Paul Weiss, Simpson Thacher and Milbank have said they would start application processes before Christmas for first-year law students seeking summer associate roles in 2028, moving recruitment earlier than the traditional timetable.
The summer roles are intended to be a stepping stone to permanent jobs in 2029, which currently offer salaries of as much as $235,000. Traditionally, law firms interviewed students at the end of their first year of law school, but recruitment has increasingly shifted earlier as firms compete for prospective lawyers.
The American Bar Association has criticised the change. In a report this month, the ABA said very early recruitment was having negative effects on the law student experience. It also cited research finding that shorter hiring timelines disadvantaged students who were the first generation to attend law school or who lacked existing connections in the legal profession.
Rachel Proffitt, chief executive of Cooley, has questioned recruitment taking place before some students have received first-semester grades. Cooley is keeping about half of its graduate roles open for third-year law students. The firm allowed applications for summer 2027 roles from November 2025 and is examining how to give students more time to settle into law school and establish their interests.
Proffitt has also said a slower hiring timetable could give firms more time to assess the number of lawyers needed as they make greater use of AI for tasks previously performed by junior lawyers. She said it was too soon to determine whether fewer people would be hired, while training and the way junior lawyers engage with work are already changing.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton now opens its interview process in November, having previously waited until June. Maureen Linch, a partner involved in recruiting the firm's associates, has said later interviews would be preferable but that competitive pressure has pushed the firm towards the earlier timetable.
The broader acceleration was already visible last year. Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Davis Polk, Gibson Dunn, Weil and Milbank opened applications for summer associate roles during the autumn of students' first semester of law school, with many firms making offers by January.
Summer programmes also carry significant pay commitments. Top firms usually pay the pro-rata equivalent of a first-year associate salary for placements that typically last about 10 weeks. Cravath said last year that its 2027 summer associates would receive $4,327 a week, equivalent to the $225,000 first-year salary at the time they were hired.
Davis Polk said last autumn that it would pay $25,000 to students agreeing to join its 2027 summer associate programme if they spent the summer of 2026 interning at a non-profit, in government or in academia, reducing the chance that a rival firm would recruit them during their first summer.
The National Association for Law Placement said 85 per cent of offers for second-year summer associate positions were made before July of students' first year of law school in 2025, up from 34 per cent the previous year.
Goodwin has established a working group to review its recruitment timelines and how it selects associates as AI changes the legal sector. Chair Anthony McCusker has said the firm is increasingly looking beyond grades alone when identifying talent.
The overlap means firms are making summer programme and future associate hiring decisions while still assessing how AI may affect the number of junior lawyers needed and the work they perform.
