Your Career at S&C

S&C’s lawyers are trained to be generalists with a broad perspective and a thorough understanding of law and business. The Firm believes that well-rounded practitioners must be successful in a wide range of legal areas. The General Practice (Corporate) Group includes seven practice subgroups: Capital Markets, Commercial Real Estate, Executive Compensation, Finance and Restructuring, Financial Services, Intellectual Property and Mergers & Acquisitions. During the 24-month period prior to their assignment to a subgroup, General Practice associates have the opportunity to work in many different substantive areas of our practice. Associate Development Partners are responsible for coordination of assignments and seek to ensure that all lawyers are exposed to a variety of different practice areas, transaction types and senior lawyers. The Litigation, Tax and Estates & Personal Groups are not divided into subgroups. Associates in these Groups are encouraged to explore a broad range of work but may also elect to focus on particular areas depending on their interests.

In addition to on-the-job learning, S&C offers a robust curriculum of formal learning programs designed to equip associates with the substantive legal knowledge, business acumen, and analytical, communications and management skills required to have professionally rewarding careers. S&C’s learning programs are taught by experts in their fields, including both the Firm’s own senior lawyers and respected external business and legal consultants.

After careful consideration of the specific skills and substantive legal knowledge that are required to make associates successful at each level and in each practice group, S&C partners have designed a curriculum to further those skills and deepen those knowledge sets. While certain courses are mandatory, you will have the freedom to customize your own curriculum based on which courses you decide will have the greatest impact on your career goals. Taking courses outside your chosen practice group(s) or level of seniority will provide you with the skills of a generalist and allow you to analyze opportunities and problems from multiple perspectives, considering all of the issues relevant to our clients’ strategic planning.

The curriculum is dynamic, evolving each year with new courses designed to further develop associate skills and substantive knowledge and respond to developments in the law and Firm practice. Regardless of what your personal goals may be, summer associates and associates are encouraged to view the Firm’s learning culture and the formal and informal learning opportunities offered by the Firm as tools to help them develop as lawyers, business leaders and professionals.

Highlights of the Firm’s learning & development curriculum include:

• An annual General Practice Academy and an annual Litigation Academy for junior associates. Each Academy offers hours of instruction on substantive topics and professional skills that are most relevant to an attorney’s practice area.
• A Leadership Development Series, which consists of interactive workshops and seminars designed to help S&C attorneys develop the intangible skills that are important for effective leadership and professional success. Mid-level associates are invited to attend an annual Leadership Academy⁠—past topics have included engaging in difficult conversations, building collaborative teams, and recognizing and leveraging diverse leadership styles.
• Access to Practising Law Institute (PLI)’s Privileged Membership. which entitles our lawyers to attend the majority of PLI’s live and online programs for free.
• Access to S&C University, an on-demand in-house video viewing platform which provides convenient access to recordings of the Firm’s internal training programs.

Performance Evaluations

S&C’s evaluation process provides associates and summer associates with detailed feedback about their development as they progress at the Firm. All associates receive formal performance reviews from a partner (usually the managing partner and or the Associate Development partner of the group, as well as the partner advisors for associates participating in the Advisor Program). These review meetings are conducted semi-annually during the associate’s first two years of practice and then annually thereafter. Associates also regularly receive informal feedback about their work directly from colleagues. Finally, mid-level associates, senior associates and partners receive semi-annual feedback through an upward review process.

Associate Advisor Program

S&C’s Associate Advisor Program provides associates with the support necessary to pursue their career and professional development goals. Associates are paired with at least one partner advisor from their practice group or subgroup. The partner advisor and associate advisee meet as often as the advisee would like, and no less than semi-annually, to discuss the advisee’s career development plan, practice group milestones, current and past assignments, skills development and training, practice group interests and any other relevant matters that the associate advisee may wish to raise.

S&C Career Development Plan

The S&C Career Development Plan (“CDP”) was developed to provide associates with a written, customizable tool that allows them to take charge of their careers and pursue their career goals, whatever those might be. Some associates will focus on pursuing a long-term career at the Firm, while others will pursue any number of the paths that our alumni—an impressive group that includes CEOs, CFOs, general counsels, judges, law professors, government officials, business leaders and entrepreneurs—have chosen. Our alumni often tell us that the training and experiences they had at S&C contributed significantly to their future successes, and we want to make sure that all associates who work at the Firm have the support they need to make the most of the many resources available to them while they are here.

The CDP provides associates with worksheets, links, practice group milestones and other materials designed to help them assess their skills (legally and more broadly), identify experience gaps and set appropriate short- and long-term professional goals. Because our associates regularly tell us that they benefit immensely from the guidance of more-experienced senior lawyers, each associate is paired with one or more partner advisors who will work with the associate to develop, review and revise their CDP. In addition, associates are encouraged to work closely with their partner advisors on at least one substantive matter per year to obtain real-time feedback on performance and lawyering skills (including oral/written presentation, legal analysis and judgment, deal management, negotiation and leadership). While we believe that the CDP is an effective tool for all associates, it is also entirely optional, and can be used, or not used, at the discretion of each associate.

Office & Floor Wizard Programs

In the New York office, junior associates are paired with midlevel and senior associate “Floor Wizards” who have offices on the same floor and who have volunteered to help the junior associates ease into life at S&C. The Floor Wizards are available to respond to questions about office procedures and practice-related issues, as well as other matters that may arise on an ad hoc basis.

The Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Palo Alto and Washington, D.C. offices have “Office Wizard” programs. Like their New York counterpart, the “Office Wizard” programs are designed to encourage associates to get together for informal office-wide and practice-wide events and to foster a friendly environment in which associates from all practice areas and experience levels can get to know one another.

S&C is a leader in compensation and benefits in the legal profession. The best lawyers deserve the best tools—S&C commits considerable resources to ensure that its attorneys have the tools they need to work productively and efficiently.

Some of our nontraditional benefits include the following:

For more information on S&C’s benefits, please visit our profile in the NALP Directory.

Starting at S&C means lifetime membership in a global community of world-class professionals. An important resource available to all lawyers who join S&C—whether they pursue partnership or another path—is the Firm’s Talent Network. The Talent Network’s services are available to all of our lawyers at any point in their careers, from their first day at the Firm through retirement, and include:

Some S&C Alumni highlights include: