Associates
Nutter McClennen No. 1 in Summer Associates Survey
Posted Nov 19, 2007 5:54 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Summer associates participating in an American Lawyer survey gave the best grades to law firms that emphasized training and mentoring and offered exciting work.
Despite the emphasis on personal attention, clerks still took home big paychecks and were treated to spectacular outings, American Lawyer reports.
Summer associates made an average of $2,856 a week, an 8.6 percent increase over last year. They got to attend fun and often expensive events ranging from baseball games in skyboxes to whitewater rafting trips.
At Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, for example, summer clerks were treated to a private evening and dinner at New York's Museum of Modern Art. At a Cooley Godward Kronish, a summer told of "sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge one weekend and flying under it in a helicopter the very next."
Firms able to give much-desired attention to their summer associates tended to have smaller clerkship programs. Sixteen of the top 20 law firms in the survey hired fewer than 100 clerks.
No. 1 in the survey (sub. req.) was Nutter McClennen & Fish, which had only 11 clerks. Second and third place went to Fox Rothschild, which hired 17 clerks, and Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, with 25 clerks.
"They go out of their way to make you feel like a part of the family from day one," wrote one Nutter McClennen summer associate.
Alexander Glovsky, chair of the Nutter McClennen's hiring committee, said the firm offered weekly "nuts and bolts" legal seminars. It also encouraged partners to take associates outside the office “to court, to closings, to events where they can see lawyers at all levels in action."
The legal magazine distributed its surveys through law firm recruiting coordinators. It received responses from 7,392 summer associates at 195 firms.
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Comments
Josh
Nov 21, 2007 7:00 AM CST
Articles like this should be published in business journals to give clients fair notice that the outrageous fees that they’re paying for legal services (that could be performed by thousands of attorneys across the country for a fraction of the cost), are going to pay for summer associates to fly in helicopters under the Golden Gate Bridge.
Ali
Nov 21, 2007 7:13 AM CST
I’d be willing to guess that most clients already have fair notice of how their fees are being spent by large firms. More than a few of them have been treated to dinner or a game in a firm skybox…
Liz
Nov 21, 2007 7:22 AM CST
the interesting thing is that the firm that got the highest ratings didn’t do all those things, but instead just got the clerks involved in real lawyering and “treated them like family.” That makes me feel a lot better about what is important to law clerks (and I think all lawyers).
Janet
Nov 21, 2007 7:25 AM CST
Josh - when you can read carefully enough maybe you’ll get one of those jobs. The summer associate sailed under the bridge and flew over it; no helicopter flight under the bridge.
MJ
Nov 21, 2007 7:29 AM CST
Stories like this make me realize why the current generation of kids in their twenties feel an undeserved sense of entitlement. What has a summer associate done to deserve the extravagant overindulgence that is described in this article? I would be much more impressed if I heard that the “top” law students were out in the trenches with Legal Aid instead of feeding their delicate egos. I can virtually guarantee that no one in that age bracket has EARNED anything that would warrant the lifestyle they experienced over a summer associate position. Who cares about who is paying for the stuff? The more important thing is what big firms are teaching these kids - that they deserve the world and they haven’t even DONE anything yet!
Shannon
Nov 21, 2007 7:30 AM CST
Ahem…um, Janet…the article reads: “At a Cooley Godward Kronish, a summer told of ‘sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge one weekend and flying under it in a helicopter the very next.’”
Josh’s reading skills are just fine.
Lauren
Nov 21, 2007 7:31 AM CST
Just because the article doesn’t say the #1 firm did all those fancy things for their clerks, doesn’t mean they didn’t. Being “treated like family” at a large firm likely includes being pampered and spoiled. I wouldn’t read too much into this, in terms of changing values among clerks or within the profession - speakeing as a current law student, I assure you, there’s still plenty of emphasis placed on big firm special treatment, by potential clerks and the firms alike.
MAP
Nov 21, 2007 7:31 AM CST
Janet, you should be fired for not reading carefully.
David
Nov 21, 2007 7:32 AM CST
Janet - no, the article definitely says “sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge one weekend and flying under it in a helicopter the very next.”
Pat
Nov 21, 2007 7:34 AM CST
Janet - Appears Josh reads it same as I do -
“flying under it in a helicopter the very next.”
Sounds like a helicopter flight under the bridge to me.
Terri
Nov 21, 2007 7:35 AM CST
It’s always amusing when someone posts a really condescending comment to point out another poster’s mistake and ends up looking ten times as stupid in the process.
Mel
Nov 21, 2007 7:47 AM CST
MJ, I understand your disdain for the “entitlement” mentality, but I think you are reading this from the wrong perspective. The extravagance showered on summers by large firms is not a reward (backward looking); it is an enticement (forward looking). Currently, competition for the top law graduates is pretty fierce. This is really is no different than the courting antics seen in athletic recruiting.
Susan
Nov 21, 2007 7:59 AM CST
I do think that the kids today have a sense of “entitlement,” but the firms did the same things for their clerks 20 years ago. Also, with respect to the smaller clerking classes having higher ratings; the smaller the group, the more likely it is that the firm can identify who made negative comments, which might influence what the clerks report.
Ted
Nov 21, 2007 8:09 AM CST
What amazes me is that the summer clerks probably didn’t notice that their predecessors—the current crop of associates at the firm—were sporadic participants in these same activities with the clerks. I know I didn’t, and was pretty unprepared for the transition from summer clerk to 1st year associate.
Mike
Nov 21, 2007 8:14 AM CST
It never ceases to amaze me how many people make posts complaining about “outrageous” legal fees charged by major firms. It is a free market people. If the fees are too “outrageous”, as Josh so adroitly points out, there are innumerable firms who will do the work for less money. Clients who complain about how much money their lawyers make never seem to complain when their own companies make huge profits as a result of the work of those very same lawyers. Many clients don’t feel the high fees are worth it, and many clients have taken their business to less expensive firms. Maybe they’re right. Not all matters require the top attorneys; however, when the company’s on the line, no one ever got fired for hiring Skadden to represent them.
Steve
Nov 21, 2007 8:18 AM CST
Janet: for reals?
Nauseated
Nov 21, 2007 8:46 AM CST
$2,856 a week?!? Never mind the parties, helicopter rides and whitewater rafting trips! I’m a 7 yr lawyer and don’t make that much! I remember working my way through law school as a paralegal and having my most interesting work taken away in the summer and given to summer clerks. I guess I got a better taste of the real world than they did.
Mary
Nov 21, 2007 8:49 AM CST
These summer associates are the same people who, next year as attorneys, will be working outrageous hours, coming in on most weekends and holidays, bending over backwards to meet the usually totally unrealistic expectations of their clients and who will have their asses chewed out on a daily, maybe hourly, basis. Recall that lawyers take an YOUR problems as if they are their own, and don’t sleep, rest or spend time with their families or friends until your problem is solved. Damn right you have to entice youngsters with fancy dinners and helicopter trips (which fly UNDER the GG Bridge) to sign up for that.
Jeff
Nov 21, 2007 9:03 AM CST
MJ, I often think the same thing. What have I done to deserve the ability to participate in a summer associate program. Then I think of my friends that go out 5 nights a week. You know how hard law students study, and whereas I havn’t saved the world, yet, I do work hard and deserve to be rewarded.
Shannon
Nov 21, 2007 9:10 AM CST
Medical students and nursing students study hard, too. But they don’t get anything like this - and some of them actually save lives.
Jaz
Nov 21, 2007 9:37 AM CST
They should have gone to law school.
Shirley
Nov 21, 2007 9:41 AM CST
Shannon, I recommend you go to an AMA site if you want to talk about doctors and nurses. We are talking about lawyers here. Let’s not get too altruistic about how important doctors are - there are plenty out there with the same (and worse) problem described herein. And for the record, lawyers can save lives too. You might consider that the next time you hear about someone on death row who is released from prison after a law student works on an appeal for three years.
Mike
Nov 21, 2007 9:43 AM CST
All the people who are now complaining that the top few percent of law students make a lot of money were probably doing the same thing in law school - sitting on a bar stool complaining about how unfair it is. Those who put in the time and effort to be in the very top of their class deserve whatever the market is willing to pay. It is no secret that these students will very soon be working 2500+ hours to make other people rich. It is no secret that even these “outrageous” salaries are not enough to retain young lawyers who are leaving big firms in droves. If the salaries are so “outrageous” there should be no problem keeping talent. The fact is, what these associates do is hard. It is thankless, and there is no guaranty it will amount to partnership. People deserve to make what someong is willing to pay them - period.
Jim
Nov 21, 2007 9:45 AM CST
Like Nauseated, I question the $2856 per week AVERAGE summer associate salary. That’s nearly $150,000 per year on an annual basis. I doubt that is the average summer associate salary; perhaps the author meant $2856 per month.
Shannon
Nov 21, 2007 9:45 AM CST
Yes, Shirley, but the attorneys who work to save lives don’t get paid well and certainly don’t get fringe benefits.
And I’ll go ahead and post what I please, but thanks for the tip. I’m doing a comparison, so therefore I am still talking about lawyers.
You seem defensive.
J. Calvin WilliamsJr.
Nov 21, 2007 9:46 AM CST
There is an interesting dichotomy between the fees that larger firms can charge and the fees that smaller firms and offices charge. The same can be said of the services rendered to clients. Those of us in small offices take matters and cases which the larger firms cannot or will not accept.
There may or may not be a sense of satisfaction in the larger firms. I remember the words of a partner from Shadden Arps several years ago when he told me it might be nice to work for “real people” with real human issues rather than abstract corporate monoliths.
Joe
Nov 21, 2007 9:50 AM CST
Mary - we are all attorneys who take our client’s problems on as our own. Because I am in-house GC, doesn’t mean my day ends at 5:00 on Friday and no one ever bothers me at home or via BB on the weekend or holidays. Could you be any more self-centered? If you don’t like the hours, get a different line of work. It’s what we sign up for.
The issue mentioned is pay and perks. I spent time in management consulting before going to law school. I can say firsthand, the perks lavished on “recruits” were over the top - and completely unnecessary. Law firms are no different. The change comes in when you shift from recruit to staff. Many of the young lawyers don’t understand their is a difference and then complain on how they can’t possibly make ends meet on $160,000/annum plus bonus. That’s the real injustice - for the firms, the clients, and even the newly minted lawyers.
MJ
Nov 21, 2007 10:07 AM CST
Mike, re: your comment #22, try being a Judge Advocate in any military branch. Comparing the 2500+ hours of work someone is putting in before he/she goes back home to his/her $1M abode is nothing in comparison to dodging sniper bullets in Iraq on a salary of $38,500/year. That’s thankless work.
Shirley
Nov 21, 2007 10:09 AM CST
Shirley, by all means - post what you want. The First Amendment is not dying in this country. FYI, they don’t teach anything about the First Amendment during a medical residency. They only teach you the latest techniques on exuding self-importance. Good luck.
SB
Nov 21, 2007 10:13 AM CST
Jim—No, the author meant “per week.” That is the average summer associate salary per week. Annualized it’s a bit more than what their salary as an associate will be, but that helps to pay for temporary housing (which is expensive in those big cities), law school expenses, etc. Sure, it’s high, but that is the weekly salary, not monthly.
Happy Lawyer
Nov 21, 2007 10:32 AM CST
So what if some associates make tons of money during their summer and get lavish outings? The ultimate goal of your summer clerkship is to find a place where you want to work, and will be happy. Sometimes that place doesn’t pay the most. Hey, I make less than those clerks (and only $1500/mo during my summer clerkship), but I made partner (and get to profit share at the end of the year) in less than 5 years at my firm after working hard. Even if they bill 2500 hours a month at those big firms the probability is that they won’t make partner in 5 years, or even maybe 10. There are always trade-offs. Some law students just don’t see anything past those salaries and outings before making their decisions. Too bad for them. For those that actually enjoy working at those big firms with long hours—good for them. The world needs all types of lawyers. Law students need to find out what type they want to be.
Christian Law Student
Nov 21, 2007 10:47 AM CST
I hope that lawyers and students allke who earn those types of salaries spread it around to people who are less fortunate. We all have a responsibility to our fellow man. The problem today is that people are SELFISH. Instead of worrying about the big paycheck, and what new things we need, we should be thankful for what we DO have and help out those who have less. Look around! Many people around the world don’t even have clean water to drink.
Laura
Nov 21, 2007 10:49 AM CST
I do not know of any starviong doctors. Also, the pharmaceutical companies give them many perks for prescribing their meds (e.g., trips to Hawaii).
BP
Nov 21, 2007 11:04 AM CST
I wasn’t going to comment on this article, however, there is a pattern here by the ABA journal. Every week I see a new article on how certain people starting out their legal careers either make $160k a year, whine about making only $160k a year, have lavish dinners on their firms or do something else that incites the remainder of the ABA readership to argue about it. As of posting number 32 this has gone so far as commenting on how much doctors make! My suggestion is that we ignore the summer associate stories, ignore the fact that a small pecentage of people get paid much more than they are worth (the eventual divorce and/or alcohol and drug treatment program will cost them enough in the end) and get on with our day. Maybe then the ABA will find somthing useful to put in its news articles.
Doug
Nov 21, 2007 11:16 AM CST
It’s naive bordering on stupid to think that corporate legal departments don’t understand the manner in which the legal fees they pay are being spent. Often (not always by any means, but often enough), the very in-house lawyer that is agreeing to pay those fees came from either a large firm or a boutique where the hourly rates for partners topped $400 or $500. There is nothing eye-opening in hearing about a summer associate who cruises one night and flies the next, both times beneath the Golden Gate.
Moreover, why all the strong feelings on this subject? We have all made lifestyle choices. Those who could not get the cushy summer association positions probably didn’t have the grades to make the cut, which means they didn’t study hard enough, which means they had more free time during law school to do whatever pleases them. That continues into professional life. While you may decry the salaries paid to summer associates and younger associates at the big firms, they are undoubtedly working significantly more hours that someone in a smaller or less pressurized firm. It’s lifestyle. You don’t work as hard (or as long, if that’s more appropriate), you don’t get paid as much.
Deal with it and quit crying.
Karl
Nov 21, 2007 11:28 AM CST
As a summer clerk I was treated to similar enticements 35 years ago !! As noted by others, life changes dramatically when you become an associate - working long nights, weekends, with little or no vacations, and certainly no more trips under or over the GG.
Shirley
Nov 21, 2007 11:29 AM CST
Doug, you epitomize arrogant attorneys everywhere. While you were most certainly sucking off your parents’ teats during law school, I was raising a family of four and accumulating debt in school. What fantasy land do you live in that you actually believe that hard work equals good grades? People make choices to pursue a legal education at such times in their lives that they don’t have the luxury of devoting every waking hour to their studies. And don’t bothering mentioning that even in an entire class of people who do nothing but study 24/7 and belong to MENSA, someone will still be first and last in class rank. That doesn’t mean there are slackers in the class - it’s just a reality of the traditional ranking system. Get off your high horse.
Doug
Nov 21, 2007 12:08 PM CST
Shirley, your comment proves my point. You made a lifestyle choice: family. There is nothing judgmental in that observation. It simply is what it is. That you rightly devoted attention to your family necessarily means that you devoted less time to your studies as compared to a student who had no family to attend to. There are, after all, only 24 hours in a day. It is thus a zero-sum analysis.
And the “fantasy land” in which I live is the one where the great majority of law students have recently graduated college and do not have families or full-time jobs that might detract from the number of hours they can devote to their studies. They can spend all their time studing and shooting for the summer associate position at one of the big firms and then fall into a nice salary offset by 80-hour work weeks, or they dial it down a little and shoot for the job that will still allow them to enjoy life. Lifestyle choices, Shirley, not slacking.
My previous post never used the word “slacker.” That someone does not study “24/7” as you put it does not mean they are a slacker. It means they have made a lifestyle choice.
I’ll get off my high horse when you quit whining.
Doug
Nov 21, 2007 12:11 PM CST
And one more thing, Shirley. I took loans to get through law school. I’m still paying them. I did this even though my parents could have easily subsidized me. I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do. And I’m not whining about it. Take the cue.
Roger
Nov 21, 2007 12:14 PM CST
The money paid to summers is a matter of supply and demand. It perhaps goes without saying that law firm economics and the objective “value” of an associate’s work product are not perfectly aligned with the salaries and other benefits conferred. Most first year associates’ work may well not be objectively “worth” what they are paid if, hour for hour, it is evaluated against most fourth years’ work product. To some extent, but only to some extent, that is taken into account in the salary differential and the billing rates.
Nonetheless, on the broader question of overall associate compensation, the highly competitive upper tier of firms by size feel they have to be competitive in salaries to attract the best students they can. Periodically, one or more top firms will raise the ante, usually to no effect other than to make its other 20 or so competitors follow suit (this started in 1968, when Cravath raised the first-tier annual salary from $10K to $15K). Many smaller firms can’t and don’t pay as much, but they often offer a less stressful environment, which appeals to many.
Are lawyers worth what they are paid? You should ask the clients. Some think not. The fact that all but the smallest corporate clients have, in the main, grown their legal departments suggests they think they can make many legal services more efficiently than they can buy—but that approach usually doesn’t apply to the most expert, the riskiest or the most demanding legal work, such as bet-the-company litigations, mergers and acquisitions and practice areas where real specialization and expertise are too rare to maintain in-house, or where scale economies (dealing with several different entities in a given industry or sector) or competitive issues give an outside lawyer a perspective as to what risks others are taking, a perspective it is difficult to gain in-house.
Ronnie
Nov 21, 2007 1:33 PM CST
I have perhaps a different perspective. I worked in the recruiting department for a mid-size law firm for three years in college, and it’s the reason I never pursued a large firm in law school. The department had a budget of over $115k for 10 summer associates—you do the math. It was in San Francisco, so there was kayaking, baseball games, helicopter flights, cooking classes, and extravagant parties at partner’s houses, all day, just about every day. It came with the territory.
I wasn’t disgusted by it at all. The hours they worked weren’t astronomical, but since I was responsible for keeping track of all of the assignments they turned in, I was aware of the amount of work they did in fact do (forty 4-inch binders worth for a summer, on average). What I was intrigued by was the transition between being a summer associate and an attorney.
Complete 180-degree change! Obscene hours, short tempers, extreme weight loss or gain, nasty attitudes to everyone. This wasn’t universal, but enough for me to realize that wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. As a result, the summer associate allure held no such thing for me. I’m much happier at the firm I’m at now then I think I would’ve been elsewhere. Just my experience.
Also, at my school, if you made over a certain amount during the summer, you got a dollar for dollar reduction in your student aid. That meant that if you were smart, you better sock away a lot of that money, because the school wasn’t shelling out for your tuition if they knew you were getting paid handsomely already.
Summer Associate without a "sense of entitlement"
Nov 21, 2007 2:07 PM CST
As I’m sure most associates at the top law firms will tell you, the burnout rate is high in these positions. I would wager that most law students are well aware of this fact. In order to get the top talent (or persons with a high class rank anyway), the firms must offer some sort of enticment. After all, this is the number one way that large firms recruit for there 1st year associate classes. If they weren’t paid hansomely, surely no one in their right mind would subject themselves to long, thankless hours for virtually no benefit.
Second, many law students take these high-paying associate positions knowing that they will likely move somewhere else 5 or 10 years down the road.
I myself have chosen to be a summer associate at a large firm and to work the long hours after graduation. The decision was largely a financial one. I accumulated over $140,000 in debt between undergraduate and law school. I am one of those students who plans to put in the ungodly hours at a large firm for 5 to 10 years to pay off my student loan debt.
I am doing this, Shirley, so I have the time and financial stability to provide for a family as you did. So please don’t go on playing the victim here. You chose to have a family and spend less time studying, and rightly so. I would never claim that you should sacrifice the well being of your children to study 24/7, as you put it. But please don’t criticize my choices. I have chosen the other path, to put off having children until I am not working at a firm 2500+ hours a year.
It is not feasible to adequately raise your children and spend 24/7 on work, whether it be work at a big firm or studying into the late hours. I commend your choice of prioritizing your family over your studies. Please don’t criticize my choice to make these “outrageous salaries” to better care for mine in the future.
matt
Nov 21, 2007 2:49 PM CST
This just in ... Summer Associates make tons of money, do little work, and are lavished with perks; SAs have accomplished nothing to deserve this treatment other than what it takes to get good grads at a good law school; everyone else resents it; and corporate counsel love to complain about legal fees. Way to kick a dead horse, ABA Journal. This is just a watered-down, third tier version of Above the Law.
LS
Nov 21, 2007 5:20 PM CST
If it makes anyone feel better, I was a summer associate making obscene amounts of money per week, am now a second-year attorney making close to $200k a year, have forsaken the “golden handcuffs” in favor of paying off my student loans, and have now earned the freedom to leave my big firm job for a non-profit. So, not all summer associates and over paid attorneys are as greedy and pampered they have been made out to be on this site.
Mike
Nov 21, 2007 5:30 PM CST
Janet,
I want to hire you, your insight is exactly what my firm is looking for. You see the forest from the trees and can tell that most helicopters should not fly under a bridge…after all duty, breach,causation, and finally damage.
Feel free to e-mail me…
Big Firm Summer Associate
Nov 21, 2007 9:17 PM CST
Shirley - I am going to be one of the summer associate next summer making a whopping $3,080 a week. I’ve been homeless in America, I’ve lived in Africa with water scarcity, hunger, manual labor and experienced typhoid and malaria. Both parents are unemployed and have not contributed to my college or my law school education (its called loans). I have made many sacrifices in my life to be able to get to this position. Right now I live in a residential hotel with crack heads, pimps and TS prostitutes right outside my door and I’m female so it ain’t no bed of roses. I feel I deserve the salary I am going to make this summer and hopefully once I graduate as I’ve worked darn hard to climb out of hellish situation of which I am still living in presently. So please, stop hating. Not everyone is a spoiled brat with a sense of entitlement. As a lawyer, you should know better than to make generalizations.
Law Firm Partner
Nov 25, 2007 11:27 AM CST
All of you… be quiet and get back to work.
Howard
Nov 26, 2007 9:39 AM CST
Usually they fatten up the herd before the slaughter. Enjoy.
Marc Cryer
Nov 26, 2007 10:33 AM CST
I’m not sure why attorneys and their publications spend so much time talking about a minuscule elite within their profession. Very few law students will spend their summers making $2,856 a week the majority will work for peanuts to get experience in a local firm.
In my case I couldn’t even afford that luxury and instead opted to return to my former job (translator) so I could earn enough money to pay for my ballooning school loans, text books and living expenses. Many of my colleagues did the same returning to their old non-legal jobs in the summer.
We should focus our attention on the majority of hard working students who don’t have the luxury of $2,856 a week summer associate positions and work year round to pay bills even during the normal school year.
Ally
Nov 26, 2007 12:36 PM CST
The firms are grooming the associates and winning them over. It is well known that the summer associates hired will be working insane hours. The firms want to make sure that if they decided to hire an associate that associate will accept the offer. The more attractive a firm is for an associate the more popular the firm becomes among other students and a firm needs to have the best students knocking at their door. It is a marketing tactic that always works. First impressions work wonders. Five years later the best memories the hired associate may have are from their first summer with the firm, but they are still with that firm anyway. They made a decision and stuck with it and have now invested time in a company. That is a tough situation to leave and many don’t. Thus, the firm’s expenses to impress an associate have more than paid off. Don’t be so quick to criticize. No firm is just going to throw away money, in the same way over and over every year without a reason.
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