Careers at Oak, Elm & Birch

The firm hires on a small, steady cadence — four to six summer associates each year, one or two entry-level associates from the summer class, a small number of laterals when a practice group has a specific need, and staff positions as they open. We are not trying to grow quickly. We are trying to hire people who want a full career in a Hartford firm and to give them the training, the client exposure, and the cases that will make that career possible. Most of our partners came through the door as summer associates or first- or second-year laterals, and that is the hiring pipeline we pay attention to.

Summer Associate Program

Our summer program is a ten-week rotation that gives each associate exposure to two or three practice groups, a real docket of live matters, and a partner who serves as their primary review contact through the summer. We recruit through OCI at UConn School of Law and at a handful of Northeast law schools our attorneys attended, and through direct applications. The firm's expectation is that strong performers in the summer program will receive offers for associate positions upon graduation. A separate page describes the program in more detail, including the schedule, the practice-group rotation, and the recruiting timeline.

Entry-Level Associates

Entry-level associate hiring is mostly from the firm's summer associate class each year. Associates start in a specific practice group — Corporate, Litigation, Real Estate, Trusts & Estates, Labor & Employment, or Tax — and are trained primarily by the partners and senior associates in that group. We do not run a formal rotation for first-year attorneys. We do run a structured training program in the first six months that covers the firm's forms, its document-management system, the procedural rules of the Connecticut courts and the D. Conn., and the billing and client-communication norms the firm expects. The first six months are the foundation the next decade is built on and we treat them accordingly.

Lateral Attorneys

The firm hires lateral attorneys when a practice group identifies a specific need — typically a second- to fifth-year associate with transferable experience, occasionally a senior associate or income partner with a portable practice. Most of our laterals over the last decade have come from New York and Boston firms, often from Connecticut natives who wanted to come home. Openings for lateral associate positions are listed on this page as they post; inquiries at other times are welcome and should be directed to Courtney Davidson, the firm's HR Director, at careers@oakelmbirch.com.

Staff Positions

The firm employs paralegals, legal secretaries, administrative assistants, IT staff, HR and finance personnel, and a small facilities team. Staff roles are posted on this page as they open. The firm's staff tenure is long — many of our legal secretaries and paralegals have been at the firm for more than twenty years — and the collegiality of the office is, in our own attorneys' accounts, largely a function of that tenure. We hire staff the same way we hire attorneys: carefully, and with the expectation of a long mutual commitment.