How is work distributed at Cravath and what type of assignments do summer associates receive?
Partners generally distribute work among the associates assigned to them or in their group based solely on which of their associates are capable of handling the work and are available to do so. Partners view their summer associates much like first-year associates and rarely draw distinctions from first-years in the work they assign. Therefore, as a summer associate you would be assigned to transactions or cases by the partners in your group. The level of the work, just as in the case with all our associates, would depend almost exclusively on your capabilities. We find that our summer associates can perform very valuable work on real matters. We do not “create” projects for our summer associates.
