Nutter McClennen No. 1 in Summer Associates Survey
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.
