Summer Programs

Which Biglaw Summer Associates Are Happiest With Their Firms?

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Yesterday, some summer associates watched kitten videos on YouTube.

It’s the middle of June, the sun is shining, and Biglaw summer associate programs are in full swing. An old joke: Satan offers incredible wealth to a man in exchange for his soul. The man replies, “B-b-b-but, won’t I have to go to Hell?” Satan says, “Oh, don’t believe what you’ve heard, Hell isn’t that bad. Here, take a look.” And it’s all cocktail receptions and long lazy lunches at fancy restaurants. So he sells his soul. Later, when he dies, he goes to Hell, and sure enough, it’s all flames, pitchforks and eternal agony. The man protests to Satan, who replies – “Oh, that was our summer program.”

The joke smells a bit like 2006 or so, when Biglaw summer programs were at their largest and most extravagant, and most firms barely pretended any substantive work was part of the equation. Yet even though summer associate classes have been significantly downsized post-recession and the perks aren’t as lavish, the summer associate experience certainly retains much of that Bizarro world detachment from the actual realities of practice.

Summer programs have traditionally served as bait-and-switch recruitment tools used to woo rising 3Ls with wine tastings, sporting events, theater outings and boat rides. Since the recession, many firms have begun to emphasize “real work” as central to their summer associate programs (e.g., here and here). But these claims need to be taken with an ocean of salt. As the Dothraki say, “it is known” that newbie lawyers just aren’t ready to do any real work.

In any event, let’s take a look at the top-rated Biglaw summer associate programs, according to the ATL Insider Survey.

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Homegrown or Not: Law Student Recruiting v. Lateral Hiring

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Tampa is lovely this time of year.

Hello from Tampa, Florida, site of the 2013 annual education conference of the Association for Legal Career Professionals (aka NALP). Elie Mystal, Brian Dalton and I have been attending some excellent panels, catching up with old friends, and making new ones (although some law school folks here have given Elie the stink eye).

Yesterday I attended an interesting panel entitled “Homegrown or Not: Lateral Hiring vs. Law Student Recruiting.” The important topic drew a standing room only crowd….

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Dewey Have Career Advice for Incoming and Summer Associates?

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Since this afternoon’s big Dewey & LeBoeuf development, namely, the defection of Morton Pierce and seven other partners to White & Case, there has been some additional news. It concerns the timing of Dewey’s possible shutdown, a subject that has been the subject of much speculation lately.

One rumor had the firm closing its doors as early as tomorrow. Another suggested a date closer to Memorial Day. The truth may lie somewhere in between: according to sources cited by Am Law Daily (reg. req.), “Dewey is poised to close by May 15 and possibly sooner.”

(Also at Am Law, a very handy Dewey Departure Tracker. It lists each defector’s name, practice area, departure date, new firm, and location. It’s a great resource.)

The May 15 date makes some sense. As reported by Thomson Reuters News & Insight, on Monday the firm received a two-week extension from lenders for renegotiating its $100 million credit line. Assuming the parties can’t reach a new agreement, which seems like a good assumption right now, the new deadline would fall on or about May 15, the shutdown date mentioned by Am Law.

Compared to other outlets, we’ve been focusing a lot on the human side of the Dewey story. We’ve talked about the partners, including the particular partners who might be blamed for Dewey’s demise. We’ve talked about the staff, bringing you a paralegal’s lament.

Tonight let’s consider the fate of would-be Dewey associates, both full-time and summer associates, who now find themselves left in the lurch….

As usual, UPDATES — including one relating to support staff — after the jump.

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We Don’t Have Any Summer Associates, Dewey?
(And additional info about a possible criminal probe.)

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Elie here. In news that should shock no one, Dewey & LeBoeuf has canceled its 2012 summer program. Honestly, if you were a 2L who was planning on going to Dewey this summer and you are just now figuring out that it’s not going to happen, you should probably spend more time reading Above the Law and less time sniffing glue. (Pro tip: sniffing glue + reading ATL = total awesomeness.)

We’ve also got some additional information about a possible criminal probe into the Dewey situation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. (We briefly considered the headlines “Dewey Have Any Lube for this Probe?” or “Dewey Know Any Good Criminal Defense Lawyers?”)

Let’s get into it. I’ll turn the floor over to Lat….

UPDATE (5:25 PM): Additional info, appended after the jump.

UPDATE (4/30/2012): We’ve added some material to the memo about the cancellation of the summer program that was initially missing when we first published this post.

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(And additional info about a possible criminal probe.)”

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Dewey Have A Suitor? Plus Another Confirmed Partner Defection, and Discussion of Deferrals

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Here in New York, the theater community is gearing up for the Tony Award season. Which shows will snag coveted nominations for best musical and best play?

In the world of Biglaw, though, there’s no competing with the drama now unfolding at Dewey & LeBoeuf, the once elite and now rapidly imploding law firm. Thus far, the story of Dewey has been dynamic but depressing, more tragedy than comedy.

But might that change? Could the tale of D&L end happily, like a Shakespearean comedy — with a wedding?

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Quinn Emanuel Takes a New Approach to On-Campus Recruiting

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Obtaining a summer associate position at a major law firm remains difficult. That’s the upshot of a recent report (PDF) issued by our friends at NALP. You can read summaries of the report at the NALP website and at the ABA Journal. This quip, by NALP executive director Jim Leipold, pretty much says it all: “This is not a hot recruiting market.”

Given that employers are still in the driver’s seat, at least when it comes to entry-level recruiting — recruiting of lateral lawyers, whether associates or partners, is a different kettle of fish — you’d think that law firms would use this opportunity to experiment a bit with fall recruiting. There are some interesting alternatives out there to the standard model of 20- to 30-minute screening interviews, typically held in the summer before or early fall of the 2L year, followed by callback interviews at the firms. E.g., JD Match (disclosure: a past ATL advertiser).

But law firms, as we know, are a conservative group. They tend to stick with existing models, even if those models are imperfect.

Well, most law firms. Nobody ever accused Quinn Emanuel of not daring to be different….

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Very Happy Campers: The Top 10 Summer Associate Programs

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Being a summer associate isn't a day at the beach, but it's still pretty awesome.

A summer associate program at a top law firm is like sex or pizza: even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

That seems to be the conclusion of the American Lawyer’s 2011 summer associate survey. Am Law polled 3,656 students at 138 law firms about their summer experiences and used the results to rank 108 summer programs. The lowest-ranked program — that of Chadbourne & Parke, in case you’re wondering — still emerged with a healthy overall satisfaction score of 4.142 (on a 5.0 scale).

If you’re a law student trying to figure out where to spend your summer, you’re probably asking: Which law firms came out with the highest scores?

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Howreying for the Exits: More Partner Departures; Bootcamp Gets the Boot

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The spinning of the revolving door at the beleaguered Howrey law firm is making our heads spin here at Above the Law. Keeping track of all the partner departures is becoming quite the challenge. We’ve collected some links about the latest partner defections, after the jump.

At this rate, it’s not clear how many lawyers will be left for “rescue” by white knight Winston & Strawn. (Protip: check the armor for bedbugs.)

Here’s some new (but hardly surprising) information: Howrey has canceled its summer program. Yes, the famous Howrey Bootcamp, touted by the firm as “[f]ar more intense and rewarding than traditional summer associate programs,” and offering “an entirely unique approach to associate recruitment and training.”

Bootcamp participants received intensive litigation training — and inspirational poetry from firm CEO Robert Ruyak, which we share with you below….

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Dear Law Firms: Canceling Summer Programs After People Bid on Those Programs Is Bad Form

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Late last night, we received a tip that has become all too common in the dog days of August. This tipster sent us this letter from the career services office at Georgetown Law:

Haynes and Boone, LLP has just informed us that they will no longer have a summer program in their Washington, DC and Austin, TX offices. Please contact me if you are interested in switching your interview to either the Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, or New York, NY offices or if you would like us to cancel your interview.

These late-breaking summer program cancellations, partial cancellations, or substantive summer-program changes really need to stop…

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Dewey & LeBoeuf ‘Pauses’ 2011 Summer Program at a Few Offices

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‘Tis the season of summer program cancellations. Just don’t call them cancellations. Today we’ve learned that Dewey & LeBoeuf has “paused” its 2011 summer program in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston.

You can really see the difficulty of the situation faced by Biglaw firms. Here we are in July of 2010, and firms are supposed to make a decision about what their hiring needs will be like in the fall of 2012. It’s a little bit ridiculous to expect firms to be able to do that. But at least now it seems like firms are trying to be more cautious. While it makes things harder for rising 2Ls, the cautious approach should mean that people who are lucky enough to get jobs should be able to keep them — and avoid the career annihilation of losing a job as a first-year associate.

At Dewey, the scale of the programs in these three offices was never really that big to begin with…

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