It’s early July, and already Quinn Emaunel Urquhart & Sullivan is pulling the plug on summer. Last week, the firm announced that it plans to drastically slash its summer associate program (it will be limited to five to 10 associates after this year; it has 50 in its current pool).

The reason Quinn is butchering the sacred summer associate cow? Well, it seems the firm doesn’t think these programs are particularly useful. Sara Randazzo of The Wall Street Journal reports:

“Although we do our best to ensure that summer associates do real and meaningful work, summer programs are unavoidably unrealistic to a degree,” Mr. Quinn told the firm’s attorneys in an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Especially when it comes to the trial work we do here, it’s difficult to parcel out projects that fit within the two months summer associates are with us.”