Firms choosing different paths for summer law programs

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March, law firms across North Carolina faced a quandary: what to do about their summer associate programs?

A hallmark of the law school experience, summer associate programs give students invaluable front-line experience and often are an entree into becoming a full-time associate at a law firm. But like so much else in life, it’s been seriously complicated by the pandemic.

This year, some law firms decided to cancel their programs altogether, but some are still paying the students and even offering them full-time jobs after they complete law school. Others decided to continue with their program, but do so virtually. And still others decided to keep their programs live and intact, with modifications. 

Nexsen Pruet, which has offices in Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, has traditionally had a 12-week program, but as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, it decided to pare back to a four-week program that began in early July, said Summer Winslow, the firm’s recruitment and professional development manager. The firm had considered a virtual program, but nixed the idea. 

Winslow said that nothing can replicate the face-to-face conversions or the good experience for students to see with their own eyes how a law firm works from the inside. Its clerks are working on pro bono and business law projects. Social events like parties, happy hours, and lunches are typically a large part of the summer associate program, but most of them have been cancelled, although the firm has socially distanced lunches for the associates.

Hosting a summer clerk program is more than an audition for a permanent job, said Adam Duke of Bell, Pitt & Davis in Charlotte, which was why his firm decided to go forward with a virtual program. 

“There is tremendous value in teaching, if only for a short period of time, young lawyers how the practice of law operates,” Duke said. “In interacting with the clerks, many of our lawyers are reminded of why they went to law school in the first place.”

The firm’s program this year lasted four weeks. It was entirely virtual except for one, socially-distanced, in-person gathering at the end of the program, but the clerks handled the same types of projects they typically might, completing a number of research and writing projects, attending court remotely, and joining calls with clients and attorneys. 

The firm also formed a Business Boot Camp to highlight areas of private practice that aren’t typically covered in a summer program, such as personal branding, business development, and aspects of the business of a law firm such as timekeeping, billing and managing teams. The firm also hosted virtual meetings for each attorney who wanted to meet the clerks individually,

“Honestly, it was like a regular job, with the only difference being that I wasn’t going to the office,” said Elizabeth Napps, a second-year law student at Wake Forest University School of Law who worked from her parents’ Kiawah Island, South Carolina home for the firm this summer. 

Napps felt particularly fortunate, given that she has classmates who had secured summer associate jobs and internships, only to have them cancelled. That was a “natural concern” for her as well, having secured the position in the winter before COVID-19 hit in March. But she credited the firm for keeping her up-to-date and being transparent about what its plans were at different points in time. 

Duke said that from his perspective, the biggest challenge during the program was that it was remote, but that also led to one of the biggest rewards.

“The clerks indicated that working remotely forced them to trust in themselves and each other more than they otherwise might have, leading to working together on projects in a collaborative way,” Duke said.

Moore & Van Allen in Charlotte opted to continue its program and surveyed its 17 participants about their comfort level regarding in-person work, said Tom Mitchell, who chairs the firm’s management committee. Based on their feedback, the summer associates are working remotely with the firm’s litigation, corporate, finance, bankruptcy and intellectual property practice groups.

“Even with most attorneys working from home, summer associates have had many virtual and even some in-person opportunities to grow their relationships with our attorneys,” Mitchell said. “They have attended yoga and picnics in local parks, joined virtual ‘Lunch & Learns’ with our practice groups, played virtual team trivia, and attended small, socially-distanced gatherings with our attorneys. In-person activities are entirely optional and summer associates have chosen to attend, or not, based on their own unique circumstances and comfort levels.”

Womble Bond Dickinson made the “difficult decision” to cancel its 2020 summer associate program due to disruption from the coronavirus pandemic, said Bruce Buchanan, a firm spokesman. 

“Given early summer shelter-in-place ordinances throughout our footprint, and the hard-to-predict nature of the pandemic’s effects, we felt that we were unable to provide a meaningful summer experience that would allow for our students to benefit from a robust in-person program,” Buchanan said.  

The good news: The firm is giving rising second-year law students offers to work as summer associates in 2021, offering jobs to the rising third-year law students to join the firm as full-time associates, and offering the 16 students who were chosen for its program a stipend. 
“Even though we are not having our summer associate program this summer, we are doing everything we can to make sure that we take care of our summer associates and do right by them in every way we can,” Buchanan said. 

For any law students looking for a new plan for the summer, the North Carolina Court of Appeals offered a virtual alternative. Judges Richard Dietz and and Phil Berger led a four-week series of virtual seminars on appellate practice that were held live and then posted on the North Carolina Judicial Branch’s website so students could watch them at their convenience. The seminars also included smaller, live breakout sessions. 

“I thought this is a way to reach not only the interns we may have lost over the summer, but to help other students as well,” Berger said.

He and Dietz presented seminars on topics including jurisdiction and preservation issues, standards of review and statutory case studies, and how to write briefs that are tailored to the judges who are reading them.

“It provided practical advice and examples,” said Jennie Schaaf, a student at Wake Forest University School of Law. “So much of law school is discussing theory, but both Judge Berger and Judge Dietz dismissed a lot of misconceptions we might have. They gave practical advice and how we can apply it to our future careers.”

Ben Aydlett, a student at Campbell University School of Law, had a full-time internship lined up, but it was cancelled due to COVID-19. He landed a part-time internship where he works 15 hours a week, so the seminars were a good alternative to filling up his summer hours and learning about appellate practice from sitting judges who offer a view of practicing law that the classroom can’t offer. 

“There are definitely a lot of students in my shoes who lost their internships because of COVID-19,” Aydlett said. “You could do as little or as much as you wanted, but you could work it in your schedule. It was a great way to improve in many areas.”

Follow Bill Cresenzo on Twitter @bcresenzosnclw