Summer Associates: Good Habits, Soft Skills Outweigh Big Swings

Summer moves quickly at law firms for summer associates. You have 10 weeks to develop new legal skills, build meaningful relationships, and begin to define your professional identity.

To make the most of this fast-paced program, here are a few thoughts and guidelines on this 10-week window of opportunity. Leveraging these tools in small, consistent ways will help you differentiate yourself.

Summer Success

Your firm selected you because they saw potential in your interview and credentials—and now they’re invested in your success as a future lawyer and colleague. While the summer program is a 10-week extension of that interview process, it’s also an opportunity to develop legal skills that law school doesn’t teach and build your professional network in a uniquely supportive setting.

Law school develops your skills to think critically, research thoroughly, communicate clearly, and write succinctly. During your summer, you’ll learn to adapt these skills for new audiences: a partner, a client, a court, or an agency.

But just as important are your responsiveness, preparation, time management, and timekeeping. Welcome to the billable hour! These are your primary professional currencies this summer and developing small, reliable habits now will serve you well throughout your career.

Reminding yourself to take the extra moment to confirm you understand the ask, checking in mid-assignment, or clarifying a deadline can make all the difference. Summer success is often determined by dozens of ordinary moments handled well rather than one extraordinary project.

Most summer associates don’t struggle because they lack intelligence or legal ability. Instead, they stumble when they stop paying attention to these small professional habits that build trust, focusing only on demonstrating hard legal skills. But soft skills are perhaps your greatest assets as a summer associate.

Challenge yourself to take on a variety of matters, even if they don’t fit your vision of a perfect summer project. The more people you work with, the more opportunities you have to develop and showcase your talent. If you consistently show up as your best professional self, you’ll find that bigger, more interesting matters will always follow. You may even find an area of law you hadn’t known existed is the path you want to take.

Growing Your Network

Summer programs are in some ways like law school orientation. Everyone in your summer associate class is also “new here,” and everyone else is excited to help and be a part of the energy you bring to the firm. This dynamic provides you with unique access across seniority levels and practices, and it’s a good preview of the importance that networking will play throughout your career. The legal network you begin building this summer may last decades longer than any single assignment.

Law is a relationship business, so finding people you connect with is the goal, and it’s important to continue building those relationships, both within your class and across the firm. Ask partners about their practice, talk to senior associates about their career trajectory, and learn about the day-to-day from junior associates.

Summer program events are designed to help you facilitate small, informal interactions with people across the firm and establish your networking skills. Showing up consistently is important: Having a few meaningful interactions each time will expand your rapport and network quickly. Set a goal to connect with new people at each event.

In a summer program, most people you’re working with are, in many respects, your boss. You may feel those lines blur as you grow genuine friendships over the summer.

This is an excellent sign for cultural fit, but it’s important to remind yourself to hold a professional line in your interactions with attorneys and members of the business team. It may feel natural to start communicating a little more informally as you make more connections, but resisting that inclination and maintaining a consistent, professional approach in your work can be the difference between becoming the go-to summer associate and someone people quietly start losing trust in as a colleague.

Summer Check-Ins

Weeks 1-2: Ground Yourself

• Define success: What are two things that would make you proud of your experience?
• Reconnect with people you met during the recruiting process and ask them whom they’d recommend you meet next based on your goals and interests.

Weeks 3-4: Build Consistency

• What skills or tools have you implemented to build a reputation as a dependable team member?
• Are you actively seeking and incorporating feedback?

Weeks 5-6: Expand Your Exposure

• You’re halfway through: Who haven’t you met yet? And what types of work haven’t you tried? Work with your mentors to make a plan.

Weeks 7-8: Round Out Your Experience

• Continue to develop relationships. Ask to schedule another coffee or lunch before the program closes.
• Check in on long-term assignments: Is something due before the end of summer that you need to focus on?
• Revisit your goals from the first few weeks. What’s left to accomplish?

Weeks 9-10: Finish Strong and Reflect

• Don’t take on more than you can finish.
• What surprised you? What are you proud of? And how does that impact the classes you take and the opportunities you pursue in your last year of law school?

The summer program is a 10-week opportunity to begin shaping the lawyer you hope to become. Be intentional about where you invest your energy and approach each interaction as a chance to learn and contribute.

Years from now, few people will remember the substance of any particular summer assignment, but they will remember the first impression you left as a colleague.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Robert Baldwin is a partner in the antitrust practice of Hogan Lovells, focusing on merger control. He also serves as the firm’s national hiring partner.

Sadie Marsman is a legal recruitment manager at Hogan Lovells, where she manages law student recruitment across the Washington, DC region and leads the firm’s national summer associate program.

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