Foley Hoag LLP - The Inside View

A phrase that kept coming up in our conversations with Foley Hoag lawyers was “Boston values.” Litigating on behalf of the Red Sox, maybe? Socials where you throw tea in the harbor? In all seriousness, “Boston values mean that it’s a bit more collegial, and more relaxed, than a traditional white shoe firm,” one associate surmised, and that ethos does seem central to the firm’s appeal.

Multiple juniors flagged how much they valued the firm’s collaborative culture and commitment to work-life balance, which is admittedly tough to come by in the world of corporate law. “Foley has a good space in the market as a ‘BigLaw firm’ with a small law firm feel to it,” reflected another junior, adding that “you get the chance to do more things and don’t get pigeonholed early in your career doing a single thing.”

“…more collegial, and more relaxed, than a traditional white shoe firm.”

Boston values shape the firm’s identity in a couple of other ways too. One is a genuine focus on sectors that are appropriate for a city filled with scientists, scholars and start-ups. “We are deeply embedded in innovative industries,” managing partner Jim Bucking tells us, pointing to life sciences, tech, and renewable energy, with a particular emphasis on helping entrepreneurs from the very first stages of company formation and beyond. That focus has paid off through strong positions in the Chambers USA rankings for Massachusetts in practice areas such as environment, life sciences and energy & natural resources (to name only a few).

There’s also a streak of unapologetic New England liberalism running through Foley’s DNA. “We’re not shying away from being ‘the resistance firm’,” an associate tells us proudly, and the arrival of a new head of DEI signifies a continued commitment to inclusion initiatives.

Strategy & Future

Although the firm is attached to its Boston roots, and the city houses its largest cohort of associates, we don’t want to give the false impression that the Charles River is the limit of Foley’s horizons. Its New York office is now well established, while outposts in D.C. and Denver are also growing fast.

The expansion in Colorado is a particularly important element of the firm’s current strategy, and Bucking tells us that “we aim to do everything there that we do in our other offices.” Associates seem supportive of the plans, as “there’s a good balance between growth and maintaining our culture and values; the leadership could choose to expand more drastically, but they know that the culture is a big part of why people are here.”

Another plank of its strategy is to lean into artificial intelligence. “We are a 300-lawyer firm often competing with 3000-lawyer firms, and we think that early adoption of AI will give us an edge,” Bucking says. There is a firmwide subscription to Harvey (available to legal and non-legal staff alike), and he reports that all new associates will be trained in its use and expected to develop their own expertise.

Read more from Jim Bucking under the 'Get Hired' tab.

Summer Program

Summers at Foley are encouraged to “use it as an opportunity to get to know people in your department,” while also doing “a range of things if you can,” so they can better understand what first–year work actually looks like. The program blends substantive assignments which are “very much the work that a junior associate does,” like drafting, research memos, and even sections of filed briefs, with larger projects on “issues of the day.”

Many summers also participate in short shadowing experiences, such as a two–week internship where you “shadow a business partner… on client calls,” which one told us played a major role in choosing their practice group. Throughout the summer, networking is heavily emphasized; while “your work product isn’t not important,” a key goal is meeting widely through mentors, lunches, and coffee chats to help determine next steps.

It’s worth noting that Foley has revamped this process recently in order to encourage associates to develop specialized expertise at an earlier stage. So, while summer associates are still encouraged to sample a broad range of work, job offers will ultimately come from specific departments. Despite this, interviewees stressed that “it’s still fine to not know what you want to do at that stage,” as the program is designed to support exploration before committing.

The Work

With that in mind, there is an emphasis on lawyers cultivating specialisms in particular industries as well as in practice areas, with associates encouraged to choose areas of focus from among the firm’s core industries (which include life sciences, energy, education and cannabis).

Nonetheless, the options available within the General Business practice group are still extensive, with the firm’s activity spanning financing to fund formation in emerging markets and venture capital (EC/VC), as well as M&A, to project financing in the renewable energy space.

Of EC/VC, much of that work involves “advising investors on venture capital investments” and helping companies through formation and growth–stage financings. Typical tasks include “creating issues lists, incorporated edits, negotiating with opposing counsel, getting close to closing,” and managing deal execution.

M&A work was said to be “just booming right now,” meaning that an increasing proportion of work opportunities fall within this practice area. Typical tasks include disclosure schedules, diligence and the signature process, as well as managing transaction checklists and coordinating across teams. 

“I’ve been the most senior associate on most of the transactions, but that’s not to say I haven’t had partner support”

On the project finance side, associates work on complex renewable energy transactions that sit at the intersection of finance, tax, and regulatory law. Associates can typically expect to get involved with “leading diligence reviews and reviewing drafts from opposing counsel,” negotiating core transaction documents, and coordinating across specialists to keep deals moving toward closing.

One thing that came across clearly from all of our conversations with associates is that the firm’s lean approach to staffing tends to give junior team members the chance to take on significant responsibilities at an early stage. “You could be working on a primary document on a transaction if you prove yourself able to handle things,” one business associate shared. But that’s not to say associates are left to figure it out alone: “I’ve been the most senior associate on most of the transactions, but that’s not to say I haven’t had partner support… it was more that I felt I had good enough training.”

Business clients: Abbvie, Regeneron, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, FocusGrowth Asset Management. Represented Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the acquisition of a former military facility for its headquarters and experimental reactor demonstration site.

Beyond business, the other key practice groups where associates tend to be found are Litigation and General ILAD. ILAD is an area where the firm’s profile is on the rise, and its Washington D.C. office has a particular focus on this area. Within this sphere, the firm does a significant amount of prestigious work representing states in investor-state disputes work. Its other litigation teams handle a broad range of matters, with a noted strength in patent litigation and cases involving environmental law.

Work is allocated through a mix of a centralized staffing system and direct assignments from partners, with the latter increasingly predominating as associates become more senior: “You get weekly emails from the staffing partner, but now increasingly I get contacted by partners directly,” explained one associate.

Tasks here include the classic research, drafting, filings and preparing for hearings, but also more people–facing work, particularly on investigations. Of the flow of work, one junior explained that “there are ebbs and flows in how busy you’ll be. A trial will be the thing that keeps you most busy, but it depends how many things you are doing at once.”

Responsibilities ramp up accordingly, as associates become more involved in strategy meetings and supervising more junior colleagues, but we were reassured that “at Foley they handle the shift well,” as associates are not asked to take on too much too soon.

Litigation and ILAD clients: Republic of Ecuador, Republic of Croatia, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Represented the Republic of India in a high-stakes dispute with a South-east Asian telecom company before UNCITRAL.

Career Development

Career development at Foley is carried out under the umbrella of the BD Catalyst scheme, in which all associates are enrolled. In the early years, the training centers on picking up general career skills, but later on there’s greater emphasis on developing expertise specific to certain practice areas and industries, as well as the networking skills needed to win clients of your own.

Points values are also attached to a variety of CV-building activities (ranging from updating LinkedIn to giving business pitches) and everyone has an annual target number to hit, although the overall demand on associates’ time is described by those we spoke to as “very reasonable.”

“Foley prides itself on really great mentoring, really great professional development, and really great business development.”

Juniors had plenty of positive things to say about the business development program as a whole. “It’s helpful because, as a junior, you aren’t necessarily thinking about BD because you’re not responsible for bringing in clients,” one insider mused, “but it’s never too early to start building your brand.”

New associates are also given two mentors in their first year (one from their department, who is responsible for assigning part of their work, and one from outside the department, assigned under ELEVATE diversity program) and multiple interviewees felt they continued to benefit from their mentors’ advice long after the end of their formal relationship. As one associate neatly concluded: “Foley prides itself on really great mentoring, really great professional development, and really great business development, which set you up well for your career.”

One area where there was some uncertainty was the partnership track, which was described by one as “a complete black box.” Nonetheless, others did reveal some positive changes recently; the firm has changed its performance reviews to include more explicit career progression benchmarks and juniors were optimistic that this could help demystify the process.

Hours & Compensation

Billable hours: 1,850

Foley has also sought to introduce more clarity to its bonus system, which has been overhauled with new eligibility criteria. At its core is the annual target of 1,850 billable hours, though up to 100 of these hours can be substituted for pro bono work and other firm citizenship activities.

Reports were a little mixed about how successful the shake-up has been. While most feel that it’s now clear what you need to do to qualify for a bonus, some suggest that the factors determining the precise amount awarded are still “hazy” and involve “a bit of ambiguity.”

While the firm doesn’t shy away from not paying market scale, associates felt this was a worthwhile trade-off for a workplace that aligned with their values or their preferred lifestyle. “My personal standpoint is that the difference is negligible,” one told us, as “the pretty strong work-life balance makes up for earning a few thousand dollars fewer than someone across the street.”

Indeed, the fact that “our general billable hour requirement is lower than it is for other firms” was a draw for several associates. Of course, as with all corporate law firms, it’s still the case that Foley can be a demanding workplace at times, particularly during crunch periods when some associates report working 60-hour weeks. Nonetheless, juniors also felt that “we have a lot of good conversations about workload” with partners, and that “people are very open to reallocations” when task lists become unmanageable.

Culture

Although the firm’s associates are split between its three main offices in Boston, New York and D.C., most associates feel that a shared culture unites them all. That’s partly because “the Boston values of the Boston office permeate the others,” as one associate put it, but also because the firm “have tried really hard to maintain cross-office collaboration,” with regular opportunities to travel between cities for work or social events.

“The culture is one of the biggest reasons why I chose this firm over others. The people are awesome, very respectful and kind.”

A sense of togetherness is also helped by regular face time given the compulsory in-office days of Tuesday to Thursday, making it easier to build real, day–to–day relationships. And it certainly helps that people at Foley were a good bunch to work with; as one junior put it, “The culture is one of the biggest reasons why I chose this firm over others. The people are awesome, very respectful and kind.”

In terms of the sort of people who thrive at the firm, there was a sense from our conversations that the firm is best suited for someone who knows what they want and is motivated to make use of partners’ open-door culture. One associate’s number one tip is that “at Foley it really helps to be proactive and outspoken,” while another notes that sometimes you need to be a “self-starter” who is “willing to seek out that advice” that will help advance your career.

Pro Bono

“You’re encouraged to do as much as you can,” an associate told us of the firm’s pro bono work. Foley employs a full-time pro bono coordinator, who sends round a bi-weekly list of matters where there is a chance to get involved. “They’re really good about helping you find a supervising attorney if there isn’t one already,” an interviewee reported, while others note that partners will reach out directly with opportunities for pro bono work. Several associates describe enjoying the chance to gain experience in areas – such as litigation and criminal law – which are not part of their day-to-day routine.

An additional option is to volunteer for the Foley Hoag Foundation, which runs multiple grant rounds each year; associates who assist with these can make a site visit to a non-profit, conduct interviews, and pitch to partners about why it might deserve funding from the foundation.

Pro bono hours

• For all attorneys: 21,837.7
• Average per attorney: 58

Inclusion

“Having inclusion as a firm pillar is something that attracted me to Foley.”

The firm remains publicly committed to not backtracking on its inclusion initiatives, which is something that several associates appreciated. “Having inclusion as a firm pillar is something that attracted me to Foley,” one associate tells us, adding that “despite political changes in the world, that’s stayed true.”

Both its affinity groups and the ELEVATE program remain active, and a junior lawyer reports that DEI director Jessica Maroney Shillito “has a really strong background so I’m excited to see what she can do.” Managing Partner Jim Bucking places these initiatives within the firm’s long-established tradition of opposing discrimination, and stresses that “our brand is centered round inclusivity; it always has been, and it always will be.”

Get Hired

The first stage: recruitment on and off campus

OCI applicants interviewed: 20

Interviewees outside OCI:  93

Foley Hoag primarily recruits via direct applications.

Screening interviews are conducted by attorneys (usually members of the firm’s hiring committee). Hiring partner Ryan Rourke Reed says: “There is truly no one trait that we are looking for during the screening stage; rather, we take a holistic approach to evaluating candidates at this stage and throughout our process.” Interviewers will also aim to assess candidates’ motivation and teamwork skills. They are also interested in candidates’ practice area interests and particular interest in the firm, as well as interests outside the law.

Top tips for this stage:

“Students should come ready to engage in a conversation with the interviewer, rather than expecting a strict Q&A session led by the interviewer. Candidates should not be afraid to engage in a meaningful and substantive legal discussion with the interviewer.” – hiring partner Ryan Rourke Reed

Callbacks

Candidates undertake four 30-minute interviews with four different attorneys and can choose whether to conduct these interviews virtually or in-office. Candidates who elect for in-person interviews are also offered the option of going out to lunch with junior associates. Reed tells us, “the questions are not significantly different from those at the screening stage, but the interviewers have more time to delve deeper into each candidate’s experience and interests.” Candidates are also asked to submit a writing sample. Reed tells us that “as part of our ongoing efforts to make the interview process as fair and free of unconscious bias as possible, we remove GPAs from the resumes seen by our interviewers. Writing samples are also reviewed blindly.”

Top tips for this stage:

“We are particularly impressed with students who have done their research and can articulate why practicing at our firm is of special interest to them.” – hiring partner Ryan Rourke Reed

Summer program

Foley Hoag’s ten-week summer program allows summer associates to explore a variety of practices or to focus on a particular area of interest via an open online assignment system. In addition to a partner mentor, summers are given ‘buddies’ (associates) who they can ask questions – “everything from ‘where’s the printer?’ to recommendations on fun places to eat near the office.”

As well as lunches, social events and training throughout the program, summers meet with the firm’s executive committee to hear about the firm’s strategic plans for the future, and to get advice on succeeding as a summer. On that front, Reed says: “We encourage summer associates to make use of our lunch program to invite attorneys out to lunch to learn more about their practice areas, careers, and life at the firm.”

Near the end of the program, 2L summers are asked to rank their department preferences. The firm then matches them to departments based on those choices and business need, and extends department-specific full-time return offers, upon successful completion of the program.

Top tips for this stage:

“Try everything you can! It’s perhaps the last time for at least a couple of years that you’ll have the opportunity to try such a diverse cross-section of different areas of law.” – a first-year junior associate

“We have found that a key component of success for students in the summer program is good communication – particularly around assignments (including communication related to timelines and project status), and also around areas of interest.” – hiring partner Ryan Rourke Reed

Interview with Jim Bucking, Managing Partner

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?

Bucking: From the standpoint of clients, we are deeply embedded in innovative industries. Our biggest group is life sciences, and we can do anything that a biotech or life sciences company needs, big or small. We can get a startup off the ground, we can represent a huge company, we can do drug pricing, complex patent approvals, litigation and more. It’s similar with tech. We tend to represent entrepreneurs and innovators; some of them end up becoming big successful companies, and we’ll represent them then too, but we like to represent them from the very first stages.

In terms of talent, the big thing we look for is people who want to do what we do; if you want to represent innovators rather than big established Wall Street banks, for example. We’re the kind of firm where lawyers get significant exposure to clients early in their careers, thanks to lean staffing.

We also have a long history of inclusion. We were trailblazers for black lawyers long before DEI was a thing. When I arrived, women were already running half of the departments, which was unheard of back then. We’re continuing that tradition now too. We just hired a new director of DEI in October 2025 and we’re continuing that program. Our brand is centered around inclusivity; it always has been and it always will be.

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

Bucking: We opened an office in Denver about two years ago and we are continuing to expand that. We hired two people there in the fall: one in tech, one in life sciences, which reflects the focus I told you about. We have moved into a new office in downtown Denver, and we aim to do everything there that we do in our other offices. We’re also expanding in Washington DC, and have actually been a beneficiary of the administration, which has enabled us to hire some people who used to work for the government. We have also added two new executive committee members: Chip Korn in New York and DeAnn Smith who works remotely. As our firm expands beyond Boston, we want our leadership to reflect that. In terms of potential further expansion to other cities, there’s nothing we’d publicize in terms of specifics, but we are looking at other locations which are home to innovative companies. That’s our brand. The world’s getting smaller, with remote work and hybrid offices, and we have experience of dealing with that.

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?

Bucking: We’re trying to be a leading firm with artificial intelligence. We work with innovators, and innovators are at the cutting edge of new technologies, so they expect their lawyers to be too. We are a 300-lawyer firm often competing with 3000-lawyer firms, and we think that early adoption of AI will give us an edge. That will allow us to do more, in situations when you’ve got a tenfold difference in the size of the law firms and the resources that could be brought to bear on an M&A deal.

We’ve got an innovation committee, which includes lawyers from every practice group and office in the firm, and they have various sub-groups. Their remit isn’t limited to AI, but a lot of it is focused on that. We’ve purchased multiple AI products, so we’re well beyond the beta stage; we’re still learning, but it’s getting there. As one specific example, we’ve just done an M&A deal, and whereas in the past we would have been limited to sampling the contracts involved (that’s a common practice), by using AI creatively we were able to review all of the documents. There’s peace of mind for the client that comes with us being able to do that, and at no extra cost because of the efficiencies involved.

CA: How do you envisage the changed political situation since January 2025 will affect your own firm, and how will you deal with any retaliatory pressure from the federal government if it comes your way?

Bucking: We were one of the few big firms to sign the brief, because it was the right thing to do. We don’t operate out of fear; we try to do what is the right thing to do, and deal with the consequences of that. Thankfully we haven’t experienced any direct pushback so far. I will say that the partnership was very broadly and enthusiastically behind our decision. We also continue to take on cases adverse to the administration; we sue the administration and will continue to do so. We are very deeply engaged in the renewable energy and climate sector. In particular, we’re a leading law firm for the offshore wind sector, and the administration has taken multiple steps which are hostile to the offshore wind, so we’ve been advising our clients on how to deal with that. We’ve also had some relevant pro bono work, and have been representing the National Trust for Historic Preservation in its effort to stop construction of a White House ballroom, and a coalition of cultural heritage and architectural organizations to require Congressional authorization for alterations to the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

CA: What is your firm’s commercial strategy focusing on, and how do you expect the next year to unfold? Are there any practice areas/sectors which have been earmarked for growth?

Bucking: There’s so much uncertainty. We’re having a general increase in business across the firm. Litigation and M&A are getting busier. It’s really hard to make predictions, but the signs are there that M&A will continue to expand. Hopefully interest rates will come down and the economy will stabilize, which will help. I think we’ll keep on doing what we’re doing. I don’t see any pivots coming in what we’re doing.

I expect to have the administration’s attention on a lot of the things we do. We represent higher ed, which has been in the administration’s sights. One thing that we are seeing, and expect to continue to see, is a lot of renewable energy projects getting started in order to take advantage of expiring incentives. We continue to be really enthusiastic about renewable energy; no-one thinks we’re about to go back to coal-burning power plants. It will continue. Whatever happens in DC, it is inexorable. It’s not just wind and solar, it’s also battery storage and other things. Also, the huge demand from AI means that we will need to be using more of various kinds of energy, so we won’t be able to ignore renewables.

Inside the Firm

CA: I have heard from some associates that the firm is refocusing its recruitment process somewhat to recruit new starters more directly into specific departments, rather than as generalists. Is this accurate, and if so, could you explain a little more about how this will affect things like the summer associate program?

James Bucking: Historically we used to recruit a bunch of summer associates, and the idea was that you could work on a bunch of things over the summer, see what you liked and whom you liked, but then later on the department would decide how many associates they wanted and needed, and whom to give offers. So, you could have a situation where you had people who wanted to be an IP lawyer but got a litigation offer. That’s the general way things are done in the industry, but it’s one thing if you are a firm with a huge class of 200 associates, whereas we are smaller. So we’re changing the process to ensure that we aren’t recruiting people who then don’t get to work on what they want to do.

However, to clarify, our summer associates are not formally hired into specific departments (with a couple of exceptions, such as IP or Healthcare). They spend their 2L summer program exploring various departments and practice groups by taking on different assignments, and at the end of their 2L summer program, are asked to rank their department preferences for placement as full-time associates. These preferences are considered along with the firm’s business needs when department-specific full-time offers are extended. During the hiring process, we gather information about each hire’s “projected department” so that our projected numbers and actual numbers for each department are not wildly out of sync.

CA: One slightly sore point among associates last year was the recent round of layoffs which had removed some of their number. Can you say anything more about what the firm’s strategy is with regard to headcount, and any particular steps it is taking to ensure that painful redundancies won’t be repeated?

Bucking: That was close to a year ago. We do our hiring years in advance; you hire them a year before their summer, on a two-year program. Frankly, we were making hiring decisions in a different environment coming out of 2021 and brought in big groups, but we wanted to make sure that everyone had the opportunity for a good amount of work. That was a year ago, and I think that now everyone is getting a good amount of work.

CA: How is the firm evolving to accommodate the needs/expectations of the next generation of lawyers?

Bucking: There are a couple of things. One is on the same subject that I mentioned earlier: AI. We are really pushing all of our lawyers to use our AI products and develop an expertise. We think it will be absolutely critical to the legal profession, because it gives a competitive advantage. If I gave advice to a young lawyer, I’d say “be a really a great writer, and be analytical,” but now I’d also add something about AI.

The other thing is business development. We have our BD Catalyst program, which is compulsory for all associates, including first years. We’re an entrepreneurial firm, and we want to give all the associates the skills to network and develop their careers. We’re not expecting them to get clients straight away, but we want them to have the skills to do so eventually. The firm is strongly centered around industries, and we want that to extend to associates, so we’re also in the process of ensuring that all associates are part of an industry group as well as a practice group. That will be helpful for clients, but also for them in developing their careers.