Winstead cancels 2009 summer associate program

Dallas firm Winstead has canceled its 2009 summer associate program, firm spokeswoman Shannon Tipton confirmed today. News of the firm’s decision to slash its summer program comes a week after TexParte reported the firm has laid off some lawyers for economic reasons. Tipton declines to say when the law students were notified that they won’t have a job this summer or to say how many were supposed to clerk at the firm. She confirms the students were offered a stipend but says she cannot say if the $5,000 figure reported today on the Above the Law blog is correct. In the summer of 2008, 28 2Ls worked at Winstead during the summer, and the firm made offers to 16 of them for the fall of 2009, for a 69 percent acceptance rate, Texas Lawyer reported in a Dec. 15, 2008, story about acceptance rates. Tipton says firm Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Denis Braham, a shareholder in Houston, declines comment on the cancellation of the summer program or the layoffs.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys