Reed Smith tried something different this summer with its newest would-be lawyers.

In April the 1,500-lawyer firm launched what amounts to a magnet program for technology-minded summer associates—chasing an edge in two key areas: attracting strong talent and legal technology innovation.

The inaugural Legal Technology Summer Associate Program combined the traditional summer experience with projects aimed at using tech to improve legal services. To hear Reed Smith tell it, the experiment was a big success.

“We're very pleased with the input, the results and the collaboration,” said Reed Smith's director of practice innovation, David Pulice.

As more and more lawyers graduate from law schools already acclimated to using technology in the practice of law, Reed Smith decided to mix the work of a traditional summer associate with the opportunity to innovate, Pulice said.

The five associates selected for the program worked alongside Reed Smith attorneys in Chicago, London and Pittsburgh to develop ideas to enhance collaboration and efficiency across the firm and provide new solutions to clients.

“The summer exceeded my expectations,” said Danielle Chirdon, a second-year law student from Michigan State University College of Law.

“I really appreciated the level of responsibility I was given, and I left this summer feeling energized about working with the firm in the future,” she said, noting that she accepted a position as a first-year associate in 2019.

Chirdon, who was based in the firm's Chicago office, worked on several projects over the summer, including one focused on document automation. That project required assessing how the firm could leverage its technology and then creating a visualization of how the automation process would work.

“We [also focused] in on the user experience, and how this could best work in terms of solving a problem,” Chirdon said. Key considerations included “making it more efficient, making it so the client wants to use the product, as well as making sure that it was going to also help efficiency at Reed Smith so we can deliver what the client wants better, faster, and cheaper,” she said.

Another participant, University of Pittsburgh School of Law student Tyler Siminski, worked on a project involving a Reed Smith banking client, Pulice said. Siminski helped create a data analytics site through Reed Smith's extranet portal, according to Pulice, allowing the client to spot trends in bankruptcy litigation matters.

“[The summer associates] really recognized the need for something that we tout all the time—having the right people invoking the right process and then marrying that with technology,” Pulice said.

“It wasn't all theoretical and academic. It was much more practical than what I anticipated, which was a huge benefit for us,” he added.

According to Reed Smith chief knowledge officer Lucy Dillon, the firm will most definitely implement the program next year.

“It has been approved and we are already seeing some exciting resumes coming through for 2019,” Dillon said.