Summer Program

Our summer program exposes law students to the various areas of our practice and allows the firm and the summer associate to evaluate each other.  To ensure that each summer associate has a wide range of legal experiences, a Summer Associate Committee carefully monitors his or her work.  Each summer associate has a supervising attorney who provides guidance. We encourage summer associates who have completed two years of law school to obtain certification under Rule 9 of the Washington Admission to Practice Rules, which authorizes them to participate in discovery proceedings. In the past, summer associates have met with clients, participated in discovery proceedings, and argued matters in district and superior courts. Our summer associates get a wide variety of challenging legal experiences. We view the Summer Associate Program as a working experience and hope that it is both intellectually stimulating and personally rewarding.

Associates

Karr Tuttle Campbell hires its associates with the hope that they will ultimately be invited to become shareholders. Thus, the firm does not employ a large number of associates with the expectation of forced attrition. Typically, we assign new associates to one of our practice departments.  At the same time we encourage associates to devote a portion of their time to other practice areas.  We believe this encourages development of well-rounded skills and facilitates the pursuit of new directions in the law as attorneys’ interests change and are refined over time. A shareholder works with each new associate as he or she makes the transition from law school to private practice.

Even though associates at Karr Tuttle Campbell work with experienced shareholders, they also handle matters on their own. Case responsibility and client contact are important aspects of the associate experience. An open-door policy on the part of senior attorneys and managers  provides opportunities for valuable, informal training and development.

To help our associates develop as professionals and to foster their progress toward shareholder status, we devote considerable time and effort to assessing their work and progress individually.  We conduct formal associate evaluations annually, soliciting input from all shareholders in the firm.  An Associate Evaluation Committee interviews each associate, identifies areas in which he or she can improve in effectiveness, and encourages feedback and commentary from the associate.  Karr Tuttle Campbell compensates associates at a level that is competitive with firms of comparable size in the Pacific Northwest. The firm recognizes superior associate performance by rewarding bonuses.