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So I've got a Summer Associate position for next summer, and now my top priority is getting an offer from the firm at the end of the summer. I'll be in the litigation department. What courses should I take to prepare myself for the summer and help me perform strongly as an SA?

A lit heavy clinic or a trial methods type course, though neither are necessary. Evidence may be helpful.

Any course which improves your legal research and writing, especially something focused on brief writing as opposed to more academic writing. In my experience, most litigation assignments involve research and writing a memo on some discrete legal issue, so improving your Westlaw/Lexis skills and honing your writing and analysis will be very helpful.

Other than that, complex litigation, corporations, and evidence will be helpful. If your firm does a lot of securities litigation, securities regulation may be helpful as well.

Evidence and Advanced Legal Research.

You should also consider what areas of the law you're likely to encounter. I worked on a lot of admin issues but it was for a DC firm. That would be different somewhere else.

Other than legal writing, my research assistance for a professor came the closest to replicating the work I did at the firm as a summer associate. Again, though, that was somewhat subject-matter dependent. Try to research for a professor who does litigation-type stuff.

brick_wall wrote:You should also consider what areas of the law you're likely to encounter. I worked on a lot of admin issues but it was for a DC firm. That would be different somewhere else.

Other than legal writing, my research assistance for a professor came the closest to replicating the work I did at the firm as a summer associate. Again, though, that was somewhat subject-matter dependent. Try to research for a professor who does litigation-type stuff.

TITCR.

I worked in SF/SV and would have been lost the first couple of weeks if I hadn't take an IP course. Find out what areas of law you are likely to encounter and take survey courses.

You'll still need to do legal research, but you're in a better position if you at least have some inkling of where to start.

As a summer associate in the lit department a partner suggested I take Securities Regulation as a 3L, and I would probably echo that advice. I would also consider taking Corporations and Evidence. These are all, of course, courses that you should probably take before you graduate, not necessarily courses you MUST take in order to be successful as a summer associate. In that regard I agree with what pretty much everyone else has said: take a class or two that will allow you to bone up on research and writing.