amazing experience:

A good place to rise and shine.

Driven people experience amazing opportunities and other valuable things here.

SEE LEGAL POSITIONS   See professional positions   See Summer Associate and Law Clerk Positions

culture counts

Explore an amazing experience that begins with you.

  • A free-spirited, entrepreneurial culture
  • Success is celebrated
  • All-star talent without the attitude
  • We are a WE place

Substantive Training & Continuing Education

  • Consistent with the needs of the firm and our clients, the firm expects all attorneys, including new associates, to assume significant client-facing responsibilities quickly and capably.
  • As a result, our associates obtain significant and invaluable on-the-job training by working closely with experienced attorneys with varying styles and approaches.
  • To supplement this practical, hands-on experience, we provide our associates with formal training in a broad range of substantive topics via in-house programs and extensive external continuing legal education options.
  • Associates can also sharpen their substantive legal and business skills via on-demand e-learning platforms, like Practicing Law Institute (PLI), Thomas Reuter’s Practical Law, and Hotshot Legal.

Core Skills & Competencies

  • Developed with input from our associates, our Core Skills are customized to our firm’s culture and expectations concerning amazing client service and key professional/leadership skills.  
  • As such, the Core Skills offer a balanced counterpart to our associates’ substantive legal training and development.
  • Throughout the year, we offer in-house seminars, workshops, and speaker events on wide-ranging topics, such as business development, law firm economics, time management, and delegation.

Mentoring & Coaching

  • Given the size and culture of our firm, our associates quickly develop mentoring relationships with other attorneys in their practice groups and across practice groups. Mentoring is such an essential component at our firm that we offer billable credit to all timekeepers for time spent with mentoring activities. 
  • To round out the onboarding process, we pair new lateral associates with an associate mentor who becomes a fast “go-to” colleague for our new associates.
  • In addition to formal and informal mentor pairings, we facilitate mentoring circles for different groups of attorneys, such as a mentoring circle for women attorneys in transactional practice areas. 
  • We offer individualized coaching resources, both internal and external, to our attorneys, including writing coaching and presentation skills coaching. 

Engagement & Connection

  • The firm is committed to helping foster connections and collaboration among all our colleagues, particularly among our associates.
  • To this end, the firm offers regular opportunities for associates to connect across practice groups, both informally and formally, often multiple times a month and throughout the year. 
  • Many of our associates are engaged in any number of the firm’s internal initiatives, like the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, internal affinity groups, and the Well-Being Committee. We offer billable credit for involvement in these activities, as well. 

Leadership Pipeline

  • Our associates represent the future leaders of the firm.
  • We encourage our associates to develop and grow their leadership skills from a wide array of internal and external opportunities.
  • For example, associates may seek firm leadership positions on one of our committees, such as the Associates’ Committee, comprised of associates selected by associates who serve as a liaison between associates and the firm’s management team.
  • Many of our associates hold leadership positions externally, such as board members on charitable boards.
  • The firm also supports associates’ participation in external leadership development opportunities, such as programs offered through the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, ACG, Y Boston, and the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts.

Evaluations & Feedback

  • Throughout the year, associates seek and receive real-time feedback and guidance from partners/counsel with whom they work and the Director of Professional Development.
  • We conduct formal in-person performance evaluations for associates on an annual basis. 
  • This fulsome process includes self-evaluations by associates and evaluations by supervising partners/counsel and by senior associates in some circumstances.
  • At the meeting, we discuss not only the evaluations but also their ongoing development goals so that we can support our associates on their professional paths.

Diversity here is a labor of love. We talk passionately about improvements and back the talk with action.

benefits

We offer a comprehensive benefits package, including generous time off, and competitive salaries commensurate with years of experience. Our benefits program strives to provide a combination of work/life balance, health and wellness, and financial stability.

Health and dental insurance

Health savings accounts

401k and discretionary profit sharing plan

Life and long term disability insurance

Health and dependent care flexible spending plans

Commuter flexible spending plans

MBTA pass program

Paid time off

Wellness and professional development seminars and initiatives

Backup child care and elder care

Employee Assistance Program

Tuition reimbursement

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summer associates & law clerks

Burns & Levinson hires summer associates and law clerks on a periodic basis based on the projected needs of our practice groups. Our summer associates and clerks are assigned to a specific practice group, receiving work assignments from attorneys and gaining hands-on experience in that particular area of law. In recent years, we have hosted summer associates and law clerks in our Business Law, Business Litigation, Intellectual Property, and Private Client Groups.

People who excel in these roles are driven self-starters who demonstrate sound judgment and have strong analytical and communication skills. Burns seeks diverse candidates who share the firm’s passion for, and commitment to, delivering amazing results for our clients.   

In general, we do not participate in on-campus interviews at law schools. Because our hiring needs are practice group-driven, we recruit for summer associates and law clerks at various times throughout the year. For our summer associate program, we typically determine our hiring needs for the upcoming summer in the early months of that year, and then begin an online application process and interviews. 

Recent associate hires have helped us reach our needs for summer 2024. Please check back in February 2025 for information on our 2025 summer associate program.

If you have questions about our summer associate and law clerk programs, please email our Recruiting Manager, Wousthanya Dumornay, MPA.


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