Parker Poe's Summer Program
Summer Associates work on challenging projects comparable to those assigned to full-time first and second-year Associates. Projects include preparing transactional closing documents, drafting contracts, preparing litigation pleadings and memoranda and assisting lawyers in their preparation for closing, depositions and hearings. Summer Associates also participate in client conferences, closing, depositions, and court proceedings whenever possible and are not isolated in our libraries performing legal research or in workrooms reviewing documents.
Summer Associates receive projects from a variety of practice areas according to their interest. Work is assigned by different attorneys, but monitored by one attorney in each office who controls workloads and the type of work assigned. Summer Associates receive informal evaluations of project from assigning attorneys, as well as more formal mid-term and final progress reports. Each summer associate is also assigned a mentor group, which is comprised of an associate, a partner, a recruiting committee member and a secretarial assistant, who help coordinate work, social activities and administrative matters and who are available to answer all types of questions.
The firm provides fully-furnished corporate apartments to its summer associates free of charge in Charlotte and Raleigh, relieving them of housing expenses and the difficulties in locating short-term housing. In addition, the firm provides utilities, housekeeping service, a fitness club membership and parking to summer program participants. Planned social activities help our summer associates get to know our people and our cities.
During the summer, we plan a trip to the beach, golf outings, dinner parties and events such as concerts, theater shows and sporting events. There are also weekly softball games and spontaneous casual outings after work or on weekends.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we want our summer associates to get to know our attorneys and for our attorneys to get to know our summer associates on a personal basis. We see our summer program as an extremely valuable recruiting tool, and the majority of our new associates are hired through the summer program. We believe that participation in our program will offer summer associates an excellent opportunity to evaluate our firm and demonstrate why they will want to practice law with Parker Poe.