Summer Program Introduction
Our most important hiring tool is our summer associate program. The goal of our summer associate program is simple - to give our summer associates a realistic view of the practice of law at our firm. To accomplish this goal, summer associates receive meaningful work in a wide variety of areas. Your work may be:
Passed on to a client,
Used to help us analyze a prospective case,
Used in a summary judgment motion,
Used by an attorney in oral argument.
At the same time, we want you to have a chance to get to know us and the cities where we work.
Where are we hiring?
Summer associates are hired in our Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis offices.
Where do we find our summer associates?
We interview and have hired summer associates in recent years from several law schools and job fairs, including:
- The Minnesota Minority Recruitment Conference
- The Cook County Minority Job Fair
- The Southeastern Minority Job Fair
- Boston College
- Boston University
- Chicago
- Columbia
- Cornell
- Emory
- Franklin Pierce
- George Washington
- Georgetown
- Georgia
- Hamline
- Harvard
- Howard
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Loyola
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Northwestern
- NYU
- Notre Dame
- St. Thomas
- Southern Methodist
- UCLA
- University of Pennsylvania
- Virginia
- William Mitchell
- Wisconsin
- Yale
To find out if there are any alumni from your law school (or from your undergraduate school) at the firm, search our attorney biographies.
You can also view our campus interview schedule.
What kind of work will you do when you get here?
Two or three associates coordinate the summer associate program for each office. The primary responsibility of these summer program coordinators is to screen, assign, and monitor assignments. The summer associate program coordinators help each summer associate get a broad mix of work assignments in order to provide as complete a picture of life at our firm as possible.
The work we assign our summer associates is real work - if you weren't doing it, one of our attorneys would be. Every year summer associates are surprised that their hours are billed to clients, but they shouldn't be. It is never a part of our legal strategy to do unnecessary work. Consequently, make-work is never a part of our summer program assignment pool. In short: real work on real cases.
As a summer associate you will also have the opportunity to represent a pro bono client under the supervision of one of our attorneys. In recent years summer associates have represented tenants whose landlords are trying to evict them from their apartments, women seeking orders for protection, and refugees seeking asylum in the United States.
See also Pro Bono and Foundations for more details.
Will we help you become a better lawyer?
If you don't leave the summer program with better skills than when you arrived, we're both doing something wrong. We emphasize training for our summer associates, just as we do for our associates. Because we give you real work, you will begin to develop real skills.
Our commitment to mentoring and professional development starts early. We provide a range of formal and informal programs to assist summer associates in making a smooth transition to life at our firm.
Each summer associate is paired with an associate mentor who is available for feedback and guidance. You will get written feedback on every assignment you complete. The firm also retains a professional writing coach. You will learn to become a better writer by receiving advice on the memos and briefs you have written.
We also host a firm-wide, two-day deposition skills workshop for our summer associates to get you started on learning the important practical lawyering skills you will need to succeed. In addition, summer associates participate in weekly training programs including meetings with our various practice departments, local and federal judges, and the firm's managing partner and chairman.
How will you know how you are doing?
You'll get direct feedback, including a written evaluation on every project you do. Also, at midsummer, the summer program coordinators sit down with each summer associate to discuss the first batch of evaluations and talk about strategies to make the most of the second half of the program.
The summer associate program coordinators, attorney mentors, hiring committee members, and recruiting staff are also available to provide advice and guidance at any point throughout the summer.
How will you get to know your co-workers?
Both as a summer associate and as an associate, we encourage a healthy work / life balance.
To get you started, our firm sponsors a wide variety of social events to help summer associates get to know our firm's lawyers, the other summer associates, and the cities they are living in. The social events range from informal lunches and dinners, to cultural and sporting events.
What will we pay you?
Associate and summer associate compensation at our firm is competitive with other major firms in each of our markets. The salary for 2008 summer associates is $2,250 per week.
How many people are we hiring?
In 2006 we had 17 summer associates in Minneapolis and 30 firm-wide. In 2007, we had 19 summer associates in Minneapolis and 27 firm-wide. In 2008 we have 18 summer associates in Minneapolis and 28 firm-wide.
Will we offer you a job?
Our summer associate program is our primary source for full-time hiring. Our goal is to give an offer to each qualifying member of the summer associate class. In the past seven years, 84 of the 97 second year students in our Minneapolis summer associate program have received offers to join our firm as associates after graduation.