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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why does Covington request references?
A: Our goal in speaking with an applicant's references is to develop a more complete and detailed understanding of the candidate and his or her qualifications. Thorough inquiries of an applicants references are a distinctive and crucial element of the firm's hiring process for potential summer associates. This allows us to look beyond the candidate's paper record or relatively brief campus interview. We ask every candidate for summer associate positions to provide two to three references who can speak to the candidate's qualifications, including analytical and writing ability, judgment, maturity, and collegiality.
Q: Who are appropriate references?
A: For a candidate who has worked in a legal position previously (typically during a summer or externship), we ask to speak with a lawyer or judge who is familiar with the candidate's legal work. We also typically look for a reference who can speak about the candidate's performance in law school. This reference need not be a professor, but often is a legal writing instructor or similar individual who has seen the law student's work first hand. In this regard, we fully understand that, especially in larger law school classes, it can be challenging for law students to develop a relationship with a professor such that a candidate feels comfortable asking the professor to serve as a reference. A prospective applicant should not be dissuaded from applying to the firm for this reason, and we frequently rely on references from non-legal employers, undergraduate faculty, and other non-traditional sources.
Q: Does the firm permit split summers?
A: We encourage summer associates to spend the entire summer with us. Over years of experience, we have found that this tends to work best both for the firm and the summer associate. However, we do allow summer associates to split their summer, provided that they begin their summer at the firm and remain with us for a minimum of eight weeks at the firm.
Q: What types of work are given to summer associates?
A: In the dynamic, entrepreneurial setting of Covington’s Silicon Valley office, you can expect to work on interesting and substantive matters for clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Our West Coast client roster includes many of the most prominent businesses in America, including Bank of America, Electronics Arts, the National Football League, Gilead Sciences, Microsoft, the Institute for OneWorld Health, and the Charles Schwab Corporation, to name just a few. Coupled with a San Francisco practice that includes appellate, antitrust, art law, corporate, digital media and licensing, intellectual property, insurance, life sciences, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, securities, and technology matters, the list of opportunities is extraordinary.
Examples of the types of projects summer associates can expect in the Silicon Valley office may include:
- Negotiating and drafting license, collaboration, and joint venture agreements in the life sciences, information technology, and digital media industries.
- Drafting briefs, motions, and jury instructions on a wide range of intellectual property, insurance, antitrust, and general commercial litigation matters.
- Preparing deal documents, assisting with negotiations, and helping to consummate mergers and acquisitions.
- Conducting research and formulating positions on developing technology law issues and industry standards.
Q: What is the firm's policy on judicial clerkships?
A: We actively seek judicial clerks, and recognize the benefits of the insights and training conferred by a judicial clerkship. Approximately half of all Covington lawyers have held at least one judicial clerkship, either directly after law school or after an intervening period of private practice. We reward judicial clerks who come directly to the firm following their clerkship with credit for purposes of both salary and partnership consideration, together with a $50,000 bonus for those who have clerked for a federal judge, or for the highest court in any state or the District of Columbia. We have a very active Supreme Court practice, as well as a number of former Supreme Court clerks among our ranks; we fully appreciate the benefits of a Supreme Court clerkship and offer Supreme Court clerks a highly competitive bonus and credit for their clerkships for purposes of partnership and compensation.
We strongly encourage law students to apply for clerkships in their third year of law school and, where feasible, to complete their clerkships prior to beginning as associates with the firm. We encourage this timing because we have found that, despite our best efforts, starting at the firm for a limited time period with a fixed departure date for a clerkship can meaningfully diminish an associate’s experience and development. Nonetheless, we understand that an increasing number of judges are hiring clerks to begin a year or more after law school graduation, and thus not all of our incoming associates will be able to obtain a clerkship immediately following law school, even when they have applied during the normal cycle in their third year of law school. For this reason, we recognize that some of our incoming associates will unavoidably start at the firm for a period of time prior to beginning their clerkships.
We encourage current judicial clerks interested in practicing with Covington to provide a current resume, law school transcript, legal writing sample, and list of references (including faculty and past legal employers) to the recruiting contact for the firm office in which they are interested.
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