Since its founding in 1941, Hand Arendall has grown to a firm with over 85 lawyers and with offices in Birmingham, Mobile, Athens and Fairhope, Alabama. It is among the largest firms in Alabama and the largest on the central Gulf Coast, providing its clients with legal services in all areas of traditional civil practice. Our recruiting philosophy is to staff each of our offices with the most qualified and diverse law school graduates. The starting point for this effort is our summer associate program, and in recent years, we have typically offered 4 to 6 positions to students who have completed their first or second year of law school. The firm also hires applicants who are practicing lawyers as necessary to fit particular needs.

The firm’s summer associate program begins with on-campus and office interviews. We are looking for students with superior academic credentials, strong extracurricular pursuits, outgoing personalities and a commitment to the practice of law.

If the firm does not visit your law school for on-campus interviews, you should send your resume, a cover letter and transcript to the following contacts for the location you are interested in:

• South Alabama: Paul T. Beckmann, Hand Arendall LLC, Post Office Box 123, Mobile, Alabama 36601, pbeckmann@handfirm.com
• North Alabama: James S. Witcher III, Hand Arendall LLC, 1801 5th Avenue North Suite 400, Birmingham, Alabama 35203, jwitcher@handfirm.com
• Florida: Robert Jackson, Hand Arendall LLC, 304 Magnolia Ave. Panama City, Florida 32401, rjackson@handfirm.com

The objective of the firm’s summer recruiting program is to hire highly qualified and well-rounded law students, to challenge them with demanding research and writing projects for active matters and to expose them to the many facets of the firm’s diverse civil practice. We also want them to have fun, to experience and enjoy practicing law and living in the areas where we are located. We also strive to ensure that the summer associates are given a more realistic view of law practice by arranging for them to attend depositions, court hearings, trials and transaction closings. By the end of each summer, we hope that each summer associate has learned the firm’s approach to providing outstanding legal services to clients and that the firm will have learned the students’ level of commitment and skills for the practice of law.

In addition to challenging our summer associates with projects and to exposing them to the practice of law outside the library, the firm also wants its summer associates to return something to the community as our lawyers do. We ask that our summer associates in the Mobile office participate in the local bar associations’ pro bono programs in the same way that Hand Arendall’s lawyers contribute to the program. Each student is asked to spend at least one day working in the local pro bono office. Through this experience, we hope that our summer associates gain an appreciation for the importance of contributing to their community and to those individuals who cannot afford legal services.

We sponsor many formal and informal social and recreational activities so that our summer associates can get a feel for the experience of living in the communities where we practice. During the last several years, our outside activities have included fishing, sailing trips, white water rafting, progressive dinners, golf tournaments, antique shopping tours, field softball teams in the local bar association leagues and other events which enable our summer associates and lawyers to get to know each other better in a relaxed setting outside of the office. Summer associates also attend firm and local bar luncheons.

Throughout its existence, the firm has sought a diverse academic corps of lawyers. The firm has in recent years hired law students from Alabama, Columbia, Cumberland, Duke, Florida, Harvard, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Washington & Lee, William & Mary, University of Pennsylvania, Emory, Notre Dame and Yale. In like manner, our lawyers are from a diverse geographic background.