Our summer student program begins in May and finishes in late August.  You will have the opportunity to work with Canada’s leading business lawyers on some of the most sophisticated and cutting-edge business transactions and litigation matters.  You will enjoy a collegial atmosphere, immediately joining our practice teams and contributing to the success of transactions and cases.  You will be given a high level of responsibility and enjoy an unparalleled learning experience.  Your colleagues will become friends and mentors and you will learn how to manage your workload and how to interact with clients.

Davies is a business law firm.  We focus on areas where our firm excels and our lawyers are leaders in their field.  We use a multi-disciplinary approach to transactions and cases, building a team based on the needs of our clients and the file.  As a summer student, you will be an active participant on these teams.

Our partnership structure is unique compared to other firms.  Associates are considered for partnership much earlier at Davies - i.e. as early as in the December following the second anniversary after an associate's call to the Bar. Our firm structure is non-hierarchical and promotes teamwork and the sharing of work throughout the firm.  We believe that clients belong to the firm, not a particular lawyer.  We also believe that targets for billable hours are not in the best interests of our clients or our lawyers and so we do not set targets for our lawyers or students.  Together, these beliefs foster an environment and philosophy whereby work is given to the team that can best execute the transaction or handle the case and this results in increased opportunities for you to get involved at an early stage.

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The program has been developed to give you an introduction to the firm and the practice of law.  Throughout the summer, our lawyers will present “show and tell” seminars about various practice areas. For more information about our Professional Development program, click here.  

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The summer program is likely your first experience at a law firm.  As such, we want to make sure that you get to know our firm, and our lawyers and have the opportunity to pursue your own practice area interests.  We offer a flexible rotation system that allows you to choose where you want to contribute to the firm.  Although you can customize your summer to reflect your learning objectives, we believe a broad experience base is essential for an effective transaction or business litigation lawyer.  Accordingly, we encourage students to spend some portion of their summer in our corporate group while also pursuing other areas of interest.

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We believe the best way to learn about the law is to practice law.  During your summer, you will work as a member of our team alongside senior lawyers.  We have an open door policy enabling you to accept and request work from any lawyer in the firm.  This approach lets you manage your own workload in the same way our lawyers do.  It also gives you access to a wide variety of talented lawyers to work out problems, discuss ideas and learn from their experiences.

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You will have access to and support from all of our support services, including our administrative assistants, our research lawyer, our law clerks and paralegals, our librarians and a document editor.

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At Davies, mentoring begins at law school because we assign a mentor to you before you join the firm.  As an incoming summer student, this gives you access to one of our lawyers during most of your second year.  Along with our Director of Student Affairs, ‘law school mentors’ are available to assist you on a variety of topics and serve as a general resource for advice.  Once at the firm, each student is paired up with two mentors who will provide advice, give formal feedback and generally help you settle in.  Mentors are chosen for their ability to communicate effectively with both students and lawyers and for their commitment to the student program. 

Further, each member of the Student Committee also acts as an unofficial mentor to provide an additional source of ‘mentoring’, advice, support and assistance.  The whole system is supervised by the Director of Student Affairs who, along with your mentors and the Student Committee, is available to deal with any questions or needs that may arise.  Mentoring is a process that is continued for our young lawyers and we consider it to be an important factor in assisting in your career development.

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Feedback is both a formal and informal process at Davies.  We encourage our lawyers to provide informal feedback during and after each assignment.  As well, you will receive two formal evaluations during your summer.  Our Director of Student Affairs will meet with each lawyer with whom you have worked, solicit their detailed comments and prepare a summary report which a member of the Student Committee and your mentor will discuss with you.  The assessment meetings are an open exchange of views to ensure that both you and the firm are doing everything possible to advance your development.  If any gaps in your experience are identified, we take the necessary steps to ensure you have a well-rounded experience.  At the end of your summer, you too will be asked to assess our student program through a formal feedback process.

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Although we prefer summer students spend the entire summer with us to fully benefit from the experience and to get to know as many lawyers as possible, we do consider requests from students to split their summer (either with a public interest organization, research position with a professor or at one of our other offices).

Generally, we are prepared to sponsor up to two second year students each year in a split summer arrangement.  Our split summer option is available to any second year student from any Canadian law school hired by us for the summer.

Students interested in such an arrangement should approach the firm with a specific proposal after being hired.  Proposals should be received by us on or before December 15^th.

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Throughout the summer, there are a number of opportunities for the students and lawyers to socialize at both formal and impromptu events.  We have regular informal lunches, Friday cocktails, and a number of our partners host dinners for small groups of students and lawyers at their homes.  External social events have included the annual firm golf day, roller blading and picnics at the RCYC, a wine-tasting and a day at Paramount Canada’s Wonderland.  While these events are a great way to socialize and to get to know each other, attendance is optional as we also appreciate your need to spend time away from the firm and pursue your own interests.

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Our lawyers and students are actively involved in various community service and pro-bono efforts.  Many of our lawyers engage in pro bono work on behalf of community organizations such as Big Brothers and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and are actively involved in charitable causes such as Camp Oochigeas and CANFAR, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research.  Our students are involved in many "law firm student challenges" to raise funds for various organizations including Kids Help Phone, Heart & Stroke Foundation, Share the Warmth, Alzheimer's Society, Daily Bread Food Bank among others.  We also support a variety of educational, medical, cultural and community-centered causes and organizations.  We encourage lawyers to write papers and speak at legal and business conferences.  We organize and sponsor the Canadian Corporate/Securities Moot and are active on campus at various law schools participating in law student mentoring programs, resume writing workshops, conferences and various speaking and sporting events with specific law school clubs.  These activities both enrich our personal experiences practising law and help us make a contribution to the community.