It’s hard to believe that this summer will mark a quarter century since the two of us joined Morgan Lewis as summer associates. As many of you embark on your own summer associate journeys, we’d like to share some thoughts on the abiding value of the summer associate experience.
While summer associate programs — like the practice of law — have evolved, the best programs have retained certain core characteristics. If you make the most of your experience, the insights gained, lessons learned and relationships developed as summer associates will remain valuable to you in the years to come.
Some Things Never Change
The legal profession is one of the few that affords you a test drive. For three months, you have the opportunity to see if you and a firm (or firms, if you split your summer) are a good fit. There are at least six things that have always been — and will continue to be — crucial in making the most of the summer associate experience.
First, explore as many practice areas as possible, especially if you are uncertain about your area of interest. Most summer associates come in with only vague impressions about what certain practice areas involve. Many of us started out with romantic notions of what it might be like to be a litigator or a corporate lawyer — often based on the fiction of television, movies or the biography of someone notable. Vital elements of many practice areas — like scrupulous factual investigation or careful drafting — aren’t sexy enough to make it into Hollywood scripts.
Take full advantage of the opportunity to discover the reality of the daily practice and the personality of each practice group. Exploring different practice areas may open your eyes to possibilities you never considered. Moreover, demands for legal services are not static — fluctuations in the economy may make one area hot one day, and not so hot the next. The more areas you explore, the better equipped you will be to navigate changing demands.
Second, adopt a problem-solving attitude. Lawyers are not engaged by clients to complete assignments; they are asked to solve problems and help achieve objectives. Although you will be given “assignments” during the course of the summer, avoid the tendency to focus merely on “completing” them. Instead, try to understand the problem you have been asked to address and the objective the client or your colleagues are trying to achieve. Then, use your legal skills, judgment and creativity to help solve that problem or achieve that objective.
Third, look for opportunities to improve. Constructive criticism should be part of your learning experience. Pay attention and demonstrate your improvement over the course of the summer. Chances are you will be assigned mentors. Your mentors can help you with everything from work product review and feedback, to connecting you with other lawyers in the firm, to being available to answer your questions. Not only are your mentors potential personal connections, but they are your safety net as you try out the skills you’ve been honing (or not honing) in law school.
Fourth, get to know your firm’s practice. Many client problems require resources that cut across practice group or geographic boundaries. The better you know the capabilities of your firm, the better equipped you will be to solve clients’ complex legal problems. In addition, one part of being a lawyer that has likely not come up on any law school exam concerns business development. The depth and breadth of a firm’s practice is key not only to its current level of activity, but also to its future. How do you get new clients and keep the ones you have? One key is to meet their needs — regardless of where those needs lie. In other words, in a competitive environment, you must be able to cross-sell. Start by knowing your product.
Fifth, get to know the people at your firm — as many as possible, and not just lawyers and other summer associates. A firm’s culture and reputation are products of its people and are forged with every interaction, whether it’s with a senior partner, a receptionist, a paralegal or an information technology specialist.
Try to meet as many people as you can, find out what they do and how they fit into the bigger picture. That perspective will be invaluable as you try to carve out your own place in any organization.
Treat everyone at your firm with the same respect that you would like to receive. Not only is it the right thing to do, but also you will soon realize that many nonlawyers have tremendous knowledge about the practice of law. Finally, staff are far more willing to pitch in on short notice at the end of a long day if you have treated them with respect.
Sixth, get to know the city beyond the landmarks you might visit as a tourist. Living somewhere for three months is different than visiting for a few days. Working in the city is different than growing up in the suburbs.
Immerse yourself in your surroundings and become a citizen of the city in which you’re working. From dining at the hot restaurants to catching a fever for local sports teams and giving back by participating in community activities, getting to know your community will enhance your experience. One of our fondest memories of the summer of 1983 was watching the Sixers Championship Parade from our office window. (Little did we know we would still be waiting for the next major Philadelphia sports championship 25 years later.)
The Next Generation
While some things don’t change, much has changed since the Sixers won their last championship. Back then — before the advent of the Internet and the explosive growth of Lexis and Westlaw — summer associates spent most of their time in the library. One of our firm’s recruiting draws in the 1980s was that it was home to the largest private nonlaw school legal library in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Our associates did not have to go to the bar association library to conduct research; we had all the books we needed at our fingertips right in the Fidelity Building.
It also was in the library that many of us had the opportunity to get to know each other and other attorneys at the firm. We naturally shared ideas and talked with the other summer associates and the firm’s lawyers. In today’s environment, summer associates and lawyers spend more time in their offices performing legal research online. Therefore, our social schedule is more intentionally designed to ensure that our summer associates meet as many lawyers as possible from junior associates to the most senior partners.
In our early years as associates, you could tell what kind of a day you were going to have based on what was in the morning’s mail. If something urgent landed in your in-box, you usually had at least a whole day to develop an approach or a solution. With the advent of the fax, the expected response time narrowed to a half-day at most. Today, with e-mail and BlackBerries, communication is constant. Clearly, demands on attorneys have changed. Both clients and opposing counsel have 24-hour access to attorneys and part of being a good lawyer is meeting their reasonable expectations of responsiveness.
How does one do that? Thankfully, the best summer associate programs have evolved to help you develop the skills you’ll need. The aim is to give you the ability to use the summer to become adept at balancing competing demands — something you will have to master in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive legal environment.
Today’s summer associate programs are more structured. On everything from training to ensuring all summer associates have the opportunity to participate in client activities and challenging matters, firms like ours are attempting to use best practices across the board. These decisions are not left to chance. We have formal programs designed to ensure you learn as much as you can and have the opportunity to show what you can do.
In addition, the best firms take a long-term approach, one that emphasizes your professional growth. Our summer program now provides more structured and timely feedback from at least three sources: the assigning lawyer, the summer associate’s mentor and the work product review committee. We also have well-developed training programs during the summer and in the early associate years that are designed to foster and support the professional development of the next generation.
Finally, you may decide that a big firm is not the place for you. Even if you ultimately decide to practice in a different environment—or do something else altogether with your law degree—you can benefit from the people you will meet, the training you will receive, and the professional opportunities you will have. And those opportunities come in different shapes and sizes. For example, by offering options such as our Public Interest and Community Service (PICS) Program — which allows summer associates to spend the first part of the summer (at least six weeks) in the traditional program, followed by a full-time assignment at a public interest or community service organization — firms are accomplishing at least two important goals: We are encouraging young lawyers to become involved in pro bono early, and we are simultaneously creating opportunities for relationships that benefit individuals in need and the profession as a whole.
Final Words of Wisdom
When we arrived at our firm 25 years ago, we both expected to work hard on serious, challenging and important matters. Our experience met those expectations.
But what pleasantly surprised us is that we really enjoyed the people with whom we worked, and still work. They were — and are — devoted to their work and their clients. But they were — and are — dynamic individuals, with varied backgrounds and interests who became our good friends.
We got in the habit of getting to know our colleagues as more than lawyers. Each morning we’d gather in one of our offices and talk about life over a cup of coffee. We talked about what happened the night before, what our plans were for the weekend, who we had met in the halls, what exciting matters we heard were being handled by the firm, and what we were learning both inside and outside the office. We shared our life experiences as summer associates. A quarter century later, we continue to do so as partners.
If you take nothing else from our advice, here is one piece that will not fail you, whether you are spending the summer at a large 1400-lawyer firm or in a three-person office: Invest yourself in your experience. Don’t be a cynic. The practice of law can be incredibly rewarding, but only if you are willing to invest yourself in your clients, your practice and your colleagues.
