The Big Pond

Blame it on the economy: This year’s crop of summer associates was a little less lighthearted than usual. As a group, summer associates expressed somewhat greater uncertainty about whether they’d be getting job offers. And though few let that anxiety spoil their summers, managing partners and summer supervisors say this year’s clerks did give off a more serious vibe.

“They seemed a little more mature,” says Scott Brucker, head of the summer program at Philadelphia’s Cozen O’Connor. “They were really grounded-they knew what they were looking for,” agrees Michael Mooney, managing partner of this year’s number one firm, Nutter McClennen & Fish in Boston.

Summer clerks in recent years have shown an inclination for doing “real” work. But the 2008 class was an even more no-nonsense bunch: What they seemed to prize more than anything was the chance to test their legal skills on serious matters. The top-ranked firms offered a straightforward preview of what law firm life (at its best) is really like. They took care to give their summer charges clear training and guidance, along with an array of interesting, challenging assignments.

More than 7,600 summer associates provided written evaluations and comments on their firms. As in years past, summer clerks were fairly generous graders. This year’s average score was 4.541 (based on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest). Even this year’s last-place firm-Nashville’s Bass, Berry & Sims-managed a not-so-bad 3.56. (For full results, visit americanlawyerse.com.)

Nutter’s small size and homey culture-it has just 150 attorneys and, this year, ten summer associates-has made it a perennial favorite in our survey. (It finished second and first in 2006 and 2007, respectively.) While this summer’s interns definitely valued all the friendly face time they had with Nutter’s partners, they were just as enthusiastic about other aspects of the firm’s summer program. Nutter received perfect scores in all categories, including training and guidance and how interesting and “real” the work was. “I was never given ‘busywork,’ ” said one Nutter clerk, who represented a pro bono client at a Massachusetts state unemployment hearing. “ All of my assignments were substantive, and the work that I completed was greatly appreciated by the assigning attorneys.”

Other firms with relatively small summer classes also racked up big points with summer clerks. Cozen O’Connor, with just 11 summer associates, came in second; Washington, D.C.’s Crowell & Moring ranked third, with 23 summer associates; and Wilmington’s Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor finished fourth, with 12 summer associates. Still, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher proved that big can be beautiful, too. Even with a hefty summer class (182 clerks), the firm managed top marks in training, partner interaction, and other categories, placing fifth in our rankings.

Crowell & Moring’s third-place finish caps a meteoric rise up our charts over the past two years: Between 2006 and 2008, the firm rose 130 places in our rankings. What’s its secret? Among other things, Crowell now surveys summers before they get to the firm to find out their interests, according to summer program cochair Jeffrey Poston, and then makes sure they get more challenging, complex work assignments. Plus, the firm mobilized some partners to serve as writing mentors, and strongly encouraged all partners to bring summer clerks along to depositions, hearings, and other live legal events. One Crowell summer associate was pleasantly surprised by the amount of interaction he had with partners: “All of them took the time to learn my name and went out of their way to answer my questions,” this clerk marveled.

It was a different story at this year’s last-place finisher, Bass, Berry, where clerks had a hard time feeling at home. Training and guidance and partner interactions were particular weak points. “I have been surprised by how unhappy the associates seem, how distant the partners are, and how they don’t seem to really want us here,” lamented one Bass, Berry summer. In a prepared statement, Bass, Berry said that its poor showing was a surprise: “Historically, we have had great results and expect to have similar good results . . . from this year’s class.” The firm added that it would use this year’s survey results “as an opportunity to evaluate our summer program . . . and continue to improve it.”

Despite the credit crunch, almost 40 percent of the 2008 summer class had their eye on corporate and transactions-related work, about the same as last year. Still, the survey results did detect some economic jitters. This year, more than 17 percent of summer associates said they weren’t sure if they would receive a job offer, compared to only 12 percent in 2007. While relatively few comments submitted for our survey focused on the economy, there were pockets of anxiety at some firms, including White & Case, Mayer Brown, and Paul, Hasting, Janofsky & Walker. “I would have appreciated more transparency in the employment process,” said one White & Case intern. “I have no idea how many of the 113 summers [in New York] they plan to hire.” As it turned out, White & Case made 110 offers in New York, to all but three members of the summer class there. Timm Whitney, White & Case’s director of recruiting, says the firm sent an e-mail in late July to reassure summers that offers would be based on merit-not the economy-but many continued to worry. “I’m sorry our summer associates had anxiety, but I’m not sure what else we could have done,” Whitney says. Mayer Brown and Paul, Hastings said that a very high percentage of their interns received offers.

Even at firms that fared better in our survey, summer clerks did have a range of complaints. Some found their experience a little too realistic. One summer associate in the Los Angeles office of New York’s Simpson Thacher & Bartlett recounted “working straight through my first weekend, flying to New York for a closing, and billing 17 hours in a day.” For others, technology was a sore point. One hardworking member of the MySpace generation bemoaned Internet constraints at Paul, Hastings: “People of my generation consider whether an employer blocks Web sites, especially Web sites used to communicate with friends when working 100-hour weeks, as an important quality-of-life factor.” At several firms, summer interns grumbled that they hadn’t received BlackBerrys, while a Crowell & Moring intern reported that he did get a BlackBerry, but wished he had an iPhone instead.

Still other clerks moaned that the summer associate lunch budget was too skimpy. “Fifty-five dollars is not enough for most nice restaurants in midtown,” noted a clerk at New York’s Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. Overall, however, few went hungry. This year’s clerks reported being treated to steak, lobster, oysters, crab feasts, bone marrow salad, warm chocolate chip cookies, and more. For some, it was too much of a good thing. “Not every event needs cake,” griped a Foley & Lardner summer. “It is not a good idea to have a reputation for making summer associates gain 15 pounds (the ‘Foley 15′).”

Luckily, the 2008 class also got plenty of chances to burn off carbs. This year’s sampling of summer outings included skydiving, deep-sea fishing, hot-air balloon rides, white-water rafting, kayaking, horseback riding, go-carting, trap-shooting, sailing, surfing, trapeze school, and swimming with the dolphins at SeaWorld. There were also scavenger hunts, baseball games, bowling, golf, and movies (The Dark Knight). Or, as in the case of one Baker Botts clerk, a trip with a partner to get a pedicure.

Even so, many of this year’s summer interns reported that their most memorable experiences involved work: visiting a pro bono client on death row, helping to draft a cert petition for the U.S. Supreme Court, joining in on a client pitch for a high-level energy transaction, preparing Securities and Exchange Commission documents-or just getting good feedback for their efforts. “I helped to draft a motion for a pending case, and the associate commented that I was an excellent writer,” wrote one summer clerk at New York’s Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. “[I received] praise for a rush assignment from a very senior partner,” recalled another clerk at Philadelphia’s Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, “and [was] CC’d on the e-mail in which he sent my memo (almost unchanged) to the client.”

Pretty good for an intern. And, all in all, not a bad way to spend a summer. As one clerk at Chicago’s Katten Muchin Rosenman put it: “We are given an obscene amount of money to do interesting work with fun people. What would I want to change?”