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Does news about acceptance & reneging tend to stay within HR and the hiring attorneys, or do they also reach the partner-level attorneys who supervise the summers but aren't as directly involved in the hiring process?

I recently had to renege on my post-2L SA offer because I have to relocate, but the market I'm moving to has an experiential credit requirement. To fulfill this requirement, I'll have to get my summer work hours validated by my supervising attorney at my 2L summer firm. But I'm worried that this could get awkward if they know that I didn't just not take the offer but reneged on it.

To make matters worse, the 2L summer firm is a midsize firm so news might have traveled quickly and pervasively. I did have a legitimate reason for relocating and the conversation with my 2L summer firm didn't turn emotional or hostile. But I understand that reneging is reneging and that it still may have burned bridges, even if it wasn't in some spectacular explosive fashion.

Would reaching out to my 2L summer supervising attorney still be a faux pas? If anyone's been in this situation, how did you handle it?

I can say that my firm sends out an email everytime a summer accepts an offer so I imagine they'd know at a smaller firm (mine has about 20 summers).

Whether they know you reneged or not, you still worked there and you still need to get the hours verified. Just reach out politely, they’re not going to refuse the technical step of verifying your hours because you reneged. Burning bridges means you won’t get a job with them in future, it doesn’t mean they look for any opportunity to sabotage you or refuse to speak with you (especially since you had a good reason).