Summer Associate Positions - Not Just All Play and No Work

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article last week about the changing landscape of summer associate positions. While the parties and the lunches are still part of the experience, many summer associates are starting to demand (gasp!) actual work. The article is available here if you have a subscription to the WSJ Online. Here is a segment of the article:

[T]hese days, summer associates at many firms are actually getting a little more training and a little less big-scale entertaining. Today’s summer associates “don’t seem to want more lavish entertainment or more parties,” says Chris Dusseault, the national chair of the summer-associate program at Los Angeles-based Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. They’re “telling us they want real training, real projects, real exposure,” he says.

There are certainly things about the summer-associate programs – internships mostly for students between their second and third years of law school – that have stayed the same through the years. They still represent the main pathway for joining the world of big law firms. Most summer associates still get offers to come back and be real lawyers after they graduate. And they’re still paid well (at the biggest firms in New York, the going rate for 2006 is around $2,800 a week, before taxes), fed well and generally told not to worry about their billable hours.

But changes in the marketplace have led to a new I-wanna-work attitude among some summer associates. With partnerships increasingly elusive, law students are focusing more on the experience they’ll get at a firm before they eventually leave it. “Associates understand that they’re responsible for the trajectory of their careers,” says Sheri Michaels, senior managing director with the New York office of Major, Lindsey & Africa, a legal search firm. “It’s no longer, ‘Till death do us part.’ ” In addition, there’s a growing view that law schools don’t prepare students for the day-to-day realities of the practice of law, says Mary Gail Gearns, the national hiring partner at Bingham McCutchen in New York.

Summer associates are also savvier than their predecessors about what’s typically seen as the bait-and-switch nature of the summer program – 12 weeks of fun in the sun, followed by the long winter that is associate life. Thanks to Web sites like Greedy Associates, they have access to chatter about salaries, billable-hour expectations and which partners to steer clear of.

Law firms are also more than happy to provide their summer associates with more substantive training. Pittsburgh-based Buchanan Ingersoll three years ago beefed up its mentoring efforts for those students whose midsummer evaluations show they need help. “Its’ what the students have begged for,” says Greg Miller, the chairman of the firm’s recruiting committee. “And there’s nothing better than seeing a student really improve during the second half of the summer.”

Personally, while I wouldn't turn down a few lunches at a nice restaurant, I'm really looking for experience. I want to know what to expect if I go with the firm. I interviewed with one firm last Spring where the associates said they worked the same amount as they did during their time as summer associates. For me, that was a big selling point for the firm. With the demands of family, church callings, and other personal endeavors, I want to know up front what I'm getting into when I join a firm. Apparently, I'm not alone.