Give each summer associate the opportunity to demonstrate the professional qualities we look for.
Provide a good sense of the quality and range of the work we do.
Introduce summer associates to the firm’s personality and culture.
During their stay, our summer associates have an opportunity to work with different lawyers and gain substantive experience in different practice areas. They also get to know our attorneys through social activities and informal gatherings.
Program highlights
Work assignments, drawn from all areas of our diverse practice, are coordinated through the Summer Associate Committee.
Summer associates have a chance to request assignments involving a particular attorney. While some may choose to concentrate in a particular practice area, most work in several different practice areas.
Assignments can involve preparing research memoranda, drafting briefs or pleadings, and assisting our attorneys in a variety of work experiences including preparation for depositions or trial, drafting or interpreting contracts, opinion letters and other documents, or otherwise assisting and advising clients.
To allow "real life" experience in practicing law, our attorneys provide each summer associate opportunities to attend depositions, trials, closings, meetings, judicial proceedings, and other client situations.
Summer associates receive constructive evaluations during informal sessions with the assigning attorney.
Each summer associate is assigned a mentor who is encouraged to lend guidance and support and to critique work upon request.
The Summer Associate Committee plans a number of activities to help the students become better acquainted with the firm's lawyers, such as small dinner parties in attorneys' homes, impromptu gatherings and other events throughout the summer.
The firm's Thursday noon luncheon at professional clubs in the respective cities is a year-round Butler Snow institution designed to afford attorneys at least one opportunity each week to have lunch with one another on a social basis. Summer associates participate in those, as well as after-hours gatherings on Fridays.
