It’s a testament to the untempered enthusiasm of law firm summer associates that even a highly publicized round of mid-summer layoffs at one of the nation’s largest firms can’t keep them down. In The American Lawyer’s annual Summer Associates Survey, the 3,963 would-be lawyers who completed the poll heaped almost universally positive praise on the 134 firms where they spent the summer—even at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which announced the downsizing of 60 associates and 110 staff in mid-June.
Almost all of Weil’s summer associates said they would be likely to accept a full-time offer from the firm if it came their way. “Would highly recommend it as a place for people who are outgoing, don’t take themselves too seriously, but work/play hard,” wrote one Weil summer in the open-ended response section of the survey, before mentioning “Layoffs!,” perhaps cheekily, as the most memorable part of the summer.
