americanlawyer.com december 2015

Milbank Grooms Midlevel Associates for Success at Harvard

MP McQueen

The thought of returning to law school just a few years after graduation would fill many young lawyers with dread. But for midlevel associates Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, a unique training program at Harvard Law School has become a prized rite of passage. “Law school doesn’t give you what you really need to know as a transactional lawyer,” said David Wolfson, a corporate M&A partner at the firm who chairs its professional development committee. The Milbank@Harvard program, Wolfson said, fills in the gaps for young Harvard’s J. Gunnar Trumball lectures midlevel associates at a Milbank@Harvard corporate lawyers and litigators training session at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., November 2015. alike, teaching practical business of law lessons beyond theory and The associates—including lateral first proposed the Milbank@Harvard practice. hires—attend weeklong classes program, Wolfson said. Twenty At the same time, the program has designed to teach what law school events have been held since its start helped to build greater camaraderie usually doesn’t: business and in 2011. and trust among lawyers spread finance fundamentals. Topics include Some law schools, such as New across a dozen Milbank offices in the how to read financial statements, York University School of Law, U.S., Europe and Asia, Wolfson said. accounting and finance, elements have added a range of business Held on the law school’s campus of macroeconomics, competitive subjects to their curricula over in Cambridge four or five times strategy, negotiation and marketing, the years, and many schools offer a year, Milbank@Harvard brings along with personal development joint MBA/J.D. programs. But for together about 30 associates with and leadership workshops. associates with liberal arts or partners and Harvard Law Norbert Rieger, global head of science backgrounds—like Mike and Harvard Business School faculty. Milbank’ corporate group in , Sheen, a fourth-year patent litigation associate in Milbank’s Milbank’s chairman, Scott are very good lessons on how to office who studied molecular and Edelman, recently attributed manage other people so that you cell biology—the Harvard program the firm’s improvement in The are effective,” Sayagh said. may be their first exposure to formal American Lawyer’s annual midlevel According to Harvard’s Westfahl, instruction in many business topics. satisfaction survey at least partly the learning goes both ways. The The training offered at Harvard gave to the Milbank@Harvard program’s program also helps partners and Sheen “a big picture understanding success. Milbank rose to sixth place faculty understand the new cohort of the world and the economy and from 91st in the 2015 survey. of lawyers, Westfahl said, including individual companies,” he said. Zoe Mernick-Levene, a third-year “how generational differences can The Milbank@Harvard program is litigator in the office, said be expected to affect their work unique in its focus on teaching law she appreciated the sessions on environments in the future, and what firm associates applied business negotiating strategy and the chance this next generation is expecting.” skills, said Scott Westfahl, faculty to connect with colleagues from Wolfson agrees. “I think law director of executive education and across the globe. “It does a brilliant schools need insight into what professor of practice at Harvard Law job of connecting you with your legal training is required for lawyers School. peers and letting you know what who practice in law firms, and this “I don’t know of another program like Milbank is about and helping to start program allows them to address this,” Westfahl said. It is administered building relationships in an organic that need,” he said. It also allows in conjunction with the Harvard Law way,” she said. And, Mernick-Levene the firm “to appropriately address School Executive Education Program, said, it “shows a real investment” in the training needs for the upcoming which was founded by professors associates by the firm. generation of lawyers,” he said. David Wilkins and Ashish Nanda about Laura Larsen, a fourth-year Alicia Bove, a sixth-year litigator eight years ago. leveraged finance associate in in New York, who attended her first Milbank declined to say how much Milbank’s New York office, attended module in November 2013, said the the Milbank@Harvard program her first Milbank@Harvard session in program gave her the vocabulary costs the firm. When the program early November. She said that during and confidence to get quickly was launched in 2011, one expert her first three years at Milbank she up to speed on new matters. But estimated the expense at roughly kept thinking, “When do I get to go “more generally, just adopting the $5.8 million per year. to Harvard?” perspective of how a person who Many of the Milbank@Harvard Though her practice and is running a business is looking workshops are interactive. When an education had already made her at a matter, as opposed to how a American Lawyer reporter visited familiar with much of the subject lawyer is looking at it, is helpful,” one of the classes this fall, Harvard matter, Larsen said the business and Bove said. law and business professor Guhan finance instruction really resonated “It wasn’t something I was thinking Subramanian broke the group “because we have been practicing a about before attending Milbank@ into teams for a game designed to few years and have work under our Harvard,” Bove said. “It is a fantastic demonstrate negotiation strategies. belts.” program.” There are also meals and receptions, Benjamin Sayagh, a sixth- as well as two formal dinners in year associate who’s also in the Boston and Cambridge. It adds up to leveraged finance group in New a learning and networking event that York, said he especially appreciated young lawyers throughout Milbank the management training. have come to eagerly anticipate, “By the time you get to the fourth according to firm leaders and or fifth year, you are managing a lot associates. of paralegals and others, and there

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