Are Three Large Law Firms Really The Most Desirable Place For a Summer Associate Job?

“The three most desirable law firms to land a summer associate position with are Latham & Watkins; Kirkland & Ellis; and Skadden, Arps Slate, Meagher & Flom, according to a white paper published Monday by Law360 Pulse.”

This in the ABA Journal this morning in a piece by Stephanie Francis Ward.

The ABA Journal’s story was based on a piece in Law360 reviewing a ”Summer Associates Survey: On-Campus Interviews, Most Desired Firms and Virtual Program Challenges.”

Can this really be true?

Nothing against these firms, but they’re not the three most desirable law firms to land a summer associate position with – even if the 1,200 surveyed students said so.

I worked a summer associate job with the Law Offices of John Dutton in the small city of Auburn, 40 miles up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, East of Sacramento.

One person shop where I got a little bit of everything, depending on the day. Maybe talking life and the law, over steak and red wine, with a gentleman I later found out to have been a deputy district attorney, judge and law professor.

Someone that folks in the area called pretty tenacious. Who knows, maybe where I got some of it from.

I sure hope law students are looking around to pick up a real slice of life as well as the law while a summer associate.

For some it may be the corporate high rises. But for many I think it’s looking around at the Single-A to Triple-A baseball cities for a piece of law in America. Maybe even legal services and pro-bono causes, if you can get them.

But three good large law firms the most desirable places to work this summer for law students? I’m not seeing it.