Legal Education

At Debevoise, we help you build the best possible foundation for your career in the law. We believe that lawyers develop best through a combination of on-the-job work experience and formal legal education programs. Our curriculum today includes an array of over 300 courses offered annually to educate you at every stage of your career. Orientation and introductory programs provide you with “frameworks and tools” for understanding the legal, business, ethical and practical issues and problems you are likely to encounter in your first years of practice. Milestone programs support you as you grow into more senior supervisory and leadership roles. Advanced programs help you keep abreast of developments in your area of practice and continue to hone your skills and expertise.

A Focused Approach to Professional Development

Our education programs focus on the core technical, management and leadership skills that you need to develop to become effective at both basic and advanced levels of practice. The core skills are outlined in a Development Model (the "Model") which provides a compass for our legal education curriculum as well as a common vocabulary for associates and senior lawyers to use in mentoring and feedback discussions. The Development Model was created internally by a team of senior partners and professional development staff who lead the firm’s talent initiatives and ensures our systematic and comprehensive approach to lawyer development.

Introductory Programs

You will participate in over 100 hours of formal training in the Business Education Program over your first two years of practice. Our introductory programs provide you with the technical grounding and skills to help get you off to a fast start in legal practice. Our junior associate formal training programs that we run in-house include an estimated additional 75 hours of training over the first two years of practice.

Each fall we run a lawyering orientation to introduce you to the firm and the practice of law at Debevoise. Topics include the firm’s culture, basic lawyering skills, diversity and inclusion at Debevoise, legal ethics and how to establish and maintain ethical and effective relationships with clients.

New corporate and tax associates attend a full-time, one-week program led by partners and other senior lawyers covering the drafting and negotiation of acquisition documents and the art of shepherding a transaction from initial negotiations through closing. Our curriculum continues for second-year associates with a series of sessions designed to convey practical, substantive information that every associate should know about various corporate practice topics.

New litigation associates attend an intensive program soon after their arrival, with participatory sessions on the life cycle of a litigation matter, information management, research and fact development, developing a core theory of a case, pre-trial discovery and lawyer-client privilege, and an introduction to drafting pleadings for litigators. In addition, the litigation department conducts writing workshops, a litigation skills seminar for second-year associates and an in-house trial workshop for more senior litigation associates to build stand-up advocacy skills.

Talent Development

Over the past several years, Debevoise has taken several innovative steps to provide lawyers at every stage of their career with state-of-the-art professional development tools and opportunities. These initiatives are designed to help our lawyers develop and refine not only legal skills, but also commercial knowledge and communication skills.

What sets our development program apart is the degree to which Debevoise’s leadership has placed talent development at the forefront of our business strategy. Members of the firm’s Talent Initiative coordinate with the leadership of numerous aspects of talent development, including Recruiting, Evaluation, Associate Liaison, Training, Diversity and Partner Development Committees. Together, this leadership has analyzed all aspects of talent development at Debevoise in order to identify gaps and strengthen existing programs. Debevoise attracts individuals with wide-ranging ambitions, and we take great pride in the accomplishments of our alumni, who have used their Debevoise training and work experience as a springboard into fascinating and fulfilling careers, both inside and outside of law.

A Shared Understanding of Excellence

We introduced a Development Model to provide a framework for discussions about professional development. The Model is an articulated set of expectations around skill development across three general areas: technical lawyering skills, management and leadership, and practice experience. The Model recognizes that skills in these areas are developed over time and through a variety of experiences and is designed to provide a common vocabulary for mentoring and evaluation discussions. Associates are encouraged to review the Model as they think about their development and career planning. The firm’s evaluation forms track the framework of the Development Model so that associates get feedback in review talks about their progress in mastering those skills.

Multidirectional Feedback

We have implemented a number of initiatives to improve the level and quality of feedback to associates, counsel, partners and the firm generally.

One of the top priorities of the firm’s Talent Initiative is to create and support a culture of regular and candid delivery of informal feedback. In 2018, an Informal Feedback program was designed and launched by the Talent Initiative to help move the firm toward a culture of regular, informal, real-time feedback. Following an initial orientation session on how to give and receive informal “in the moment” feedback and coaching, four one-hour dialogue sessions are held which focus on four themes: (1) the steps of engagement; (2) giving feedback across differences; (3) effective approaches for soliciting feedback; and (4) how to continue best feedback behaviors after the informal program.

To improve feedback to our most junior lawyers, we have moved their evaluation process away from a firm-wide evaluation committee made up of partners from all departments to a small group of partners who are responsible for advising those lawyers. This way, partners who know the lawyers best can review their development and provide strategic, substantive guidance as Debevoise associates mature into mid-level and senior lawyers.

Associates, counsel and partners who comprise the Liaison and Diversity Committees provide valuable feedback on programs and associate needs through an online associate survey every two years and annual small, informal lunches to which all associates are invited and encouraged to share feedback and discuss questions about the firm. The Diversity Committee has sponsored an exciting outside speaker series, and our African-American, Asian, Latina/o and first generation affinity groups meet regularly to generate cross-cultural programming that speaks to their experiences at Debevoise. These programs not only provide opportunities for members of the affinity groups to learn how best to navigate successfully their time at the firm, but also facilitate the creation of informal relationships across groups that last throughout their careers.

We also look outside the firm for feedback, surveying a number of our key clients to learn what they most appreciated and most wanted from Debevoise and outside counsel generally. What we learn from these surveys informs our training, evaluation and mentoring and sponsorship programs.

Enhanced Business Skills

New training programs such as business- and industry-specific workshops, cross-cultural competency and comparative law training help our associates develop business skills, as well as critical communications, leadership and presentation skills. Over 400 of our programs are now available in an online library so that training is available when our lawyers have the need and time to access it.

In keeping with the firm’s focus on development, we offer an innovative business education program for new associates. This intensive, three-week course represents a significant investment by the firm in our associates’ finance and business education and an opportunity for associates to develop skills and knowledge important to our clients.

Improved and Flexible Mentoring Options

To increase mentoring options for our litigation associates, we created advising groups comprised of several litigation partners, one or more counsel and approximately 20 associates each. These groups give new associates in particular a group of more experienced lawyers to draw on for mentoring, advice and social activities. The advising groups meet on a regular basis and alternate between professional development topics and purely social gatherings. In addition, we have for a number of years held “Advising Weeks” twice a year when departmental and practice group meetings are canceled to free up time for partners and associates to meet for career planning discussions.

All corporate and tax associates are assigned an associate and a partner advisor when they arrive at the firm. For first-year associates, the primary advising relationship is with an associate advisor. Second-year and more senior associates participate periodically in a formal advising program with their partner advisor. This formal program includes regular individual and confidential meetings about career and practice development issues with the partner advisor where the agenda is set primarily by the associate. For more information on advisors, please click here.

Members of the firm’s Professional Development Group are also available for informal and confidential mentoring and advice. The firm has a full-time Career Counselor who supports associates in defining and planning their career path.

Our goal in all of these programs and innovations is to provide the best professional development environment in the industry so that new lawyers from a variety of backgrounds are empowered to shape their careers, take responsibility for their own development as lawyers and be supported in that journey through training, mentoring and formal evaluation programs.