Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP - The Inside View

When deciding which BigLaw firm is right for you, your mind likely wanders to the most logical tale of considering each option until your needs have been satiated i.e. Goldilocks. Not following? Stay with us as we explain: A firm should provide substantive quality work but not be so overwhelming; allow associates to be independent and take ownership of their work but also have strong training opportunities; host a culture where people take their work seriously but also house a warm and friendly environment. It can be a tall order, but luckily at Morgan Lewis the firm has hit the balance just right. “There’s no firm of our size and caliber with the breadth and depth that we have,” firm chair Jami McKeon explains, “if you get everything else right, financial success will follow.” What that means is Morgan Lewis is focused on chasing exceptionalism rather than dollar signs, and our sources agreed: “One of the things that people really care about here is excellence, they really live that culture here too.”

“One of the things that people really care about here is excellence, they really live that culture here too.”

McKeon is also keen to highlight the firm’s work output citing that “one of my favorite statistics about our firm is that the majority of our top 200 clients use us in at least six practice groups and at least 12 offices.” Our colleagues over at Chambers USA echo this sentiment, as the firm has rankings in just shy of 150 departments including antitrust, labor & employment, bankruptcy, corporate/M&A, litigation, and more. With all this to consider it’s no wonder that juniors felt they had found the firm that was right for them. “I sound like I’m drinking the Kool-Aid,” reveled one lateral, “but even in a short amount of time the opportunities I’ve been given here have been more than in the last two years of my career.”

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for Junior Satisfaction and The Elite for Mid to Senior Satisfaction in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey. Morgan Lewis & Bockius is also recognized as The Elite for Junior Satisfaction in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, Northern California, Southern California, Texas and New York specifically.

Strategy & Future

As for the future, like most, McKeon and the firm are looking ahead at AI and aren’t afraid to do so. “Our mindset is way ahead,” begins McKeon, “nobody knows where this is going to go but I feel really good that we are ahead of the curve.” In practice, this means teaching associates how to use beta products for clients and developing an internal AI and knowledge management team to tackle the evolving technology head-on.

Otherwise, McKeon stresses that the strategy for Morgan Lewis remains the same, in that it wants to be a place which attracts associates who share its values and goals. “When you make this a purely monetary transaction you are driving the wrong behavior,” McKeon explains, detailing what the firm hopes to offer its juniors: “We want our associates to feel like they are a long-term investment. It’s a marathon not a sprint.”

Read more from our conversation with Jami McKeon under the ‘Get Hired’ tab.

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for AI Integration in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Summer Program

When it came to the summer program, sources declared: “It’s the best summer experience you could ask for!” Enough said? Perhaps to give a bit more color to that praise, juniors relished the chance to try their hands at a variety of different work areas which helped to “affirm my beliefs of what I wanted to do.” Events were plenty, with associates pointing out that the firm is eager to listen to what the summers were interested in doing. “There were multiple events a week focused on socializing and networking with each other and the firm,” one source revealed, “they did a really good job with it.”

The Work

For work allocation, the firm operates a hybrid model between centralized staffing and free market with a slight preference for the former. “It’s a centralized system that works, and I have the benefit of comparing it to other firms,” one lateraled associate informed us, “they want to make sure the work is evenly divided and they do that well.”  Free market appointments still occur, but juniors were relieved that this wasn’t the primary mode of allocation: “free market can be a lot about bias, it’s who you like.”

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for Work Allocation & Autonomy in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

The work buckets in the litigation practice are diverse and can include general litigation, white-collar work, data privacy, securities, corporate governance and more. “I’m not funneled down a particular path,” one insider informed us, “you can declare if you have a specific kind of work in mind you’d like to do, or you can try out some options.” Clients will often be big financial institutions as well as healthcare and public companies involved in shareholder disputes. We heard there was a lot of global work on offer as well as cross-office collaboration. Work breakdowns may involve business disputes, arbitrations, mediations, and policy work. Juniors observed that as they are “lower on the pecking order” tasks can involve a lot of document review and legal research. Your enjoyment of either may vary but one insider seemed especially keen on the latter as “it feels like my job is to find that one needle in the haystack which is great.” Other tasks include drafting motions to dismiss, analysis, and building legal arguments. “That can be really fun to do because no idea is a bad idea, and you really feel part of the team,” one associate said. Ultimately, sources felt the breadth of their work and experience was a huge positive, “there’s a lot of substantive responsibility, sometimes on the smaller cases you’re running the whole thing with a partner!”

Litigation clients: Vanguard Group, Haleon, Covance, Fidelity National Information Services. The firm represented Phoenix American Financial Services, an investment funds administrative services provider, in an investor putative class action matter.

“They give me new opportunities to grow, and I love the responsibility I’ve been given so far.”

Over in the corporate group, juniors spoke of the variety in-store for them as they “buy and sell businesses all over the world.” While our sources explained that the group was advertised as middle-market M&A, the reality is far more expansive. “I’ve seen everything from a small deal at $20 million to a deal as big as $1 billion,” one insider recalled, “it’s some of the most sophisticated transactions I’ve ever seen.” Naturally, this trickles down into a wide variety of clients as well, ranging from “mom and pop shops out of the Northeast, to some of the biggest household names we all know and love.” Our sources noted there is a great deal of scope to pick up substantial assignments and get stuck in with qualitative work. Typical tasks include due diligence, preparing checklists, signature packets, drafting memos, marking up principal documents, handling post closings, and client contact. “Morgan Lewis staffs really leanly I’ve found,” one junior was happy to report, “they give me new opportunities to grow, and I love the responsibility I’ve been given so far.”

Corporate clients: Howard Huges Holdings, Arteza, Eureka Capital Partners, MEI Pharma. The firm recently acted for Grover Gaming in the company’s sale of its charitable gaming assets to Light & Wonder Inc.

Career Development

Whether you’re an incoming first year associate or a lateral hire, Morgan Lewis is focused on giving everyone an equal footing when it comes to training. “It’s part of the reason I came here,” one lateral divulged, “there’s a New Lawyers Academy for everyone coming into the firm that’s been really helpful.” For laterals, we heard this was especially useful to “get me up to speed and integrate me quickly.” Otherwise, juniors are exposed to a variety of formal and informal trainings, so much so that some insiders reported that “I don’t have time to attend it all” but “what I do attend has been all-star stuff.”

More specifically, interviewees recalled “cutting edge sessions” on AI training, deal work, and networking. Each junior is assigned an associate and partner mentor who “have been there every step of the way” and who “never seem too burned out to give some feedback or advice.” The firm is also keen to invite incoming associates to practice group events long before they join to get a head start on networking and settling in. As for partnership, sources praised that “you always know where you stand at the firm” and it’s quite common to see lifers here, only bolstering our interviewees confidence that it was an attainable goal.

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for Career Development in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Culture

Juniors were pleasantly surprised by how warm and kind a BigLaw firm could be, citing that, “I was waiting for the other shoe to drop for over six months, but it never did!” Instead, Morgan Lewis fosters an environment of “friendly, supportive, and collaborative peers.” Associates are expected in the office three days a week, which interviewees pointed to as one of the many reasons it’s easy to make friends at the firm. In smaller offices around the country insiders spoke of “getting to know everyone on a deeper level.”

“I was waiting for the other shoe to drop for over six months, but it never did!”

Each office has its own specific array of social engagements. The Philadelphia office, for example, has a large reception lounge on the top floor of the building for networking events and such, “the building is brand new and has everything you can possibly imagine.” Other offerings include traditional holiday parties and happy hours to keep everyone at the firm connected and involved. After-office shindigs are also common, with one junior highlighting that “some partners throw things at their houses as well which is exciting.” It’s not all fun and games though as our insiders were adamant to point out that one other attribute that bonds colleagues together is the seriousness in which they take their work: “You’ve got to care about that and really want to provide the best service you can for your client.”

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for Culture in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Inclusion

McKeon does not mince words when it comes to the firm’s drive for an inclusive environment. “Diversity has become a dirty word because it’s been perverted by some into signifying lower quality,” McKeon begins, “to us, however, it has always signified that having a variety of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences will lead to a far more innovative and successful team.” This sentiment was shared by our interviewees who touted that “the firm is a great place to be for diverse voices to flourish.”

Affinity groups were present and include Veterans, First Generation Lawyers, Black Lawyers, Parent Lawyers, and more. The groups regularly throw events and panels to encourage networking within the firm. “When I was thinking about a New York corporate firm, I was not expecting this level of diversity,” one source admitted, “and that’s true here and across the firm.”

Hours & Compensation

Billable hours: no requirement

Although 1,900 hours was the yearly target we kept hearing from our sources to become bonus eligible, our interviewees all spoke of aiming for 2,000 to keep in good standing and to “show that you’re fully staffed and utilized.” Not that our insiders seemed concerned by that figure as “I’ve had no issue hitting it, there’s no lack of work here,” but for those that do need a little more on their plate, we heard that “they reallocate work where necessary.” Within those 2,000 hours, pro bono work is unlimited for associates.

Hours varied, with work patterns forming around those who have families and other commitments being more likely to log off early but then logging back on again in the evening. “Most standard days look like 9am-7pm,” one insider reported. Both the salary and bonus are lockstep with the industry. On compensation, one frank junior put it plainly: “It’s more money than I need, we’re not left wanting!”

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for Benefits & Quality of Life in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Pro Bono

At Morgan Lewis, pro bono is “no joke” and that is demonstrated by the firm’s 20-hour pro bono minimum requirement with no maximum in sight for billable work. Once associates hit that 20-hour minimum, they are awarded with a sticker that they can proudly display to show they’re part of the positive pro bono push. “You’re encouraged to do any work you want,” one junior reveled, “there’s never too much here!” In terms of the work on offer, the firm engages in immigration work, refugee clinics, citizenship cases, housing, and veterans matters. “There’s a heavy humanitarian focus here,” one source revealed, “they’re really serious about it and it’s at the center of our values.” Interviewees also highlighted that the firm is more than open to juniors bringing in their own pro bono clients and are supportive of associates fostering their own relationships where applicable.

Pro bono hours 

• For all US attorneys: 93,970
• Average per US attorney: 49.9

Morgan Lewis & Bockius is recognized as The Elite for Pro Bono in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Get Hired

The first stage: recruitment on and off campus

• Total Screens conducted (Pre-OCI, OCI and all other) in 2025: 777

At Morgan Lewis, the firm’s greatest strength is the company they keep. The firm is looking for students who show the promise to embody exceptional client service through drive, excellence, engagement, collaboration and a commitment to inclusion.  Interested students are encouraged to submit direct applications on the firm’s website. Morgan Lewis prides itself on its deep and trusted partnerships with exceptional law schools where so many of its lawyers are proud alumni.

Initial interviews are conducted directly with partner and associate teams that represent Morgan Lewis’s expansive range of practice breadth and global footprint. Candidates can expect to hear about the firm’s collaborative culture and the values of Morgan Lewis. During this round, questions will allow the firm to learn about your individual talents, background and prior experiences.

Insider Advice 

“We know the recruiting season can be stressful, and you meet with many firms! Do your research, show your interest and be yourself to make a connection with the interviewers.” –Partner Jennifer Breen 

The second stage: callbacks 

• Applicants invited to second-stage interviews in 2025: 433

In the callback phase, candidates will meet with a combination of partners, associates, and members of the hiring committee. The firm works to align your interests with its client needs and select interviewers who can speak in depth about those particular areas of law.

Interviewers will pose questions built around our four core competencies—drive, excellence, engagement, and collaboration. To gain additional insight into what motivates and inspires you, you’ll also be asked to expand further about prior work experience, extracurriculars, and volunteer activities.

Insider Advice 

“Candidates stand out when they have concrete examples of instances throughout their education, and perhaps in previous careers, where they have demonstrated their ability to collaborate with others, a drive to succeed, and engage with their communities. It’s also nice to see candidates who are genuinely eager and enthusiastic about the prospect of working at our firm.” –Partner Jennifer Breen 

Summer Associate Program 

• Offers made following 2025 program: 130 (2L)
• Offers accepted in 2025: 115 (2L)

Morgan Lewis’s summer program runs for 10 weeks and launches with an exciting Summer Kickoff—a multiday gathering of all the summer associates and hiring partners along with firm leaders, including the Chair of the firm. The program gives summer associates a glimpse into associate life at Morgan Lewis by showcasing the firm’s unique culture, market-leading practices, and commitment to training and development, well-being, inclusion, mentorship, and pro bono.

Throughout the program, summer associates gain exposure to interesting and challenging work assignments. The Summer Academy curriculum underpins this experience with practice training and a range of professional skills development opportunities. Social activities are thoughtfully incorporated to foster connection amongst the summers and the firm’s lawyers - at Morgan Lewis, the firm believes that relationships are everything!

Insider Advice 

“Take advantage of the opportunities that come your way and be engaged. Try different assignments and connect with attorneys and your fellow summer associates. The relationships you make and experiences you have will be invaluable as you start your legal career.” –Partner Jennifer Breen 

Interview with Jami McKeon, firm chair

Commercial strategy, market position and trends

Chambers Associate: How would you define your firm’s current position and identity in the legal market? What differentiates your firm from your peer firms in the market?

Jami McKeon: We continue to be one of the leading global elite firms that operates at a high level, representing clients in some of their most complex issues in places all over the world. What differentiates us are a couple things.

First, there’s no firm of our size and caliber with the breadth and depth that we have. As other firms slim down and chase after only the most profitable work, we don’t. We have 15 practice groups ranging from private client, and FDA, to all the big litigation, corporate, and intellectual property groups. Each one is a top Chambers rated practice. One of my favorite statistics about our firm is that the majority of our top 200 clients use us in at least six practice groups and at least 12 offices. That is distinguishable. That is not true of any other major firm. We’ve carefully cultivated being the best in class in each of our areas and our clients respond by using us in multiple of those areas.

The second thing is, I do think our culture is distinctive. We put our money where our mouth is. I think the best way to phrase that is the two mantras we use the most: There’s no limit to what we can achieve if no one cares who gets the credit. It’s very unusual for a law firm to not care who gets the credit. Secondly: If you get everything else right, financial success will follow. We focus on financial success as proof of our model, not as the driver. We focus on training and development, lawyer wellbeing, inclusion, mental health and fitness, financial wellbeing, anything that helps our people culturally. Then we’re driven by collaboration, and integration. We’re a single profit pool and we have one practice leader in each area. We look really closely at what our colleagues and our associates are saying about working with us and that really drives the changes we make in our performance.

CA: Have there been any developments at the firm over the past year that you’d like law students to know about?

McKeon: Within the last year, we grew our Paris office to be our second largest office outside the US. And we just launched in Riyadh which is our third office in the Middle East. This expansion builds on our longstanding presence in the region. Our lawyers have advised clients in the Middle East for more than four decades, with offices in Dubai since 2013 and Abu Dhabi since 2019.  In terms of additional developments, we’ve brought in about 70 lateral partners in the last year, many of them outside the US. We’ve continued to focus on growth in London and Europe. One of the things that is distinctive about us is we have a much stronger retention rate for lateral partners than anyone else in the industry. We’re in the 90s percentile and the average is below 60%. We’re constantly looking at how we can improve the offering we have to our clients in the areas they need it. So that growth is intentional and significant. One of the things I mentioned in our October partner meeting is if you pick up the paper every day it is like musical chairs: two people have left this firm, two people who left that firm have moved somewhere else etc. We don’t really participate in that game; we aren’t looking for people who are trying to chase the big money and then when they don’t perform move on in two years. We are looking for people who want to be a part of who we are and what we have, and we invest two years in an integration program for them so that they are part of the firm. They realize the 2+2=7 methodology that in my view you ought to have as your cornerstone for any lateral acquisition. And they stay, and we get stronger, and we get better, and we grow. We’ve had another record year-on-year in terms of both top-level and bottom-level income profitability revenue and that’s because I think we are consistent and strategic about how we grow. Free agency drives the wrong behavior. If you buy someone for more money you’d expect them to perform right away and if they don’t, they’ll leave for somewhere else that will pay them more money. This is a partnership. You want people who are going to mentor your associates, pay attention to other people’s client relationships, collaborate across the firm. When you make this a purely monetary transaction you are driving the wrong behavior. Those people have been incentivized to hoard everything to show their value. I’ve been with this firm my whole career, so I know what it is like to be an associate at a place that invests in you. I have had four children since starting at the firm and this was before firms had strong maternity policies in place. Among similarly sized firms, ours was the first to implement a three-month parental leave policy—as early as 1983. We want our associates to feel like they are a long-term investment. It’s a marathon not a sprint.

CA: Are there any domestic or international events/trends that are affecting any of the firm’s practices at the moment? Are there any trends that you think are affecting the business of law firms more generally, and how is that playing out with your firm?

McKeon: I wouldn’t say they’re affecting us as a firm, but they are affecting our clients. To be responsive to this, for example, we started doing strategic initiatives to deal with spot issues our clients cared about during Covid, with more than 400 people working on this, everything from PPP loans to masking, to vaccinations, and we created task forces to tackle each of those areas.  This year we had task forces on tariffs, regulatory shifts, international sanctions and the reporting on the moves made by the US administration. Something I said in our partner meeting was ‘it’s different to say things are unpredictable than to say you are dealing with governments who curate and operate on unpredictability.’ Our clients have to respond to that in real time so what they need is that full breadth that we bring. We have a nuclear energy practice, and we are one of the only two large firms who do. We have a structured transactions practice, we have an investment management practice, and we have a telecom media technology practice. Because our practices work so well together, we are able to bring these really vast things to the fore. Our deep and broad expertise brings the latest information on things that happen to our clients both domestically and internationally as it happens.

Another thing: the “war on talent”. Engaging and developing talent continues to be a focus for us all. In several respects, we have been ahead of the curve. For example, we launched a remote working pilot in 2017, well before it became commonplace, and even our most curmudgeonly partners loved it. We let our associates work from home two days a week with equipment we provided. At the time, only about 20% of our associates took us up on it. Then the pandemic hit, and we were exceptionally well positioned. We have been very lucky to attract associates who look at the world as we do. We have a mandatory pro bono requirement. We attract people who believe in that and want to be part of something; to be mentored. You have to be thoughtful about who you want to attract.

CA: How important is it for the firm to promote a diverse and inclusive working environment?

McKeon: Diversity has become a dirty word because it’s been perverted by some into signifying lower quality, to us, however, it has always signified that having a variety of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences will lead to a far more innovative and successful team. Every law firm chair should care about that, and every head of a business should care about that too. It is very important to us to foster an environment where people can be their authentic selves. Law firms are better when everybody brings their best self to the table, and that best self should be different to everybody else’s best self. I know as a woman in law, if I wasn’t able to be myself then I wouldn’t have succeeded here.

CA: How are you standing out to prospective associates when it comes to your offerings around training and development?

McKeon: It starts structurally: when I was elected chair 12 years ago, I created an engagement function and appointed a Chief Engagement Officer because to get the best out of your team they have to feel like they’re getting better at what they’re doing through training and development. We built out a very robust team led by our Chief Legal Talent Officer to deliver trainings of all different kinds. We had a dozen in-person academies, bringing together all of our new lawyers, mid-level, senior, transactional lawyers etc. This was on the ground training where we bring in not only our people who are the best, but outside people to talk about a variety of things. In each of those academies we have an AI, financial wellbeing, positive psychology and mental wellness focus. We incorporate those with all of the other training. Then we have webinars throughout the year. What we do is we try to offer all we think people will be interested in, some educational in general but others focused on what they do, some are driven by their own practice group, some are cross practice group. Our transactions academy includes people from all of our transactional groups. We focus on getting people the training but also making sure that the rest of their lives aren’t getting left behind and blending in together. The amount of time, effort and infrastructure we have poured into the number of opportunities and our approach to training them, including all these things, are all distinctive.

The Legal Profession

CA: How do you predict the rise in AI will affect the ways in which lawyers work? How will it affect the services law firms provide?

McKeon: Looking at AI and the disruptors on that is critical. Back in 2000 we developed an E-data practice; it’s now a $100 million practice. Our mindset is way ahead. We’ve curated a group of practice leaders in AI, and are co-developing and testing beta products for clients. We’re teaching our associates to use these products. Our clients’ mindset on AI is evolving. There was a time they didn’t want us to use the cloud. Some are more enthusiastic than others. We deal with very sophisticated global clients and that’s good because they’re all confronting this in their own organizations and what I’ve seen coming out of them is an openness to discuss but also coming to their own conclusions about products. One of the things that spurred us on to have our lawyers trained up on various AI-related tools, such as CoCounsel Core, is that we had clients coming to us saying we’re okay if you use AI but only if you do this but not this. Then we discuss and customize our approach. We have a huge internal AI and knowledge management team that is highly professionalized with scientists on the team. We’re able to collaborate with our clients and offer things that they’ve already had a chance to experience. Nobody knows where this is going to go but I feel really good that we are ahead of the curve.

The Fun Bit

CA: Throwing it back to law school: it's been a long day of classes and studying. What's your go-to easy meal to have before you crash?

McKeon: When I was there, I would put chicken breast, rice, and soup in a crockpot in the morning and have them when I got home. 

CA: What was the first concert you attended?

McKeon: Fleetwood Mac.

CA: Thinking about the ways in which the legal profession is developing, what is the one skill you have learnt in your career that you think is key for young attorneys to learn?

McKeon: Listening. Young attorneys are so anxious to show what they can do but you absorb a lot more by listening and can be more responsive. When I started practicing law, people looked for leaders who only drove business, and soft skills like compassion and listening were regarded as unimportant and were even denigrated. But now, they are essential, especially if you were aspiring to become a leader. They are no longer optional.