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Overview
The vast majority of our entry-level lawyers begin their careers at Ropes & Gray as summer associates in the firm's Summer Program. The goal of the Summer Program is to provide our summer associates with a realistic sense of what it is like to work here. We seek to achieve this goal by providing our summer associates with the opportunity to do meaningful work on actual client matters; to participate in training programs modeled on the training we provide our associates; and to get to know our lawyers and one another through a variety of social events.
The 10 week Summer Program is critical to the firm's hiring effort. We hire each summer associate with the expectation that at the end of the summer we will extend to him or her an offer for a full-time position. In the last eleven summer programs, 99% of the 1212 summer associates in those programs received full-time offers and the annual acceptance rate on these offers ranged from 84% to 97%. Because we hope that all summer associates will return as full-time associates, the firm devotes substantial energy, time, and resources into making each student's experience in the Summer Program challenging and rewarding. The success of our efforts in that regard is confirmed by our unusually high acceptance rate on post-summer offers (according to statistics published by NALP, the average program yield for firms our size is about 75%).
Ropes & Gray is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring, retaining and advancing lawyers of diverse backgrounds. Welcoming and appreciating diversity is fundamental to our core values of excellence, fairness, integrity and respect. For more information, see Commitment to Diversity.
Our Summer Associates
We recruit our summer associates from top law schools in the United States are very fortunate to receive more than fifty applications for each summer associate position. Comparative surveys such as Vault's ranking of America's 100 most prestigious law firms regularly indicate that we are among the most selective firms in the country. We choose summer associates based on academic performance, personal skills, motivation, work and leadership experience, practice area interests, and the ability to work well in a highly collaborative environment. All of our summer associates share a deep commitment to excellence and to mastering early on the practical skills of the legal profession.
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Some members of Ropes & Gray’s 2011 summer program, pictured at orientation. |
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Structure of the Program/Work Assignment
Process
A team of partners administers the Summer Program. A group of Regional Coordinators are responsible for the day-to-day interactions with summers in their local office and conduct the final reviews. The six Work Coordinators help supplement the Coordinating Lawyer system described below.
Reflecting our consistent preference to work collaboratively in teams, each summer associate is assigned two "Coordinating Lawyers" and one "Advisor". The Coordinating Lawyers (typically one partner and one senior associate) provide the majority of the summer associate's work assignments. The projects assigned are on actual cases, deals, negotiations and transactions in which the Coordinating Lawyer is involved. In addition, Coordinating Lawyers often provide summer associates the opportunity to observe them interacting with clients and other counsel. The Advisor (typically a first through third year associate) serves as a general resource to the summer associate throughout the summer. Together, the Coordinating Lawyers and Advisor develop and guide the summer associate's experience over the course of the summer. Summer associates may supplement the work they receive from their Coordinating Lawyers with work (including projects from other practice areas) from a general work assignment pool which is administered by the Work Coordinators. |
"The most valuable part of my summer program experience
was the chance to explore the firm's diverse practice areas. The
summer program gives you the opportunity to try a wide variety
of assignments and figure out what kind of work interests you."
Student Response, recent American Lawyer
Summer Associate Survey.
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Feedback
We actively encourage all lawyers assigning work to summer associates to provide meaningful and timely feedback to the summer associate. The system is structured to encourage regular informal feedback in addition to a structured review process. Partners provide feedback on each assignment completed by a summer associate. This enables Regional Coordinators to share feedback and in turn to seek feedback from the summer associate on his or her summer experience.
Training
Our firm's continued success depends upon our ability to hire and develop top legal talent. To that end, we are committed to providing our associates with excellent training. We are renowned for our training programs, ranking #1 in informal and formal training among America's top 100 law firms in the most recent data collected by Vault.com. As part of our Summer Program, we offer our summer associates excerpts from our training program for entry-level associates, as well as training programs designed specifically for summer associates. Participation in the training opportunities is, of course, optional. |
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Summer associates attend a diversity presentation.
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| Some of the training offered during the 2012 Summer Program will include workshops on negotiation skills, legal writing, ethical lawyering, and a variety of substantive areas of the law. |
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Summer associates learn trial practice
skills in our mock courtroom.
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Community Service
Summer Associates are encouraged to participate in the community service projects in each of our offices, while also given ample opportunities to do Pro Bono work with our lawyers. See Community Service and Pro Bono for more information.
As part of the 2011 Summer Program, the firm worked with Cradles to Crayons in Boston, Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, DC, Lakeview Pantry in Chicago, the San Francisco Food Bank in the Bay Area, and United Way in New York City in developing a day-long community service project. The projects (in which participation was entirely optional) enabled our summer associates to spend a day helping their communities.
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Scenes from the Summer 2011 community service projects in Boston,
New York, DC, and the Bay Area. |
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Monday Lunch Series
Our Monday lunch series is central to our Summer Program. On several Mondays during the summer, our summer associates meet for lunch to get to know one another better. Over the course of these Monday lunches, a series of speakers, both from within and outside our firm, address our summer class on a range of topics designed to help the students get to know the people, practice, and culture of our firm, the cities in which our offices are located, and the practice of law more generally.
Social Events
Our Summer Program includes many opportunities for summer associates to get to know the firm's lawyers as well as one another. We host a wide variety of events in an effort to appeal to the diverse interests of our summer class. Participation is, of course, optional. During the summer of 2011 our summer associates watched a theater show, attended a baseball game, played pool and bowling, participated in scavenger hunts, and enjoyed cooking classes. In addition to weekly events hosted by the Summer Program, many of the Departments organize their own events directed at those program participants with an interest in that particular area.
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If you have any questions about our summer program, please feel free to contact any of our recruiting coordinators who are involved with the program, Beth Arcieri (Boston), Brenda Calixte (Boston), Julie DiZinno (Chicago), Veronica Guitar (New York), Dawn Leo (San Francisco and Silicon Valley), Katie McMahon (Washington, DC), and Lina Vasco (New York).
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