Practical Advice From the 2024 Vault Law Annual Associate Survey: Summer Program Tips

While we are still preparing for the release of our 2025 rankings, we thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peek at some of the results of Vault Law's 2024 Annual Associate Survey. Below, we present twenty little tidbits of practical advice from current associated themed around making the most of your summer program.

• “Don't stress. Look for a firm that represents your values and has a good reputation.”
• “Try to figure out the past classes of summer associates; this will give you a good indication of the type of people you will work with and if you will get along with them.”
• “Evaluate the people with whom you are interviewing as future mentors and ask yourself if they are the kind of lawyer/person you would like to become over the course of your career.”
• “Determine if you actually want to hang out with the people you work with. Understand how work is distributed and what your contribution to that work will be.”
• “Choose the firm that will give you (1) mentors and (2) substantive work assignments. Also choose the firm where you will feel most like yourself.”
• “It's all about the people and the training! Ask the associates how they were trained on the matters that they are currently working on and if they see the firm/partners being intentional about their professional advancement.”
• “Consider a firm that allows you flexibility in terms of practice group—you might not know what group or type of law you will enjoy until you try it.”
• “Choose a firm that is busy and is short on associates. Ask current associates who are alumni of your law school how busy the firm is.”
• “Look at job security, history of layoffs during rough times, long-term retention.”
• “Try to get accurate information about how assignments are allocated, how many hours attorneys actually work, and how well the firm is managed.”
• “Look into what kind of paralegal program a firm has. If they do not have a corps of paralegals, junior associates are likely doing that work.”
• “Really consider the billable hour requirement versus compensation tradeoff.”
• “Think very critically if you want a free market, rotating, or practice-based system for allocating work. If you are dead set on a practice group, a free market system could be very exhausting. If you really want to try a variety of practices, a rotation could be great for you. If you just want to do tax law, it could be most effective to be a summer associate just in tax.”
• “Choose the firm that looks like a good fit for at least two years and where you could stay or leave with great exit opportunities. Pay attention to how everyone treats each other.”
• “Look to the partners who have stayed and ask for their stories and why they have succeeded here.”
• “Focus on the attitude of partners toward the summers and ask junior associates how the transition is from summer associate to junior associate.”
• “Ask more questions about the types of clients that a firm has. Ask about early opportunities for case management and client contact.”
• “Go to non-firm-sponsored networking events where attorneys are more likely to be candid about their experiences.”
• “Figure out who you can look up to and model your work and work/life balance after. If you can't see them at the firm you're summering at you should find a different firm.”
• “Do what's best for you—not what everyone else is doing.”