The summer of ’25 has passed, and the reviews are in from law students who spent the season working as associates at some of the nation’s largest law firms.
The verdict? Even after a tumultuous year for Big Law, most summer associates said they were satisfied with the firms they chose. Nine out of 10 said they “were not planning to interview with other firms,” and the same number said they expected to or had received a full-time employment offer from their firms, a summer associates survey by Law.com found.
The optimism about landing a job comes even amid reports that many firms were holding back on offers to summer associates for the third consecutive year. In March, the Law School Admission Council reported that the total number of job offers for summers during the previous year “was down even further from the 11-year low measured in 2023, while the median number of summer associate offers per law firm office fell to just six in 2024.”
Meanwhile, many summer associates are closely watching how firms deploy new technology and deal with the Trump administration’s attacks on several major firms, Law.com reported. “Not everything was business as usual for the class of 2026," Law.com said. "Compared to previous classes, this year’s summers arrived at firms that were grappling with two existential, evolving issues: the advancement of generative artificial intelligence and unprecedented scrutiny from the Trump administration.”
Summer Attitudes
Covering nearly 3,000 summer associates from 67 large firms, the Law.com survey asked summers to score their firms on a five-point scale, rating culture, work-life balance, interactions between partners and associates, the quality of the work, compensation and other issues. Summers were also asked for their attitudes about key legal industry issues, like AI implementation.
In general, summer associates said that they had a good experience this year, as evidenced by the exceptionally low number of associates who said they would apply at other firms. And in spite of the possible slowdown in hiring, firms continued to treat associates to extras like boat excursions, Broadway shows, major league baseball games and concert tickets, Law.com reported.
On average, summer associates worked 41 hours per week, the Law.com survey shows, and “billed roughly half of that time.” Average pay was $4,350 per week, which would translate to an annual salary of $226,000. “Even the less fortunate 3Ls…still had what appears to be a typical summer associate experience,” Law.com said.
As for their job searches, most summer associates said they were focused on the reputation and practice strengths of the firms where they hoped to work. They are also keeping an eye on rapid changes in technology and the political climate. “What’s clear right now,” Law.com said, “is that next fall’s first-year associates are paying close attention to how their future employers navigate political and social pressures.”
How Firms Fared
Firms ranked in the top 10 by summer associates were:
- Choate, Hall & Stewart
- Proskauer Rose
- Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
- HSF Kramer
- Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton
- Blank Rome
- Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton
- Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
- O’Melveny & Myers
Boston-based Choate Hall was the only firm to score a perfect five out of five rating. Choate describes its summer program as “different from what our competitors may offer” because summers work in a single office that houses both domestic and international practices.
Summers receive “intensive training from day one and…substantive, individualized opportunities to do impactful work and build lasting relationships” with colleagues, Choate says in its summer associate recruiting material. The firm also assigns three mentors to guide summer associates—a partner, a midlevel associate and a junior associate—which “allows for a meaningful interaction with lawyers at different stages of their careers.”
All of the firms in the top 10 scored 4.93 or above from summers. In truth, however, the ratings between the highest- and lowest-ranked firms on the survey were relatively narrow. The firm at the bottom of the list, Womble Bond Dickinson, still managed an average score above 4.2 on the five-point scale.
AI’s Impact
For many summers, the 2025 experience was shaped by their firm’s engagement with artificial intelligence—or lack thereof. Law.com reported that some firms discussed generative AI, but summer associates were not allowed to touch it as part of their work. At others, summers received no AI-related training at all. “ChatGPT is disabled on our computers,” one summer associate said.
Other firms embraced AI tools and encouraged summers to use them “for a variety of tasks and even involve it in client work,” the survey said. One firm provided AI-powered research tools, summers told Law.com, which “helped them locate relevant cases faster and devote more time to analysis.” Another firm created a private AI tool that helped associates know when to use AI for various tasks, and still another built a ChatGPT-powered AI mentor for associates.
“Firms’ varied progress on adopting and integrating AI into their workflows directly impacted summer associates’ experiences,” Law.com said. “Summer associates were also split on how they viewed AI, with a majority feeling equal parts hopeful about the technology’s potential to make lawyers more efficient and concerned about it eliminating entry-level roles.” Indeed, some summer associates said that “they appreciated a more traditional approach” and “didn’t necessarily complain about falling behind” on generative AI.
Politics and the Profession
Political issues were another key area of concern for summers. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued—or threatened to issue—a series of executive orders targeting law firms that had represented political opponents. The orders stripped lawyers of their security clearances, preventing them from entering federal buildings and threatened federal contractors with penalties if they worked with targeted firms.
Nine firms—Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Milbank; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Latham & Watkins; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison—negotiated agreements with the Trump Administration to avoid executive orders or (in the case of Paul, Weiss) to have them rescinded. In exchange, the firms committed to providing nearly $1 billion in pro bono work on initiatives supported by Trump, and to curb diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Four firms—Susman & Godfrey, Jenner & Block, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and Perkins Coie—resisted. They sued to overturn executive orders and each won permanent injunctions against the administration.
Law students were paying attention. The Law.com survey showed that 65% of law students said that how a firm responded to political and social pressure “moderately,” “significantly” or “extensively” affected the decision about whether they would spend their summers employed by a particular firm.
Two-thirds of summer associates also agreed that the administration’s actions were challenging lawyers’ independence, the survey said. “Super disappointed in Paul Weiss, Latham, Kirkland, etc. and they were all immediately taken off my list of places to work,” one summer told Law.com.
Leaning Left
Not everyone agreed. Law.com reported that “a few dozen summers” said they felt outcry over the Trump administration’s actions was “overblown” or that the executive orders were “justifiable for firms’ previous liberal bent.”
Certainly, law firms have long supported liberal causes, but the move to the left by Big Law has accelerated in recent years, according to a recently released report by a University of Notre Dame law professor who has been analyzing political contributions by large firm employees over the last decade.
Professor Derek Muller ranked 150 firms—members of the Am Law 100 and 50 large plaintiffs’ firms—and found that 92.45% of campaign contributions from those firms during the 2024 election cycle went to Democratic-affiliated groups. In real dollars, firms and their lawyers and staff contributed $52 million to Democrats and $4 million to Republicans—a 12-to-1 ratio. That’s a sharp increase from the 6-to-1 ratio Muller recorded during the 2020 campaign.
In an interview with Bloomberg Law, Muller said he was “surprised to see such a stark shift, in only four years.” But the pendulum may swing to the right in the next presidential election cycle, driven by Republican incumbency, the departure from Big Law of key Democratic donors in the wake of Trump’s executive orders, and the simple fact that “it would be hard to get farther to the left,” Muller told Bloomberg.
The Oldest Players
While the summer associates of 2025 have been working for firms in a moment of intense partisanship, this is by no means the first time law firms have faced political or societal pressures. Many firms have been navigating those issues for decades—and in the case of a handful of firms, for centuries.
Recently, as part of its annual Global 100 survey of the world’s highest-grossing law firms, Law.com compiled a list of 15 firms that had been operating (in one form or another) for more than 200 years.
Most of the firms had their roots in the United Kingdom. The top five included: Pinsent Masons, an “amalgamation of brands” that began in 1769; DLA Piper, with roots in Leeds, England, dating back to 1764; DAC Beachcroft, founded to handle work at Christ’s Hospital in Bristol, England, in 1763; and Osborne Clark, which also began in Bristol and dates back to 1748. The oldest firm on the list was U.K.-based Freshfields, founded in 1743, the year Thomas Jefferson was born.
Two U.S. firms made the list. The founders of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, established in 1819, were “well connected from the beginning—its founders served President Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. civil war, and Samuel Blatchford, the firm’s second presiding partner, went on to become a Justice in the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to Law.com. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft (the Taft is Henry W. Taft, brother of President William Howard Taft) has the longest run of any U.S. firm on the list, having started its Wall Street practice in 1792.
“In the world of Big Law, history isn’t just measured in years, it is measured in reputation, resilience and the ability to adapt,” Law.com wrote. “Some firms can claim centuries of legacy, surviving upheavals that toppled empires and outlasting rivals that once dominated the field.”
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David L. Brown is a legal affairs writer and consultant, who has served as head of editorial at ALM Media, editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and Legal Times, and executive editor of The American Lawyer. He consults on thought leadership strategy and creates in-depth content for legal industry clients and works closely with Best Law Firms as senior content consultant.
