Associates at Darby & Darby are given early and frequent opportunities to assume responsibility commensurate with their individual abilities. In order to accelerate and enhance the development of those abilities, our associates participate in our Comprehensive Associate Development Program. Upon joining Darby & Darby, each new associate is paired with a more senior associate for a short period of time for the purposes of orientation, help and advice concerning the procedural and organizational aspects of working at Darby, and the associate’s transition to what is often a new work style and environment.
The Comprehensive Associate Development Program includes both skills training and career building aspects. To help build new associates’ legal skills at an accelerated pace, Darby provides a lecture series covering every major substantive area of our intellectual property practice. We provide in-house and off-site writing skills and litigation skills workshops for all of our associates. Through our special arrangement with the Practising Law Institute (at which many of our attorneys teach), we encourage all associates to attend as many relevant continuing education courses as possible (for which NYS MCLE credits are granted). Other skills training efforts and techniques include periodic Practice Group and Firm-wide “Hot Topics” Luncheons at which current and important developments in intellectual property law and practice are discussed.
Having acquired the necessary skills and demonstrated the requisite abilities to be successful attorneys at Darby, our third-year associates participate in the Mentoring Program. Over the course of a year, each third-year associate defines, works toward and achieves one or more important career advancement goals, through the development of a close, one-on-one professional relationship with a chosen mentor.
Of course, we encourage all Darby associates to take advantage of professional and client development opportunities. The Firm provides support for active participation in various bar association and other professional association activities.
We conduct formal performance and career development evaluations of associates on an annual basis. First-year associates and “lateral” attorneys also receive a performance evaluation after their first six months at Darby. The evaluation process includes feedback and recommendations for advancement and improvement from all supervising attorneys. Nonetheless, the most important source of feedback and constructive criticism is the constant, one-on-one process by which more senior associates and partners work with, and review the substantive work of, all of our associates.