Our summer program offers law students the opportunity to experience the practice of law at its most sophisticated level, in an energetic, cutting-edge law firm among lawyers who enjoy working together.  We offer the combination of a challenging and exciting legal practice and a collegial, team-oriented atmosphere.  In our summer program, summer associates work alongside attorneys at all levels, including directly with partners, in our commercial litigation, compliance and enforcement, environmental, corporate, securities enforcement, government relations, and communications practices, which epitomize the practice of law in Washington, DC.

We carefully set our summer program recruitment goals with the intention of extending permanent offers to each summer associate.  We generally recruit students who will have completed their second year of law school prior to the summer, although in a few exceptional cases we have extended summer associate positions to first-year law students.  Our goal is to help all our summer associates succeed in our program and join us as colleagues following graduation.  Our high offer/acceptance rate reflects the success of our summer program. 

We focus our recruiting on the needs of our specific practice areas, with a view toward fulfilling our needs for entry-level lawyers in each practice group.  At the same time, we value and offer the opportunity for summer associates to experience working on projects of their choosing in a variety of our practice areas.  We generally offer our summer associates the opportunity to rotate through two departments during our summer program.  As they rotate through their chosen departments, each summer associate will have the opportunity to select or be selected to work on pre-approved projects in that department.  At the same time, any summer associate may also choose projects from other groups to enable them to get the broadest experience possible.  We offer this opportunity in part because we do not rotate entry-level associates, and thus seek to match interests and needs through our summer program.  We understand that as a law student you may not be certain about which practice area is best suited to you, so we encourage you to explore any and all areas that you might find appealing. 

We offer summer associates a representative sample of the work of an entry-level associate, including the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of projects, including research, memoranda and brief writing, and client interaction.  Our goal is to provide a summer experience that will help our summer associates identify their substantive interests and provide a learning experience that will help shape long-term career goals.  Our former summer associates have consistently remarked that our summer program achieves that goal.

In short, our Washington office offers a diverse and sophisticated practice in the Nation’s capital in an environment of enthusiasm, encouragement, and camaraderie.  We appreciate your interest in Willkie, and welcome your application to join us.