O’Melveny Worldwide
Law Students
Law Students

Law Students

Explore life at one of the world’s top law firms.

Summer associates undertake hands-on, substantive work in connection with active litigation, corporate, and pro bono matters. They also get a front-row seat to real-world lawyering, with plenty of opportunities to attend client meetings, depositions, and court appearances. The summer program is often the springboard to a career at O’Melveny, so we invest significant time and energy into creating a friendly, inspiring environment for summer associates.

2025 Summer Program

“Assignments are substantive; you’re considered part of a team, included on team emails and meetings, and given genuine responsibility.”

—former summer associate, responding in 2024 Vault Survey

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Real-World Experience

  • Summer program work is interesting, substantive, and meaningful.
  • You’ll develop key lawyering skills as you contribute to active litigation and corporate matters.
  • You’ll also get a front-row seat to the practice of law by attending client meetings, depositions, and court appearances.

Comprehensive Training

  • As an O’Melveny summer associate, you’ll be entrusted with the kind of responsibility typically given to first-years—but you won’t do it alone.
  • A dedicated mentor will provide guidance and help you navigate life at a large, international law firm.
  • In addition, you’ll engage in practice group presentations, an assortment of training sessions, and our robust Mock Deal and Advocacy Institute development programs, where you can work on honing your negotiation and oral argument abilities.

A Clear Trajectory

  • Halfway through the summer, you’ll participate in a discussion about your progress and identify potential growth areas.
  • These conversations will continue and help facilitate work opportunities that align with your goals and interests.

Lasting Connections

  • Because we view our summer associate program as the first step on a path to a future with O’Melveny, we invest significant time and effort into making sure our summer associates feel at home.
  • Beyond the strong bonds you’ll form while working on substantive projects, you’ll also enjoy getting to know fellow summers and firm lawyers during office gatherings and local outings.
  • Make lifelong memories at a cooking class, bowling night, baseball game, yoga retreat, pizza tour, and other social activities.

Intellectual Exploration

  • At O’Melveny, we inspire people to be curious, engaged, and ready to seize every opportunity before them.
  • Explore broad career possibilities through our work coordination program, which provides summer associates first-hand exposure to a multitude of practice areas.

A Sense of Belonging

  • Our firm works diligently to ensure that individuals of all backgrounds can thrive.
  • O’Melveny’s “grassroots” employee network groups honor—and amplify—the characteristics that make our people special.

Community Impact

  • If you have a passion for giving back, you’ll fit right in at O’Melveny. Our firm has a long history of serving the public good through impact litigation, the representation of low-income individuals, and other legal services that close the access to justice gap. We treat pro bono matters with the same gravity as our billable work, which allows summer associates to get involved with a wide range of opportunities to leverage the law to impact lives and communities for the better.
  • Above all, we aim to bring law students along for a first-hand experience of what it means to be an “O’Melveny lawyer”: someone who personifies our core values of excellence, leadership, and citizenship. Along with countless opportunities to sharpen your skills, build a professional network, and gain hands-on experience, these values will serve as a strong foundation for your future career.
  • We also take pride in inviting students to pursue careers with us after graduation. Some spend their entire professional lives at O’Melveny, while others eventually explore opportunities in judicial clerkships or in government and other forms of public service. Whatever your goals are, there’s a place for you at O’Melveny. So, tell us—what do you want to achieve?

Build A Career Without Compromise at O’Melveny

Get the Inside Scoop From “The O’Melveny Podcast”

What’s It Like to Work at O’Melveny? Former Summer Associates Weigh In


Our Stories

Many law students who summer with us return to the firm as first-year associates. Each of these lawyers has a unique success story to tell, but they’ve all benefited from O’Melveny’s robust investment in talent development. Learn more about how they’ve achieved a career without compromise—in their own words.

Nadia Farjood

Counsel, Los Angeles

Los Angeles counsel Nadia Farjood was drawn to O’Melveny because of its longstanding commitment to pro bono legal services, its history of public service leadership, and its dedication to creating a more equitable profession. “Supporting access to justice and inclusion in law has always been important to me,” she said. “I was attracted to the firm’s core value of citizenship and its rich tradition of public service leadership.”

During law school, she took a summer associate position at O’Melveny, reassured by the firm’s partnerships with community organizations across Los Angeles and inspired by the legacy of former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, former O’Melveny chairman. The connections Farjood made during those few months—principally through O’Melveny’s Advocacy Institute—changed the course of her life.

The Advocacy Institute provides summer associates with the opportunity to draft a brief and mock-argue a case before a judge in federal court. “Very few firms in the country have a program like this,” Farjood said. “I argued before then-sitting US District Court Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell, a beloved mentor and celebrated advocate for women in Los Angeles. She embraced the experience like it was a real court appearance and pored over the mock materials so she could give me tips on my brief and courtroom etiquette.” Farjood was later accepted to clerk with O’Connell. Though O’Connell passed away unexpectedly before Farjood could begin her tenure, Farjood’s name was passed along to a close friend of O’Connell’s, the Honorable André Birotte Jr. in the US District Court for the Central District of California, for whom Farjood ultimately clerked. “I never would’ve gotten that opportunity if it hadn’t been for O’Melveny’s support and guidance,” she said. “The clerkship experience completely changed the way I think about advocacy, and I’ll always cherish my relationship with Judge Birotte.”

Farjood continues to devote significant time to social justice work and pro bono representation. “O’Melveny’s policy of giving full billable credit for every hour spent on pro bono is a reflection of the firm’s values,” she said. Recently, she was part of an O’Melveny team that represented a young woman from Uganda seeking asylum in the US. If denied and deported back to Uganda, the woman would be threatened by female genital mutilation, a widespread practice in her father’s tribe. At the immigration court trial, Farjood and fellow associate Stephanie Fung conducted direct examinations of their client and an expert witness and delivered a closing statement. Although asylum is a notoriously tough legal outcome to secure, their presentation persuaded the judge to grant the woman’s application. “With the team’s support, I was able to help this young woman find refuge from a dangerous practice, which meant the world to me,” Farjood said. “I was also able to take a lead role on a case as a junior lawyer.”

The case instilled a passion for immigration law that continues to shape Farjood’s pro bono practice. She represents applicants for asylum, cancellation of removal, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status in addition to her volunteer work for the Legal Aid Society of San Diego. “I have an obligation to use my education and my position to serve others, which is exactly what O’Melveny has encouraged me to do,” she said. “This firm is all about coupling intellectual curiosity with civic responsibility. It’s the perfect place to get involved in public service.”

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Maiah H. Parks

Counsel, San Francisco

When San Francisco counsel Maiah Parks first joined O’Melveny as a summer associate, she quickly forged a close bond with partner Jennifer Taylor—a relationship that became invaluable to Parks’ growth both as a lawyer and an individual. “I knew immediately that I’d found an incredible mentor in Jennifer,” Parks said. “She’s been a bedrock of my experience at the firm.” Now, Parks is paying it forward by mentoring the next generation of O’Melveny lawyers.

Parks met Taylor when she was assigned to Taylor’s team for a pro bono project. She remembers Taylor as someone who took great care to ensure that summers were substantively involved in firm matters. “At the time, she was a young partner with two children of her own, which clearly made her life very busy, but she put in so much effort to connect with summers and junior associates and still continues to do so,” Parks explained. “She lifted me up and made me feel important.”

Since then, Parks has routinely turned to Taylor for guidance on issues large and small. When Parks was feeling burned out after the COVID-19 pandemic and considered taking time off, she asked Taylor about O’Melveny’s sabbatical program. “She was very supportive,” Parks said. “So I took three months off and came back to my work totally refreshed, with a renewed excitement for the work I do.”

Taylor also advises Parks on potential client development opportunities. Once, while attending a conference for corporate finance lawyers together, Parks told Taylor about a startup she’d been connected with that was seeking financing. “She said, ‘Let’s set up calls with the venture-focused banks we work with regularly as well as some firm alumni who might be good advisors,’” Parks said. “Her suggestions ultimately helped me get that company on board as a prospective client.”

For the past two years, Parks has volunteered for O’Melveny’s New Associate Mentorship Program (NAMP), which pairs first-year lawyers with a dedicated mentor. Every month, she collects feedback from other lawyers at the firm and passes it on to her mentee. These regular reviews ensure that young lawyers are able to effectively manage their workloads and remain on track to achieve their goals. She has also worked with the UC Law SF (formerly UC Hastings) Women’s Law Society for the past four years as an alumni mentor, mentoring 1L and 2L law students as they navigate law schools and the recruiting process.

Parks treats her responsibility as a mentor with the same gravity she observed in Taylor. “I want younger lawyers to know they can come to me with virtually anything, whether it’s a thorny legal problem or a question about how something in the kitchen works,” she said. Parks is intentional about sharing her own emotions about work—whether positive or negative—with younger colleagues, too. “I try to show them that it’s okay to have feelings and express them in a productive way so you can move forward.”

Although mentorship has required a significant contribution of time and energy from Parks, she sees it as a way to reinvest the support that’s helped her build a successful career. “I hope junior associates look up to me the same way I still look up to Jennifer and my other mentors,” she said. “O’Melveny is a special place because of the connections we’re able to make with our colleagues, and I’ve tried to do my part to uphold that.”

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Recognition