{"id":137556,"date":"2025-11-24T17:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T01:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/24\/biglaw-firm-shortens-summer-associate-program-in-effort-to-make-life-less-stressful-for-law-students\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T01:47:16","slug":"biglaw-firm-shortens-summer-associate-program-in-effort-to-make-life-less-stressful-for-law-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/24\/biglaw-firm-shortens-summer-associate-program-in-effort-to-make-life-less-stressful-for-law-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Biglaw Firm Shortens Summer Associate Program In Effort To Make Life Less \u2018Stressful\u2019 For Law Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The status quo is over. We can\u2019t continue to have a summer program where we can look at people\u2019s full first-year grades and then decide [if] we want to make them an offer to join us as a 2L<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The question is, do we, you know, do we just lose out on all summer associates and let the market pass us by, or do we do something creative that will allow us to continue to have a summer program, but also making sure that we\u2019re able to attract and hire top talent [and] people who are really succeeding in law school.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Bryan Heckenlively<\/a>, a partner at Munger Tolles and chair of its recruiting committee, in comments given to the American Lawyer<\/a>, concerning the firm\u2019s shortening of its summer associate program<\/a>. Starting for 2Ls in 2027, the firm will host students for four-to-six weeks at the end of the summer, while allowing them to do public interest work or work for another firm at the start of the summer. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard from students that [the new recruitment scheme] it\u2019s incredibly stressful,\u201d\u00a0said Kara Sommers, the firm\u2019s director of legal recruiting. She said of MTO\u2019s new program that \u201c[t]he market has sort of pushed this [recruitment] timeline, but it doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s aligning with any of the goals of the constituencies, so this is our attempt to shift some of those dynamics.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw Firm Shortens Summer Associate Program In Effort To Make Life Less \u2018Stressful\u2019 For Law Students<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The status quo is over. We can\u2019t continue to have a summer program where we can look at people\u2019s full first-year grades and then decide [if] we want to make them an offer to join us as a 2L<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The question is, do we, you know, do we just lose out on all summer associates and let the market pass us by, or do we do something creative that will allow us to continue to have a summer program, but also making sure that we\u2019re able to attract and hire top talent [and] people who are really succeeding in law school.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Bryan Heckenlively<\/a>, a partner at Munger Tolles and chair of its recruiting committee, in comments given to the American Lawyer<\/a>, concerning the firm\u2019s shortening of its summer associate program<\/a>. Starting for 2Ls in 2027, the firm will host students for four-to-six weeks at the end of the summer, while allowing them to do public interest work or work for another firm at the start of the summer. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard from students that [the new recruitment scheme] it\u2019s incredibly stressful,\u201d\u00a0said Kara Sommers, the firm\u2019s director of legal recruiting. She said of MTO\u2019s new program that \u201c[t]he market has sort of pushed this [recruitment] timeline, but it doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s aligning with any of the goals of the constituencies, so this is our attempt to shift some of those dynamics.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. The status quo is over. We can\u2019t continue to have a summer program where we can look at people\u2019s full first-year grades and then decide [if] we want to make them an offer to join us as a 2L. The question is, do we, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":137557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Staci-Zaretsky-B6nyBc.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}