# Associate attorney

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{{Short description|Lawyer without ownership interest in a law firm}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2022}}
An '''associate attorney''' is a lawyer and an [employee](/source/employee) of a [law firm](/source/law_firm) who does not hold an [ownership](/source/ownership) interest as a [partner](/source/Law_firm).

==Types==

===Practicing attorney===
An associate may be a junior or senior attorney, but normally does not hold an ownership interest in the firm even if associated with the firm for many years. First-year associates are entry-level junior attorneys and are generally recent [law school](/source/law_school) graduates in their first year of law practice.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book |title = Making Partner: A Guide for Law Firm Associates |first1 = John R. |last = Sapp |first2 = Alexander P. |last2 = Fraser |edition = 3rd |publisher = American Bar Association |year = 2006 |isbn = 978-1-59031-773-0  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Swc69nT0qMIC |via = [Google Books](/source/Google_Books) }}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://peterfisher.com.au/|title= Attorney Help }} Saturday, 30 March 2019 </ref>

Generally, an associate has the goal of being made a partner in the firm, after a number of years gaining practice experience and being assigned to increasingly important and remunerative tasks. At firms with an "[up or out](/source/Cravath_System)" policy, associates who are repeatedly passed over for promotion to partner may be asked to resign. Some firms will also have "non-partner-track" associates who, though performing satisfactorily as employees, for whatever reason, will not be promoted to partner.

Junior attorneys were formerly called "law clerks"; the term "associate attorney" was coined by [Emory Buckner](/source/Emory_Buckner), hiring partner of Root, Clark & Bird (which subsequently became [Dewey Ballantine](/source/Dewey_Ballantine)) in the 1920s.{{citation needed|date = October 2011}} The term "[law clerk](/source/law_clerk)" now generally refers to an attorney who serves as a research and writing assistant in a judge's chambers, although some law firms use the term to refer to a lawyer or non-lawyer who has specialized knowledge in one of the firm's practice areas but is not classified as a practicing attorney at the law firm.

===Summer associates===
Summer associates are current law students who have usually completed their second year of school (or in some cases, their first year of law school) and are [interning](/source/internship) at the firm for the summer. Summer associates have not [passed the bar exam](/source/Admission_to_practice_law) and are not attorneys.<ref name="books.google.com"/> The summer associate program is often the primary method by which a law firm recruits for full-time associate positions.

==Compensation==
According to published data from the ''[New York Times](/source/New_York_Times)'', the annual base salary for partner-track first year associate attorneys at top law firms in major U.S. legal markets such as [New York](/source/New_York_(state)), [California](/source/California), [Massachusetts](/source/Massachusetts), the [District of Columbia](/source/District_of_Columbia), and [Texas](/source/Texas) can range from $160,000 to $190,000 per year—with salary varying depending on the size and reputation of the firm.<ref>{{cite news |url = https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/business/dealbook/law-firm-salaries-jump-for-the-first-time-in-nearly-a-decade.html?_r=0 |title = Law Firm Salaries Jump for the First Time in Nearly a Decade |first = Elizabeth |last= Olson |date = June 6, 2016 |work = [The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times) | access-date = January 4, 2017 }}</ref>

==References==
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Category:Business terms
Category:Partnerships
Category:Lawyers by type
Category:Practice of law

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Associate attorney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_attorney) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_attorney?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.