Top Five Reasons For Solo Or Small Firm Lawyer To Hire A Summer Associate

Seriously, start hiring people!

Business groupTwo weeks ago in this column, I griped about how many law school career offices did their students a disservice by making it impossible for solo and small firm lawyers to hire them for the summer. But it’s also true that many solo and small law firms never consider hiring a summer associate either because it’s too expensive, or the student would require too much time to manage. So here are my top five reasons that solo and small firm lawyers should consider hiring a summer associate.

A Chance to Be the Boss: When I started my own firm after five years of practicing law, I’d always been at the bottom of the pecking order and was eager to get a taste of what it was like to be in charge of someone else. So while I wasn’t raking in the dollars eight months into my practice when the first summer rolled around, I felt that I could afford an intern, and hired a college student from my alma mater. A few weeks into the summer, I overheard him speaking to someone on the phone about how he’d have to ask “his boss” about something or other — and then I realized, that boss was me!

Risk-Free Experimentation: For solo lawyers curious about what it’s like to work with staff, summer associate positions are a low-risk way to experiment.  Summer associate positions are temporary, so you don’t have to worry about being on the hook for unemployment when the summer associate leaves. And while it’s generally a best practice to pay a summer intern (or potentially face consequences under the Fair Labor Relations Act if the position isn’t appropriately classified as unpaid), intern labor isn’t all that expensive.

Chance to Spell Out Your Workflow: If you’ve been working on your own for a while, chances are that you operate by rote. You already know all the steps involved in opening a client file or filing a pleading at the court so you don’t really think about them. When a summer associate comes on board, you’ll have to explain these different steps — and at first, that seems like a hassle. But you can ask the associate to document each process and that way, you’ll have the foundation of formal systems in place if you decide to hire down the line.

Create a Marketing Machine: Think of all of those blog posts and articles that you’ve been meaning to write, or how you said this was the year that your firm would set up a Facebook page. Keep track of those tasks since these are ideal assignments for a summer associate. First, they’re discrete tasks, so you won’t be faced with a situation where the associate starts work but doesn’t finish before the end of the summer. Second, the work is substantive since the summer associate may need to post on case developments or explain legal concepts. With a smart, efficient summer associate, you should be able to generate a solid return on your investment as the summer associate’s work product helps to attract new clients.

It’s the Ethical Thing To Do: We lawyers have an ethical obligation to train and educate new generations of lawyers — and also, a moral obligation to pay it forward to honor those who helped you get your start. Just asking your summer associates to accompany you to a deposition or hearing, or listen in on a client intake can teach them valuable lessons that will last them throughout their career. And maybe some summer thirty years from now, when you’re reclining on a beach somewhere, you’ll feel your ears burning — not because of the sun, but because that baby summer associate that you mentored all those years ago is now a grown up lawyer, reminiscing with her own summer associate about how you helped her get her start.


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Carolyn ElefantCarolyn Elefant has been blogging about solo and small firm practice at MyShingle.comsince 2002 and operated her firm, the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant PLLC, even longer than that. She’s also authored a bunch of books on topics like starting a law practicesocial media, and 21st century lawyer representation agreements (affiliate links). If you’re really that interested in learning more about Carolyn, just Google her. The Internet never lies, right? You can contact Carolyn by email at elefant@myshingle.comor follow her on Twitter at @carolynelefant.

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