Summer Associates: "Less Big-Scale Entertaining"

All play and no work. That's the common conception of summer-associate programs at the nation's biggest law firms. For about three months, the thinking goes, the firms bestow upon an anointed crop of law students a taste of the good life. They lunch at the city's best restaurants, move from one open bar tab to the next and take in baseball games from the firm's box seats. When they're not too busy with their sushi-making classes and scavenger hunts, they do a few research memos. At summer's end, the vast majority get lucrative offers for permanent employment. A year later, the grind begins. Some parts of this conception still…