Boutique Law Firms, Small Law Firms, Summer Associates

For Many Firms, The Start Of Summer Brings Law Student Employees: Plan Ahead

Plan ahead to create the best experience for both your firm and those law students you are training.

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Business groupAt our firm, like many others, the week following Memorial Day weekend signals the start of our summer apprentice program. (As I wrote last year, we refer to our law student interns as apprentices, rather than interns or summer associates for a number of reasons. However, what I write here applies to the hiring of any student-employees, regardless of what you call your program.) With the influx of staff and the training and social events that follow, planning ahead and managing your time becomes even more essential to maintaining a busy case load and serving your clients.

This is particularly true for small and mid-sized law firms. At a small or mid-sized firm, there is not necessarily the built-in infrastructure to handle a significant expansion of staff all at once. This requires individuals—attorneys and administrative staff—who are normally responsible for crucial tasks in the day-to-day management of the firm and the firm’s cases to take additional time to focus on the training and supervision of law student employees. This can put a strain on supervising staff members and requires a substantial amount of planning and balancing of schedules.

At our firm, the first step in planning ahead occurs even before the interview process with the determination of the number of apprentices we plan to hire. It is important to start with an honest assessment of what you expect to be your firm’s needs over the summer months (which, for law students, usually include all of June and July, and the first week or two of August), as well as the casework and other obligations of the full-time staff members. This often means requesting applications and conducting interviews in late winter or early spring so that you may most accurately assess your needs.

While I have heard from many lawyers that summers are slow in litigation, I have actually only experienced the opposite. Over the past several years, summers have been one of the busiest times for our firm. This means that, while having extra hands to assist can be extremely helpful (particularly with regard to the development and organization of exhibits and other pre-trial documents), it can make time for formal training feel pressed. This means hiring only a reasonable number of student interns (for our firm of approximately 20 employees this typically means 2-4), providing the essential training upfront, and working out a system to ensure adequate supervision throughout the entire summer.

The first few weeks of any summer program are particularly important. This is when cases are distributed and assignments given, making it a good time to set expectations and make sure your student employees know where to go to seek assistance and who to turn to for supervision on specific tasks. In addition, we also pair each intern up with a full-time staff member to demonstrate firm procedures and to serve as a resource as questions arise throughout the summer. We also schedule formal training sessions with experienced attorneys.

As the summer progresses, maintaining regularly scheduled trainings and meetings with interns becomes even more important. Set these up ahead of time and keep them. It is much easier to maintain an already scheduled session than to schedule as you go along. At our firm, in addition to the close supervision provided by attorneys on a case-by-case basis on any given day, we also ensure that every law student meets with a specified attorney every day at a regularly scheduled time. This means that, even for the most timid of law student interns (which, I will admit, is not terribly common in our profession), there are always clear opportunities to raise questions and discuss the issues they are working on.

Working with law student apprentices (or interns or summer associates) is a wonderful opportunity to provide hands-on training for those that will soon build our profession, and, in turn, to build your firm. However, supervising those apprentices is a lot of work and takes time. If you cannot set aside the time to properly supervise student-employees, do not take them on. But if you can, plan ahead to create the best experience for both your firm and those law students you are training. It is well worth it.

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Jillian L McNeilJillian L. McNeil was an attorney at Balestriere Fariello, a trial and investigations law firm which represents clients in all aspects of complex commercial litigation and arbitration from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach firm partner John Balestriere at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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