Professional Development

The firm’s commitment to training and professional development starts early. We provide a range of programs to assist each summer associate in making a smooth transition into life at the firm.

Each summer associate is assigned a partner mentor and an associate liaison to enhance the summer associate’s work and social experience at the firm. On the first day, a summer associate has lunch with his or her associate liaison, the first of many meetings that they will have throughout the summer. Later in the same week, the partner mentors and newly arrived summer associates also meet over lunch. Partner mentors and associate liaisons are on call to provide guidance and advice to their summer associate at any time throughout the summer.

We encourage our summer associates to attend all of the firm’s many training events. In addition, we provide several customized training programs intended to give our summer associates an understanding of the intellectual and practical challenges of being a lawyer at Davis Polk. We also introduce them to our Director of Associate Development and her full-time staff, who are available to work with each summer associate once they join the firm as an associate.

Feedback is a critical component of one’s professional development. Each summer associate is evaluated mid-way and at the end of his or her summer. Each lawyer with whom the summer associate has worked provides an evaluation of the summer associate’s performance. The comments are compiled and communicated to the summer associate in meetings with his or her partner mentor.
 

Training

Our summer training covers a wide range of topics listed below, including overviews of our practice, in-depth discussions on current legal issues and guidance on navigating one's career path. Summer associates attend one to two training sessions per week, and find that the programs enhance their experience at the firm. In addition to these training programs, summer associates are encouraged to attend the more than 75 regular associate training programs that are presented throughout the summer.

Training sessions for the 2011 Summer include:

• Corporate Drafting Session
• Corporate and Tax Immersion Programs
• Due Diligence 
• Partner Profiles
• Practice Overviews 
• Pro Bono Overview