PW Summer Program Forum

[Anonymous User]

Interested across the board in PE / M&A, RX, and litigation. Can people talk about the sumemr program here regarding quality of work, access to partners, ease in getting different kinds of projects, etc.? I'm not assuming I can do a summer of just Wells and Barshay or anything, but general notes would be helpful.

[Anonymous User]

Interested across the board in PE / M&A, RX, and litigation. Can people talk about the sumemr program here regarding quality of work, access to partners, ease in getting different kinds of projects, etc.? I'm not assuming I can do a summer of just Wells and Barshay or anything, but general notes would be helpful.

on that note, can ppl also talk about PW's rotation system? I heard people don't really get to pick what to work on, they generally just accept the assignment offered by the staffing manager - some end up spending the entire first year doing doc review, while some people, out of luck, had the chances to work on some interesting cases. can anyone confirm is that's true?

[Anonymous User]

I was a summer in 2020, so it was a virtual program - not sure if that's the plan again this year or if they will have made any adjustments based on last year. You can do whatever you want as a summer, so you'll get to try assignments from all those groups.

Coming in, we were assigned to one project with our (randomly chosen) partner mentor. After that, there was a lit staffing associate and a corp staffing associate who both sent out emails daily with projects that you could volunteer for on a first come/first serve basis. Usually the exciting ones or ones with big-name partners were taken within 5 minutes. The other groups (Private Clients, RE, RX, etc.) also had associate liaisons who sent out weekly or more sporadic emails with opportunities; we were encouraged to reach out to them directly if we wanted an assignment. I did this and fairly quickly got an opportunity with my group of choice. Each group also hosted an optional meet and greet/get to know you where partners and associates hung out in a Zoom room to chat. I attended one for a group I was interested in and asked a partner for an assignment, and was given one through that. I also was interested in trying FCPA work, which wasn't in any of the daily blast emails, so asked the lit assigning associate and he found something for me. So you can definitely get work through other channels.

As far as I could tell, the big name partners weren't super involved with the summer program (might be different in a normal year). We were always told we could reach out to anyone and they would generally be receptive, but I didn't do that. The quality of work was pretty basic across the board - lit assignments tended to be drafting memos and legal research. The corporate assignments I did were things like reviewing and summarizing the same contractual provision across several different contracts for a client, drafting a timeline for a transaction, and taking notes on client calls. Again, I think the work was slightly more basic last summer because it was all Zoom/virtual.

[Anonymous User]

I was a summer in 2020, so it was a virtual program - not sure if that's the plan again this year or if they will have made any adjustments based on last year. You can do whatever you want as a summer, so you'll get to try assignments from all those groups.

Coming in, we were assigned to one project with our (randomly chosen) partner mentor. After that, there was a lit staffing associate and a corp staffing associate who both sent out emails daily with projects that you could volunteer for on a first come/first serve basis. Usually the exciting ones or ones with big-name partners were taken within 5 minutes. The other groups (Private Clients, RE, RX, etc.) also had associate liaisons who sent out weekly or more sporadic emails with opportunities; we were encouraged to reach out to them directly if we wanted an assignment. I did this and fairly quickly got an opportunity with my group of choice. Each group also hosted an optional meet and greet/get to know you where partners and associates hung out in a Zoom room to chat. I attended one for a group I was interested in and asked a partner for an assignment, and was given one through that. I also was interested in trying FCPA work, which wasn't in any of the daily blast emails, so asked the lit assigning associate and he found something for me. So you can definitely get work through other channels.

As far as I could tell, the big name partners weren't super involved with the summer program (might be different in a normal year). We were always told we could reach out to anyone and they would generally be receptive, but I didn't do that. The quality of work was pretty basic across the board - lit assignments tended to be drafting memos and legal research. The corporate assignments I did were things like reviewing and summarizing the same contractual provision across several different contracts for a client, drafting a timeline for a transaction, and taking notes on client calls. Again, I think the work was slightly more basic last summer because it was all Zoom/virtual.

How was your experience working with the corporate group? Been reading some scary stuff from the other threads about PW's culture; apparently the corporate group gets staffed very leanly with difficult partners.

[Anonymous User]

I was a summer in 2020, so it was a virtual program - not sure if that's the plan again this year or if they will have made any adjustments based on last year. You can do whatever you want as a summer, so you'll get to try assignments from all those groups.

Coming in, we were assigned to one project with our (randomly chosen) partner mentor. After that, there was a lit staffing associate and a corp staffing associate who both sent out emails daily with projects that you could volunteer for on a first come/first serve basis. Usually the exciting ones or ones with big-name partners were taken within 5 minutes. The other groups (Private Clients, RE, RX, etc.) also had associate liaisons who sent out weekly or more sporadic emails with opportunities; we were encouraged to reach out to them directly if we wanted an assignment. I did this and fairly quickly got an opportunity with my group of choice. Each group also hosted an optional meet and greet/get to know you where partners and associates hung out in a Zoom room to chat. I attended one for a group I was interested in and asked a partner for an assignment, and was given one through that. I also was interested in trying FCPA work, which wasn't in any of the daily blast emails, so asked the lit assigning associate and he found something for me. So you can definitely get work through other channels.

As far as I could tell, the big name partners weren't super involved with the summer program (might be different in a normal year). We were always told we could reach out to anyone and they would generally be receptive, but I didn't do that. The quality of work was pretty basic across the board - lit assignments tended to be drafting memos and legal research. The corporate assignments I did were things like reviewing and summarizing the same contractual provision across several different contracts for a client, drafting a timeline for a transaction, and taking notes on client calls. Again, I think the work was slightly more basic last summer because it was all Zoom/virtual.

How was your experience working with the corporate group? Been reading some scary stuff from the other threads about PW's culture; apparently the corporate group gets staffed very leanly with difficult partners.

Also interested to hear!

[Anonymous User]

Senior associate and i've been an assigning associate for my group pre-Covid before things went virtual.

1. This summer will be virtual again
2. You are asked to rank your practice choices, I think you have to select at least two. Some put down three
3. You get two mentors (partner and associate) that are split between your two practice choices
4. Your first assignment must come from your first choice practice and is delivered by your partner mentor
5. After your first assignment, it's really up to you on what you want to try. Months before you arrive, the assigning associates get a spreadsheet with all your info: practice ranking, diversity, schools, mentors, etc and we use this to keep you on our radar when sending email blasts for assignments.
6. Pre-covid, the process was much more organic and fluid as people expressed their interests over lunches and events. Now that things are virtual, we expect to have a harder time persuading summers to "switch" groups. This was largely true last summer - most of them end up sticking with whatever group they preferred as they came in. Harder for them to explore more practices and harder for us to triangulate who we really like

As a general note, the firm traditionally overhires in litigation. Partly because of our enduring reputation as a lit shop but mostly because corporate/RX is consistently far busier than litigation (and litigation has far slower attrition). They tried to correct that this year - the hiring standards for litigation this summer were incredibly high so congrats if you got an offer. This flows into the summer dynamic. Assigning associates from other departments are instructed to try and avoid "poaching" corporate-minded summers because corporate needs the bodies

[Anonymous User]

Sorry for the unrelated question but does PW have a wait-list? Had a OCI screener over 2 weeks ago and haven't heard anything since. I know I'm most likely just being ghosted but I also know PW also sends out dings which gives me a sliver of hope that there's a wait list...

[Anonymous User]

I was a summer in 2020, so it was a virtual program - not sure if that's the plan again this year or if they will have made any adjustments based on last year. You can do whatever you want as a summer, so you'll get to try assignments from all those groups.

Coming in, we were assigned to one project with our (randomly chosen) partner mentor. After that, there was a lit staffing associate and a corp staffing associate who both sent out emails daily with projects that you could volunteer for on a first come/first serve basis. Usually the exciting ones or ones with big-name partners were taken within 5 minutes. The other groups (Private Clients, RE, RX, etc.) also had associate liaisons who sent out weekly or more sporadic emails with opportunities; we were encouraged to reach out to them directly if we wanted an assignment. I did this and fairly quickly got an opportunity with my group of choice. Each group also hosted an optional meet and greet/get to know you where partners and associates hung out in a Zoom room to chat. I attended one for a group I was interested in and asked a partner for an assignment, and was given one through that. I also was interested in trying FCPA work, which wasn't in any of the daily blast emails, so asked the lit assigning associate and he found something for me. So you can definitely get work through other channels.

As far as I could tell, the big name partners weren't super involved with the summer program (might be different in a normal year). We were always told we could reach out to anyone and they would generally be receptive, but I didn't do that. The quality of work was pretty basic across the board - lit assignments tended to be drafting memos and legal research. The corporate assignments I did were things like reviewing and summarizing the same contractual provision across several different contracts for a client, drafting a timeline for a transaction, and taking notes on client calls. Again, I think the work was slightly more basic last summer because it was all Zoom/virtual.

How was your experience working with the corporate group? Been reading some scary stuff from the other threads about PW's culture; apparently the corporate group gets staffed very leanly with difficult partners.

Also interested to hear!

So sorry - only just remembered this thread! My experience was fine - I liked all the corporate partners I worked with except one, who was a micromanager. I was told by multiple associates (and a partner) that you can avoid Barshay if you don't want to work with him, but not sure how that works if you're an M&A associate given that staffing is centralized. It was a little hard to get a good handle on the culture in the corporate group given that it was a virtual summer, but I read those threads too and chose PW anyway (over a couple of peer/"better" firms) because I really liked everyone I met during the recruiting process. Haven't regretted that yet, but I also obviously haven't gotten the real associate experience yet.