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I would love to hear personal experiences as a summer and 1st year at Covington DC's office.

For example: variety of assignments, process to decide between litigation/corporate and sub-practice areas (forced versus match preferences), formal versus "hands on" training, social activities, where you sit (shared office? cube? window?).

Also, being that DC is the head office, I assume summers and 1st years go there for trainings/conferences/retreats. Is that right? Do DC summers and new attorneys get to travel for off-sites?

Finally, can someone clarify the bonus situation for new hirers? I am gleaning from past threads that you get a generous signing bonus / bar study stipend, but no bonus for your Sept. to Dec. year, is that right? If so, does that mean you do not receive a bonus until March/April after working there for about 18 months?

Thank you!

Anonymous User wrote:I would love to hear personal experiences as a summer and 1st year at Covington DC's office.

For example: variety of assignments, process to decide between litigation/corporate and sub-practice areas (forced versus match preferences), formal versus "hands on" training, social activities, where you sit (shared office? cube? window?).

Also, being that DC is the head office, I assume summers and 1st years go there for trainings/conferences/retreats. Is that right? Do DC summers and new attorneys get to travel for off-sites?

Finally, can someone clarify the bonus situation for new hirers? I am gleaning from past threads that you get a generous signing bonus / bar study stipend, but no bonus for your Sept. to Dec. year, is that right? If so, does that mean you do not receive a bonus until March/April after working there for about 18 months?

Thank you!

Don't personally work there but I'm very close to many folks that do (sorry for the anon but revealing that I'm in DC combined with my previous posts risks too many personal identifying details).

My understanding is that Cov is pretty flexible in terms of moving between practice areas, even up to your mid-level associate years. Certainly people there move among the litigation practice groups all the time. I know of a litigation-to-corporate move by an associate there that didn't seem to have any hiccups, I just think that's less common because it's less likely that by the time you graduate from law school you'll really think you want to do, say, IP litigation and then realize two years later that corporate M&A is where your heart is. But I don't think Cov seems too rigid, compared to some firms.

Not sure about the retreats/trainings but it would certainly be industry practice that you go to the home office for that kind of thing.

I know their bonus policy changed this year, and I thought part of the change was that you would get a stub bonus for your first few months. Not 100% sure of that as the people I know there are more senior, but I think that was one of their changes.