Biglaw

Summer Associate Programs (Part I): Why They Exist And Firms’ Different Approaches

What law students need to know before they become summer associates.

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happy young lawyers summer associates junior associatesEd. note: Please welcome D.W. Randolph, author of the must-read Biglaw Confidential (affiliate link), to our pages. They will be writing about Biglaw firms and life, all from a partner’s perspective.

You’ve beaten the odds, and obtained one of the relatively few, highly desirable offers to work at a Biglaw firm as a summer associate.  Congratulations!  Now, it’s important to understand why the program exists, what you should expect from the program, what attorneys at Biglaw firms expect from you as a summer associate, and how to succeed.

During my many years working in Am Law 100 law firms, as a partner, leader, and practice leader, including working on law school recruiting teams and with my firm’s recruiting committee, I was responsible for hiring, evaluating, and training numerous summer associates.  So I know a bit about this topic.

Why summer associate programs exist

Summer associate programs are typically eight-to-10-week intensive internships with Biglaw firms that exist to serve multiple purposes, including:

  • determining whether a law student would be likely to succeed at the firm as a full-time associate (if hired);
  • training the student how to perform legal work for the firm and its clients;
  • introducing the student to the firm’s clients, attorneys, and culture;
  • determining the right practice group fit for the student;
  • offering the student a providing ground to demonstrate that they should receive a full-time job offer to join the firm after law school graduation (or to weed out those who the firm determines shouldn’t receive such offers);
  • selling the student on the firm and its practice groups; and
  • getting the student accustomed to living the high life as they earn an associate-level salary and benefits to entice them to accept a job offer, if made.

And, most importantly, summer associate programs are the primary means through which Biglaw firms recruit brand-new attorneys.  Biglaw firms usually have pyramid-shaped hierarchical structures, with a few partners at the top, then a few more counsel, then a few more senior associates, then a few more mid-level associates, and then the most junior associates.  There are typically many times more associates than partners at a Biglaw firm (you may have heard this called leverage).  The Biglaw firm model at many firms largely depends on leverage to generate profits.

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Firms’ different approaches to summer associate programs

Similar to the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter books and films, Biglaw firm recruiting teams try to determine a law student’s practice area interest when they interview with the firm’s attorneys, and match that interest with a corresponding staffing need, to ensure that staffing needs are met.  It isn’t a good outcome for the firm or the summer associates to have all the summer associates interested in working with one practice group, only one or a few summer associates receiving offers to join that practice group, and the rest of the summer associates relegated to their second choice practice groups or practice groups in which they have no interest in practicing law long-term (e.g., a would-be litigator becoming an M&A attorney, or vice versa).  In such cases, those summer associates/associates are likely to leave for another law firm that has a need and opening for an associate in the practice group of their choice.  Firm management would view that as a loss on the firm’s “investment” in recruiting them and training them as a summer associate.

Summer associates and associates often seem surprised to learn that Biglaw firms are hiring a summer associate up to 18 months to three years in advance of the anticipated need for a full-time associate.  Practice leaders submit anticipated staffing requests to firm management, and assuming those requests are approved, firm management directs the recruiting committee/team at the firm to fill that need.  It’s an art as well as a science, and a challenge for the recruiting team, to end up with the right mix of summer associates, in terms of practice area interest and staffing need, diversity of law schools, gender and other types of diversity, geographic coverage, and other criteria.  When a law firm fails to meet its staffing needs through on-campus interviewing and summer associate programs, and/or loses an experienced attorney, management has to turn to the expensive experienced attorney (“lateral”) market to fill the gap.

Firms tend to take one of two general approaches to summer associate programs: (a) they only hire summer associates they have the ability and intention to hire as associates (i.e., the full-time offer is the summer associate’s “to lose”); or (b) they hire lots of summer associates and only have the intention to hire some of them as associates (i.e., the summer associates have to compete with each other for those full-time offers, not all of them will obtain offers, and the rest will have to look for other jobs).  You can sometimes tell which approach a firm is taking by the size of their summer associate class (if you don’t hear about the firm’s reputation and approach from law school classmates).  If a firm has more than 50 summer associates (per office or total, depending on the size and geographic scope of the firm), they’re likely in the former camp, and if they have more summer associates, they’re likely in the latter camp.  As a summer associate, you want to be at a firm with the former approach, or do what you can to ensure that you’re in the top half (or better) of your class in terms of performance at a firm that takes the latter approach, to maximize your chances of receiving a full-time job offer to join the firm after law school graduation.

Once at the firm, some firms rotate all summer associates through each of various practice areas, e.g., each summer associate will work a few weeks with practice group “A,” then a few weeks with practice group “B,” etc.  Other firms have an approach that is more so “choose your own adventure” where the summer associate is initially sorted into litigation v. transactional v. specialist categories, and then can take on whatever projects are available with one or more practice group(s) within that category.  In my experience, the latter approach is more common, in part because Biglaw firms can justify charging more for their attorneys to do work for their clients when they can say that the attorneys have specialized, deeper training and greater experience in one practice area, as opposed to being generalists with a little training and experience in a number of practice areas.  That training and experience can start day 1 as a summer associate.  All else being equal, when a firm can charge and collect a higher amount for the same unit of an attorney’s time, the firm is likely to make more money.  And Biglaw firms are hyper-focused on doing whatever they can to make as much money as they can.

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Part II of this series will cover what Biglaw firm attorneys expect from summer associates during, and what summer associates can expect from, their summer associate program. Part III of this series will provide some time-tested and proven tips for success as a summer associate.

D.W. Randolph is a pseudonym for an attorney who is or was a partner, “rainmaker,” and practice leader at an Am Law 100 firm, who has practiced law at multiple Am Law / Vault top law firms in New York City and another large U.S. city, over the span of many years, and the author of the acclaimed “tell-all” book and resource guide to all things Biglaw, entitled Biglaw Confidential (affiliate link). D.W. has served in firmwide and office-level leadership positions within their Biglaw firms and led or been involved in nearly all aspects of Biglaw firm operations, from summer associate and attorney hiring, compensation, performance evaluation and promotion, to firm governance and initiatives focused on diversity and inclusion, and more.  D.W. graduated with honors from a law school that has historically been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 10 law schools in the U.S. and has taught at a law school that has historically been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 14 law schools in the U.S.

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