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 an 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 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 ten summer programs, 99.7% of the 1095 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%).

Our Summer Associates
We recruit our summer associates from top law schools in the United States and Canada and are very fortunate to receive more than thirty-two 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.

As a result of our hiring criteria, our Summer Program brings together an exceptionally able and interesting group of students. Our Summer Program in 2011, for example, is composed of 57 men and 68 women and includes 53 students of color. These 125 students excelled at 31 top law schools and 68 colleges, and focused their studies in a wide variety of different undergraduate majors. Many had worked before going to law school and/or earned other graduate degrees before coming here, and a large number of them are planning to do a judicial clerkship following law school. We expect that most of these students will return as associates and continue lifelong friendships formed here at Ropes & Gray.

Structure of the Program/Work Assignment Process
A team of seven partners administers the Summer Program. One is the partner in charge of the Summer Program and is responsible for the overall program and the others are called Work Coordinators and 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 then 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.

Pro Bono/Community Service
Ropes & Gray’s commitment to pro bono work is facilitated by a Pro Bono Committee, which identifies, considers and approves prospective initiatives and by a Senior Pro Bono Manager who administers and fosters the firm’s pro bono program. The firm encourages all of its lawyers to do pro bono work, and fully credits such matters as seriously as any client engagement. Summer associates have the opportunity to participate in handling the firm's pro bono matters. Some recent examples of our pro bono practice include our representing foreign nationals seeking to remain in the United States though participation in the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project; representing death row inmates in appellate litigation; and representing domestic abuse victims and homeless individuals in numerous matters. See Pro Bono for more information.

In addition, the firm and many of our lawyers and staff are actively involved in community service activities that do not involve providing legal advice. For example, for the last eight years a number of Ropes & Gray lawyers and staff have volunteered from the business community to read to elementary school students over lunch once a week. The firm also participates in a holiday gift program, clothing drives, and a "back to school" gift program for homeless children. For more information, see Community Service. We similarly encourage our summer associates to participate in community service activities during their summer with the firm. As part of the 2010 Summer Program, the firm worked with Cradles to Crayons in Boston, Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, DC, City Year in Chicago, the San Francisco Food Bank on the west coast, 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.

Summer Associates in Boston also regularly form the backbone of the firm-sponsored team in "Field of Dreams", an annual charity softball event at Fenway Park run by Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. (ABCD), one of New England's largest human service agencies. The event not only raises funds to help ABCD to pursue its mission of providing education and skilled job training to low-income Boston residents, but also enables the team members (consisting of summer associates, lawyers and staff) to enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime change to play ball in Fenway Park.  Scenes from previous games can be viewed by clicking Community Service.

Other Summer Program Details
We require each summer associate to spend 10 weeks at the firm, with students choosing to begin the program on one of two start dates. The summer associate class is composed almost entirely of students who have completed their second year of law school, with occasional supplementation by a few who have completed their first or third year of law school. Our firm has adopted a business casual dress policy applicable all year long.

Judicial Clerkships
See 3Ls and Judicial Clerkships for further information.

Diversity Commitment
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. We are proud of the diversity we have achieved at Ropes & Gray (as reflected in our February 2011 NALP form (see Demographics), and remain committed to fostering a work environment that is enhanced by bringing together individuals with different backgrounds, perspectives and life experiences. For more information about this topic, see Commitment to Diversity.