Our Summer Associate Program provides an opportunity to experience many facets of Snell & Wilmer.
The Snell & Wilmer Summer Associate Program is designed to provide new legal professionals with an opportunity to experience as many facets of the firm's practice and to work with as many of the firm's attorneys as possible. The firm appoints several senior associates to coordinate the program, solicit and screen projects from both partners and associates, and assign them to summer associates.
We have launched a new program “Chart Your Course” for Snell & Wilmer to preview candidates who would like to express early interest in a specific office at Snell & Wilmer. By applying through the PIC program, you are expressing interest and intent to start your career here. This preview program is a head start to earlier consideration by the firm, as compared to individuals who apply through general application channels. Please apply by June 1st, using the application link in the Summer Program section, and select PIC Program from the application drop-down menu.
Summer Program
At the mid-point and end of the summer, the coordinators meet with each summer associate to discuss his/her progress. In addition, each attorney for whom the summer associate works provides an oral and/or written evaluation. To the greatest extent possible, summer associates are urged to attend client conferences, depositions, negotiations, closings of various commercial transactions, administrative and court hearings, and trials in which the firm is involved.
We are constantly working to make our summer associate program even better and more beneficial to participants. We introduced "Reality Snell & Wilmer" to provide a new and different type of learning experience. In addition to projects, summer associates are matched with a partner who brings them into other cases and transactions, as needed, to simulate the reality of working as an attorney day to day.
Our comprehensive interview process for the summer associate program involves spending a lot of time up front to target the individuals whom we believe will join the firm.
Because of the extensive time and effort our hiring committee invests in the selection process, once a candidate is welcomed as a summer associate, the individual has great potential to become a valued addition to the firm.
We have completed our 1L hiring for Summer 2024. We will begin reviewing Class of 2026 materials in Late Spring/Early Summer 2024 for 2L summer positions in Summer 2025. Please submit your materials via our online portal.
Reality Snell & Wilmer
Reality Snell & Wilmer was developed to provide our summer associates with the most realistic experience possible. Our goal of the program is to ensure that through the summer, our summer associates become part of our firm, and have an experience that is as similar as possible to the reality of practicing law.
In addition to the traditional practice of assigning structured projects, our firm would like to enhance their experience by giving them a better idea of what it really is like to work at Snell & Wilmer team projects, short fused projects, projects that expand and projects that change direction or pop up from time-to-time.
Beginning with their second week at the firm, Snell & Wilmer will assign each of the summer associates to a Reality partner for the duration of their summer. Summer associates will be that attorney's "go-to" person. Reality partners will have summer associates work on any of their matters as they see fit. Reality partners can call summer associates at any time, short notice or not, to give them work, change the scope of the project, keep summer associates on something as it progresses and include them in brainstorming sessions and client meetings. We anticipate that maybe 30% of their time would be spent working with their Reality partner.
In addition to the perk of giving our summer associates a better sense of what it will be like to practice law at Snell & Wilmer, they can be a real asset to the Reality partner by providing updates, suggestions and research on matters.
Summer Associate Reader Program
The Snell & Wilmer Summer Associate Reader Program assists Snell & Wilmer summer associates with their legal writing. The recruiting office automatically distributes two projects from each summer associate to an assigned partner Reader. The partner Readers will review each clerk's projects for analysis, organization, clarity, language and style. While the partner Readers are not evaluating the substantive aspect of the summer associate's projects, they are evaluating grammar, organization and clarity. The partner Readers will read, edit and discuss the summer associate's projects with him/her and offer constructive feedback to help further develop and enhance their writing skills.
Calendar of Events
Our summer program is designed to provide each summer associate with an opportunity to experience as many facets of the firm's practice and to work with as many of the firm's attorneys as possible. In addition to several firm parties during the summer and other special events, each summer associate class's calendar is fine-tuned to meet the needs and interests of each class.