Skip to Content

Summer Associates

DISCOVER WHAT KIND OF ATTORNEY YOU WANT TO BE

With nearly 50 attorneys, Hinkle Law Firm is a full service law firm, providing support to our clients in both their professional and personal lives. As a summer associate, you will work alongside our attorneys and gain real-world, hands-on experience in several practice areas, allowing you to discover where your strengths and interests are.

Whether you’re a 1L or 2L, you’ll be doing real work for real clients that will give you a first-hand look at how we work, our people, and our culture. With a diverse client base, our associates have the opportunity to work with regional and national clients. At the end of the summer, you will have a thorough understanding of what it’s like to be an attorney at Hinkle.

Photo of Associate Blair Bohm with quote “The best part of my summer at Hinkle was the people I got to work with. Each attorney was approachable, made themselves available, and took the time to teach me their practice area while answering my many questions.”

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

ASSIGNMENTS

Before you begin your summer with us, we’ll have a discussion with you about what areas of law you have an interest in. We will try our best to accommodate your interests, but in order to get the most out of your time with us, we encourage coming in with an open mind and a willingness to explore areas you might not have considered before. This will allow you to meet and connect with as many of the Firm’s attorneys as possible. Most of our summer associates have the chance to work on projects throughout the Firm’s practice areas to gain experience before deciding on a particular practice to focus on.

When possible, our attorneys include summer associates in trials, hearings, depositions, witness interviews, settlement conferences, closings, client meetings, and seminar presentations.

FEEDBACK

We believe that meaningful and timely feedback is critical to your professional development. We provide feedback in a variety of ways, including asking you to submit a written assignment like a memorandum of legal pleading for assessment at the midway point and at the end of the program. This interactive process will offer you the opportunity to sharpen and enhance your writing abilities that will be useful as your career progresses.

Attorneys will provide you with informal and formal evaluations in a variety of ways throughout the summer, allowing you to make immediate improvements and continue to succeed. Our Firm has an open door policy, and our members and associates encourage questions and conversation throughout the life of the project. Our work flows directly from our attorneys to you, there is no middle-man. This creates an opportunity for you to really delve into a project with an attorney on our team, and create a back-and-forth dialogue to increase your knowledge of the law, and gain an understanding of what practicing law is like.

Photo of Associate Lora Smith with quote, “Everyone I have worked with so far has been very helpful and encouraging.  Not just concerning projects that I am working on, but with advice generally about practicing law.”

MENTORSHIP

Our mentoring program is critical to a successful summer and a high priority of ours. You will have a number of formal and informal mentors to help you integrate into the firm. As a summer associate, you will attend bi-weekly lunches with other young professionals, businesses, and community leaders, which will help you build a lasting network with colleagues and foster further professional growth. Your mentors are just as concerned about your growth and well-being as they are in their own practice.

Our program mentors summer associates exactly the same way you’ll be mentored upon joining the firm as a full associate. Our goal is to help you develop the skills and tools needed to be an attorney, but we want to take you a step further. Successful attorneys are defined not just by their skills, but by their ability to recruit, build, and maintain lasting relationships with clients. We want to teach you more than just “how to do the work.” Our goal is to give you guidance and opportunities to build your own practice from the ground up so that you have a practice that lasts your entire legal career. This all starts as a summer associate, when we begin teaching you how to have conversations with potential clients and market who you are and the skills you’ll bring to the work you do.

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

Your summer calendar will be filled with plenty of social and professional events that will allow you to know our people and experience our culture. The Firm’s “Lawyer’s League” softball team, attorney lunches, and firm events provide a casual setting for you to meet your fellow summer associates and other attorneys. We want you to form connections with the attorneys here at Hinkle because building great relationships for learning is the foundation of a strong career. 

WHAT WE LOOK FOR

We want to recruit and develop people who are eager to learn and will contribute to our Firm’s long-term success and culture. We consider the interview process as a two-way street, and our goal is for you to learn as much about our Firm as possible so that you can make the best decision about where to start your legal career.

REVIEWS AND OFFERS

You will receive a final review to evaluate your performance at the end of your summer program. The final review establishes a benchmark for offer decisions that are made by the Recruiting and Executive Committees and are presented upon completion of the entire summer program.

If you’re ready to discover what kind of attorney you want to be, contact Amy Decker, Melissa Smith, or Megan Monsour at 316-267-2000.

To learn more about all that Wichita has to offer, visit choosewichita.com.

  • Super Lawyers
  • Best Law Firms
  • ALFA
  • Chambers