For months now, the impact of the recession has been wreaking havoc on upper echelons of the legal profession. Look no further for evidence than the layoff tracker at lawshucks.com for the firm-by-firm comparison of attorney and staff firings—“layoffs” if you prefer—replete with url citations. Not as well documented, however, is how widespread the recession has impacted summer associate programs. While only the summer will tell of how these associate tryout programs go, a few major changes to the norm are already known. As summer associate programs begin over the next several weeks, here’s the scoop on how summer associate programs have changed.

·       Numerous firms began canceling their summer associate programs as the recession set in, but such cancellations came with a catch. To the truly unfortunate chagrin of a few law students, these cancellations came after they accepted a summer associate offer which followed the end of the on-campus interview process. Left with limited options, it’s hard to know, and imagine, if this unknown number of disappointed students will make it to any firm this summer.

·       Summer associate class size has also been reduced at many firms, making a summer associate gig a hot commodity. For now the real number of eliminated summer associate positions across the profession won’t be known until NALP releases its 2009 numbers, but a database glitch back in March, and reported by Abovethelaw.com, showed offers made for summer associate positions dipped as low as 58%.

·       Along with the smaller summer associate class sizes, many firms have reported that summer will be shorter this year—that is for the summer associates, at least. As summer associates are hardly unpaid interns, firms have made a “recession-effective” decision to send law students from whence they came a few weeks early this year.   Also of note here is that with the reported shortage of new work coming into firms, perhaps there is simply less for summer associates to actually do between the hours of 9 and 5.

·       Most talked about of any summer associate experience are the perks—the firm outings, the intimate dinners with associates and partners, and, supposedly, some unbridled fun to boot. Like the rest of this summer, the perks of summer associate life have been amended too. On top of less pay due to fewer weeks of work, summer associates probably won’t experience the same perks of law firm life as their pre-recession predecessors.

These factors alone may make any summer associate feel lucky they’ve made it through the door of any big firm, and at least partially lucky the recession hasn’t yet left out to dry. What only the summer and the continued recession will tell is whether summer associates will actually get offers from their firms once the summer comes to a close. With rescinded offers, start date delays, yearlong deferrals, and the arguably desirable year off with reduced pay, what the future holds for incoming summer associates seems more than likely to be unprecedented.