What to expect

Orientation and Training

• All summer associates participate in a one-week orientation program, which is generally conducted in the New York office.  Summer orientation is designed to (i) introduce the summer associates to the Firm’s culture and values as well as our lawyers, (ii) allow the summer associates time to get to know each other, (iii) offer practical advice about working in a professional setting, (iv) add to their knowledge of basic research and writing skills, and (v) provide basic instruction about the technology they will use during the summer.
• In addition, S&C offers a wide variety of training programs and skills workshops over the course of the summer. In 2008, such programs included:
  • What’s the Deal with M&A?
  • You Got Served:  Practice Rules They Don’t Teach You in Law School
  • Negotiation Skills Workshop
  • Trial Practice Basics Workshop

Mentoring, Assigning, and Evaluations

• Summer associates are assigned a partner mentor, an associate mentor, and a junior associate “buddy.” The partner and associate mentors are selected primarily on the basis of the summer associate’s expressed interest in specific practice groups. The goal is for each summer associate both to work and engage in social activity with his or her mentors during the course of the summer. The junior associate buddy is selected based on the summer associate’s outside interests, prior experiences, law school affiliation, and/or background.
• Associate work assignment coordinators in the four main practice groups – General Practice/Corporate, Litigation, Tax, and Estates & Personal – and a Pro Bono work coordinator are charged with distributing assignments to the summer associates. Whenever possible, the work assignment coordinators match available assignments with summer associates’ expressed areas of interest.
• Summer associates who spend nine or more weeks of the summer at S&C receive two formal reviews: a mid-summer and a final evaluation. The reviews are conducted by the summer associates’ partner mentors, based on feedback received from the lawyers with whom the summer associates have worked.

Rotations, Splitting, and Externships

• Summer associates may request placement in one of our foreign offices for four to six weeks or they may elect to split their summer between two domestic offices, subject to space and staffing needs. In 2008, 22 summer associates spent time in one of our foreign offices and nine summer associates split their time between two domestic offices.
• Although S&C discourages splitting the summer with another firm, S&C will consider allowing a split with a firm in a different city, provided the first eight weeks are spent at S&C. Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
• Every year, a few S&C summer associates extern for a short period at Goldman Sachs. In 2008, S&C also offered externship opportunities at a variety of public service organizations, through the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and the City Bar Justice Center Housing Assistance Project.

Social Events

• S&C organizes a wide variety of summer social events, including parties at lawyers’ homes, wine-tastings, cooking classes, and downtown-area walking tours. This year’s highlights included the following:
  • Broadway show – “In the Heights”
  • Art tours of Chelsea and DUMBO
  • Shakespeare in the Park – “Hair”
  • Women’s “Dinner and a Movie” at Tribeca Cinemas
  • City park clean-up of Sara Delano Roosevelt Park
  • Farewell party at Tribeca Rooftop
• The 2008 summer associates participated in our “Chowdown for Charity” program. On a bi-weekly basis, the summer associates attended a catered lunch in the New York office instead of going out to restaurants. The Firm then donated the money that would have been spent, had the summer associates chosen to go out, to Citymeals-on-Wheels, a charity that distributes meals to homebound, elderly New Yorkers, who can no longer shop or cook for themselves.