Summer Program – Learn, Experience, Enjoy
At Potter Anderson, we recognize that law students face a difficult choice in determining where to spend their second-year summer. Our summer program focuses on you. Our goal is to provide you with a summer experience that exposes you to our practice areas, our attorneys, and Wilmington and the surrounding area. You will be immersed in assignments from all corners of our firm in a challenging but supportive environment. Our summer associates develop their legal skills profoundly through the summer because they work closely with us on sophisticated matters across the spectrum of our practice. You likely will work on a project relating to a complex litigation matter, a corporate merger, a shareholder dispute or an intellectual property matter. In addition to the opportunity you will have to work side-by-side with the attorneys in our numerous sophisticated practice areas, you will have the benefit of getting to know our attorneys at training programs and social events that are scheduled throughout the summer. You can be assured that by the end of your summer you will have a strong sense of our firm and its people.
Mentoring
Each summer associate is paired with a partner and an associate mentor. Mentors provide general guidance and assistance in acclimating each summer associate to firm life. Mentors are available to answer questions that arise during the summer. Although each summer associate is assigned formal mentors, the firm’s open door policy also creates informal mentoring relationships between summer associates and attorneys during the course of the summer.
Assignments and Training
Quality Assignments
A primary purpose of our summer program is to give summer associates a realistic experience in the practice of law. We do this by assigning projects to summer associates that are similar in type and quality to those assigned to junior associates. Such projects, for example, may include preparing a complaint, researching a novel legal issue, assisting in drafting a brief, assisting in deposition preparation, or reviewing closing documents. Our program is designed to give our summer associates exposure to all aspects of the firm’s practice. At the same time, for those summer associates with a preferred practice area of concentration, efforts are made to ensure that some assignments are received in those areas.
Interaction with Experienced Attorneys
Summer associates are assigned projects from ongoing matters, and their work product is typically used in actual cases or transactions. They work closely with assigning attorneys and are encouraged to follow the progress of cases or transactions they work on, whether by attending a court hearing or the closing of a negotiated transaction. Moreover, the firm strongly encourages its attorneys to provide summer associates with immediate feedback on each completed project. Summer associates also receive a mid-summer and end-of-summer evaluation to provide them with more formal and structured feedback on their performance.
Social Events
Summer associates participate in a number of scheduled and impromptu get-togethers throughout the summer. These events provide summer associates with an opportunity to become better acquainted with the attorneys at the firm, with each other, and with the Wilmington area in general. In the past, these social events have centered around activities such as Phillies games, happy hours, gatherings at partners’ homes, crab feasts, community volunteering and wine tasting.