Pillsbury

Training & Assignments

• “The summer associate work was substantive. Oftentimes, summer associates would work directly with a partner or counsel on projects. The attorneys provided excellent guidance and encouraged frequent communication throughout the working relationships.”
• “Pillsbury's summer associate program was stellar in terms of the opportunities that it gave me to gather hands-on, work-related experience, including research and writing in support of client memoranda and briefs, as well as in-person experience in mediations and at courtroom oral argument.”
• “Assignments were substantive, interesting, and diverse. Assignment coordinators made sure that we all had work related to our areas of interest.”
• “I received amazing work as a summer associate, including work travel and attending client trainings/presentations. Face time with clients was consistent.”

Social Opportunities

• “My summer program was during the height of COVID, but the firm still made an effort to have virtual events like an escape room and wine tasting.”
• “The summer was incredibly fun, and it was clear how much the attorneys were excited for the various events, especially the recurring ones they had come to expect. My summer class is still tight knit to this day, over a year into practice, despite being all in different practice groups. We even meet weekly to vent about personal or professional life and to give each other advice, share experiences, or just generally support one another. We have helped each other on assignments, brainstormed how to facilitate each other's goals, and genuinely become close friends.”
• “We had weekly social events with the office's attorneys, which included cooking classes, wine tastings, and white water rafting.  There were also events for just the summer associates, such as a sushi dinner and concert of our choosing.”
• “Our summer was virtual, so there was less interaction with firm attorneys. However, we had weekly social events that several firm attorneys regularly joined. Firm attorneys were also very generous in their willingness to have virtual coffees/lunches. My summer class was small (only 7 of us) and we all got along very well.”

Associate Experience vs. Summer Expectations

• “It has been exactly as advertised. During my summer, the associates were incredibly forthcoming about the benefits and challenges of this path, and the firm's program genuinely gave us work typically expected of first-year associates. That is not to say it has not been challenging, or that it has not differed significantly in other respects due to the pandemic, but at its core, the people are still incredibly generous mentors and everyone has made concerted efforts to give me the experiences and subject-matter work I have requested.” 
• “My summer work very accurately reflected my work as a first year in my practice section. I was given substantive assignments that were still ongoing when I started late last year, and I was given the opportunity to continue working on them to completion.”
• “Pillsbury was extremely transparent during the summer associate process, right from the start.  As a summer, I was exposed to the kind of work and colleagues that I am still surrounded by now as a full-time associate. The collegiality has remained the same—and in fact increased since then.”
• “I think generally the firm has held up its end of the bargain—I have never had the feeling that I am not getting something that I was promised as a summer. I was warned that the summer life is not like associate life at the outset, and I expected that the substantive work and the pace of it would be different as an associate compared to what it was like as a summer.”

Favorite Summer Events

• “We did a virtual cooking class, which was a lot of fun.”
• “My two favorite summer events were a weekend getaway to the managing partner's Long Island beach house and a night of bowling in Midtown Manhattan.”
• “Virtual Escape Room was a blast!”

Pillsbury’s summer associates experience the firm’s collaborative style by working side-by-side with attorneys in a variety of practice areas on industry and client teams and on issue-specific projects. Pillsbury University offers training on everything from legal writing to client service basics to effective networking. Formal reviews supplement the extemporaneous feedback provided to summer associates by our lawyers.