year’s 3Ls, increasing the size of its New York summer class by over 50 percent (from 68 summer associates last year to 104 this year). And it’s keeping its SAs around for 12 weeks — which seems generous these days, when 10 weeks is in vogue.
See the other firms with bulked-up programs, after the jump.


The NYLJ caught up with Paul Mourning, the hiring committee chair at Cadwalader, which shrunk its class by 17% (from 47 New York SAs in 2008 to 39 this year):

“Historically, the game was kind of the other way, we wanted to see as many people as possible,” Mr. Mourning said, while this year the firm extended “a lot fewer offers and our acceptance rates were much higher.”
And while summer associates will likely get more individual attention from partners and perhaps even higher quality assignments, Mr. Mourning said the firm will be even more selective in the future, starting with on-campus interviews this August.
“We are going to continue with the smaller class model,” he said, although he dismissed any possibility that the firm would discontinue its summer program.

Discontinuing the summer program is not a completely crazy idea. Ask Morris Manning.
Not everyone’s cutting back. These firms are bullish on SAs:

There was speculation in our previous post about Debevoise’s going gangbusters on SAs. The firm told us then:

The firm’s 2009 summer class is in keeping with the firm’s historical norms, with last year being among the smaller of our classes in recent years. We look forward to engaging all of our summers in a variety of challenging and diverse assignments.

The historical numbers are in keeping with that explanation.
Is it worse being at a firm with a greater number of summers? With fewer offers likely to be made, the competition is all the fiercer.
Good luck, summers. As we’ve said before, Welcome! We’re counting on those of you in the big classes to bring us at least a little bit of scandal.
Earlier: NALP’s Numbers on 2009 Summer Programs
Tough Economy Takes Heavy Toll on Summer Associate Classes [New York Law Journal]

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