U.S. Law Students

Thank you for your interest! Applications for our 2027 Summer Associate Program are now closed.

We will begin accepting applications for the 2028 Summer Associate Program (for rising 2Ls) in late Fall 2027/early Winter 2028. Please check back for updates and connect with your school’s Career Services Office to learn whether we’ll be hosting outreach events at your school and participating in on-campus interviews.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our Legal Recruiting Manager, Tish Browning, at tbrowning@dwlaw.com.

Dickinson Wright offers a 10-week summer program that combines high-quality legal work, professional development and on-the-job training opportunities with a host of social activities designed to foster relationships within the Dickinson Wright community. Our Summer Associates participate fully in our sophisticated and diverse legal practice, and they gain realistic insight into life at our firm and the lives of the diverse lawyers who make up Dickinson Wright.

Designed primarily for second-year law students, our program is carefully structured and administered to provide a supportive environment geared toward success because we want every Summer Associate to earn and accept an offer to become a Dickinson Wright attorney. We view the Summer Associate Program as key to our goal to identify and attract the most highly qualified law students who will drive the firm’s strategic growth.

We strategically hire our Summer Associates with the hope that they will each become colleagues after graduation.

The Summer Associate Program is run by a “Summer Team,” led by the chairs of our Recruitment Committee, our Senior Director of Attorney Recruitment and Professional Development, and our Legal Recruiting Manager together with select DW lawyers designated as Assignment Coordinators and Social Coordinators.

Summer Associates complete high-quality client work that can span nearly every department in the law firm, from commercial, appellate, and employment litigation, to corporate, M&A, finance, real estate, and bankruptcy. Our goal is to provide each Summer Associate broad exposure to the breadth of practice areas we offer so that each Summer Associate may form a clearer idea of the areas in which they may want to practice.  Summer Associates also gain real-world experiences, such as attending deal closings, strategic meetings with clients, depositions, trials, and arbitrations to gain an understanding of the work they will perform if they continue their careers at Dickinson Wright.

For students who are patent bar eligible and interested in pursuing an intellectual property practice, we also offer a limited number of IP-focused Summer Associate positions in the program in which students spend the ten weeks exclusively working on a variety of high-level IP assignments, spanning patent prosecution, IP litigation, trademarks, and copyright matters. Aside from getting assignments exclusively from the firm’s IP practice groups, our IP Summer Associates are otherwise part of our general Summer Associate Program in all other respects.

Dickinson Wright recognizes the importance of balance between the professional and personal lives of all employees—ranging from Members to Summer Associates. While we work hard, we also recognize and respect the need for family time and other personal priorities. Summer Associates work an average of 35-40 hours per week and complete about 10 to 15 substantive assignments over the course of the summer.

Each Summer Associate is assigned a Junior and Senior Mentor. Junior Mentors serve as the Summer Associate’s primary resource, while Senior Mentors provide bigger picture career advice and guidance.