Morris Manning's Last-Minute Summers Can Expect More Work, Less Play & No Promises
Morris Manning & Martin’s summer associates should expect a full load of substantive work this summer. But extravagant social events are a thing of the past.
That’s according to the Atlanta-based firm’s managing partner Louise Wells, who tells the ABA Journal that the newest recruits were also cautioned that permanent positions won’t be a sure-thing. Indeed, they’ve been advised that these last-minute summer positions at the firm are more akin to legal-training opportunities and potential resume-boosters, rather than a track to full-time employment. At least for now.
The firm, which announced it offered positions to nine law students this week after axing the program in 2009, said a recovering economy, as well as some nudging from law schools, contributed to the re-instatement of the program.
“The law schools reached out to us in February,” Wells says. “They said that anything we could do to help train their students would be greatly appreciated.”
The firm conducted on-campus interviews on fewer campuses than normal this spring, and Wells noted that the academic caliber of the 2009 class is on par with past classes despite the fact that the firm missed the traditional time period for on-campus interviews by seven month. “It is absolutely an overall indicator of the economy that these students hadn’t locked in summer opportunities,” Wells says.
Wells is optimistic that legal work will continue to pick up.
And, although the firm hasn’t yet determined its hiring needs this fall, the addition of nine lawyers so far in 2010, including prominent health care partner Paul F. Danello and five junior-level associates, could bode well for the new class.
