The Summer Program

Overview

Through our Summer Program, we involve our summer associates in our day-to-day practice of law, training seminars and Firm social activities. In the same way that projects are delegated to full-time associates, summer associates receive their assignments directly from the attorneys who are involved in the matter in which assistance is needed, and they continue to work with those attorneys throughout the life of the project. We usually staff client matters leanly, thereby affording greater opportunities for training, development of legal skills, and regular client contact.

Because our Summer Program is designed to provide summer associates with a good opportunity to see how firm functions, the projects on which they work during the summer are selected to parallel the work of full-time associates.

Thus, projects frequently involve more than simply research with a memorandum as the end-product.

Feedback

Feedback is an essential part of the training experience, both for attorneys and for summer associates. Therefore, we integrate summer associate reviews into our informal feedback process.

The close interaction of all individuals working on a matter and the brainstorming process the Firm emphasizes already provide extensive feedback to all who are involved with a project.

We add to that feedback by setting aside time at the midpoint and at the end of the summer for the summer associates, individually, to sit down with some of the Firm's members to discuss their summer experiences.

Seminar Series

We also view the summer program as an opportunity to introduce summer associates and new associates to various areas of our practice. See Seminars for a discussion of some of the seminars.

Summer Activities

A vital aspect of the summer program is becoming acquainted with the people who comprise Funkhouser Vegosen Liebman & Dunn Ltd. We believe that it is important to give summer associates the opportunity to socialize with the attorneys and staff of the Firm outside the office setting. Our summer activities in past years have included small group luncheons, luncheons for all staff and attorneys, Firm parties hosted by different members of the Firm at their homes, outings to Ravinia concerts, golf-outings, charter-boat fishing excursions, and major league baseball games.