They enlisted in boot camp, 48 of them, because they wanted a good fight, because they looked forward to wading through waist-high swamps, because they were, by nature, willing to win at all costs.

Of course, the fights took place in judges' chambers, the swamps were piles of depositions, and the victories came in the classroom. And boot camp was actually the Howrey Simon Arnold & White's "Howrey Boot Camp. This version of boot camp is a month-long summer associate program run by the Washington, D.C. firm that replaces the traditional wining and dining of second-year law students with two weeks of intensive seminars, followed by a two week mock court. The idea: to give law student interns a more realistic sense of life in the legal trenches.

The traditional summer internship is ostensibly designed to maximize interaction between summer associates and firm lawyers. Skeptics might contend that the condensed time frame and intensive workload might prevent this sort of camraderie. Howrey officials say the results should quiet skeptics.

"We wanted to increase and enhance the interaction between our senior people and the students. In theory, it sounded great and in theory, it was something we wanted to accomplish," says Rick Ripley, Howrey Simon's hiring partner. "Overall, I think it exceeded all our expectations."

~ Though Boot Camp wrapped up on June 15, not all Howrey Simon offices have extended offers of full time employment to their summer recruits. But Ripley says his Washington, D.C. office extended offers to all 18 Boot Camp participants who took part. No one has turned down Howrey's offer yet. However, two students accepted on the spot and a third did so about a week later. That response surprised Ripley, who says most students in the Boot Camp filled out their summer with stints at other firms.

"In the past, we've had summer splits, and we make the decision and tell them what the decision is when they leave, but we usually don't hear from them until the fall," Ripley says. "In the four years I've been associated with the summer program, I've never gotten an acceptance before Aug. 1. Now I've got three."

In fact, the firm is hoping the focused nature of Howrey Boot Camp, along with its novelty and clever marketing (Howrey's Boot Camp web site displays tongue-in-cheek photographs of young lawyers in the woods, wiping sweat from the collars of their blue oxford shirts, as if back from a rigorous run), will not only increase law students' interest in the firm but keep that interest high once they join as junior associates.

In terms of recruiting students for the Boot Camp, the program has been a undeniable success. The firm received 450 applications from 97 law schools. Howrey hopes the Boot Camp will be enough to instill a lasting loyalty in the students it picked for the summer.

In surveys conducted earlier this year for the Vault Guide to the Top 100 Law Firms,, a handful of current firm associates said "Howrey must be a synonym for 'revolving door,'" and how, "after 2 1/2 years here, not many of the associates with whom I started are still here." The vice-chairman of the firm's recruiting committee, Ed Han, has told the Washington Post that two-thirds of the associates recruited out of law school leave Howrey Simon by their fourth year. Though Han says that retention rate was common for the legal industry, the firm hopes Boot Camp will be the answer to the retention conundrum.

"What we want to do, to the best we can, is attract people who really think they want to make this their career, not just someone who thinks, 'This is a great place for me to work for two or three years, until I pay off my law school loans,' quite frankly, 'and then figure out what I want to do,'" Ripley says. "We want people who say, 'If I get the work that I've been promised, and treated the way associates should be treated, then I see myself staying here for the duration.'"

~ As for the Boot Camp participants themselves, several say the trial-preparation seminars during the first two weeks of the program and the mock trial during the second two weeks did give them a fuller opportunity to gauge the firm and the tasks they'd be facing as full-time associates.

"Boot Camp confirmed what I had suspected from everything I knew about Howrey: the work is exactly what I want," Nathan Flath, a student at Washington and Lee University School of Law, and one of the Washington, D.C. participants who accepted Howrey Simon's full-time job offer on the spot. "I met enough people to know that I can work with them. And I got to know my whole summer class. Maybe I don't expect enough, but I couldn't ask for more than that."

Another Boot Camp participant recounted how, during the Boot Camp mock trial, he turned in a legal filing at 10:30 p.m. to a senior partner for review. The senior partner vetted the document in his hotel room with his daughter on his knee. Compared to a traditional summer training program, that level of access to senior lawyers was astounding, students say.

"You're never going to get that kind of access to a senior partner at the firm," says Brett Howard, a University of Iowa Law School student. "The next time I might see him might be in an elevator."

For Ripley, the participation of the firm's lawyers - who led seminars, acted as witnesses in the mock trial, and demonstrated trial advocacy by delivering closing arguments - represented one of Boot Camp's triumphs.

"We had probably over 130 lawyers from all of our offices show up in our facility in Leesburg, Virginia," where the Boot Camp was held, Ripley says.

The participants acknowledged the firm's commitment.

"Somebody did a shitload of work to prepare everything for us," Flath marvels. "Of course I have a couple of suggestions for minor improvements -- but the overall was awesome."

The firm poured so many resources into the Boot Camp - a few social events during the program's first two weeks, then food and lodging for the Boot Camp cadets and the firm instructors - that Howrey Simon actually ended up spending more money on this year's month long program than they did on the three-month program of years past. Boot Camp participants also got a higher weekly salary than usual. Ripley used these facts to discount statements that the firm, like so many other recession-hit firms across the country, were cutting back on their summer associate training and entertainment budgets.

"To those people who say we're doing this just to save money," Ripley says, "that was never what this was about, and it turns out we're not going to save money. But since that wasn't what this was about, we're not concerned about that."

As for drawbacks, the firm tried to pack in a few social events during the first portion of the program; associates in Washington got a free dinner at the ESPN Cafe; associates in San Diego were whisked aloft in a hot air balloon. But overall, the associates who chose Boot Camp say they didn't mind missing the traditional summer cocktail parties, or, as one Howrey summer associate says, the opportunity to "balance an appetizer tray on top of a drink while shaking hands."

"Maybe I did miss out some of those lavish social events," says one Howrey summer associate still awaiting word from her office about a full-time offer. "But there is no regret, because I don't consider them benefits: I have no interest in alcohol or dining in expensive restaurants; ball games and concerts bore me."

Ripley says the firm plans on reintroducing the Boot Camp next year, with a few changes. A few seminars might get changed around, and the program itself might get lengthened. But as a recruiting tool, Ripley says, Boot Camp was too valuable to give up.

"When the managing partner and I sat down a year ago April and talked about the concept of boot camp, one of the things we wanted to do was to change expectations," Ripley says. "We wanted to change the expectations of the students in terms of what they would want out of a summer program, and change our expectations in terms of what we thought students were capable of during their time with us this summer. I think we did that, without a doubt."