Law students who spent summer 2011 as associates at some of the nation’s largest firms went into their jobs knowing the negative reputation that life at such firms can have. They ended the season believing that reputation isn’t deserved—at least for the firms where they worked.

That’s one of the conclusions to be drawn from The American Lawyer’s annual Summer Associates Survey, which polled 3,656 students at 138 law firms. Among the survey’s other main findings: This year’s summers were largely satisfied with the substantive quality of the work they were assigned, annoyed that they didn’t have job offers in hand by the time they returned to school, and—in a possibly shameless display of enthusiasm—eager to work for a longer stretch of the summer than the eight or ten weeks that most firms’ programs typically run.


Previous Summer Associates Survey coverage :: 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007

THE FEATURES

2011 Summer Associates Survey (The Am Law Daily) Even accounting for a few minor complaints, summer associates walked away from their experience with a sense that life is better at the firms where they worked than it is at competing firms.
Methodology How we arrived at the rankings.

THE CHARTS

2011 Summer Associates National Survey All 108 law firms are ranked based on the average of nine survey queries, including interest level of the work, how much of it was “real” training and guidance, and how accurately the firm portrayed itself in interviews.
2011 Summer Associates City Map See how summer associates rated firms based on the office to which they were assigned. Use the interactive map to explore individual cities to see how firms received scores in those cities.