Insights

Summer Associate Blog Series

Zion Godfrey is Looking Forward to His Second Go Around at Jackson Kelly.

June 6, 2022

By: W. Zion Godfrey

((Zion is a Summer Associate in 2022 and not a practicing attorney))

What an amazing opportunity it will be to return home to West Virginia this May, where I will work as a first-year summer associate at Jackson Kelly. Having been born and raised in Charleston, it’s quite meaningful for me to return home to work at such a storied Firm, whose roots in West Virginia precede even the state’s founding.

I was fortunate to launch my career in the legal industry over fifteen years ago at Jackson Kelly, first as a marketing intern during my undergraduate career at WVU, and then as a CRM coordinator with the Firm upon graduating. Returning to the Firm is particularly poignant and exciting for me, not only because of my great experience working there, but also given a family connection I have with the Firm going back to the 1930’s, when my grandfather, fresh out of WVU Law, joined Jackson Kelly as a newly-minted associate.

It is a unique and special opportunity to spend my summer working at the sixth oldest law firm in the United States. I’m especially looking forward to returning to the Firm culture. During my two years’ time at Jackson Kelly, the Firm demonstrated a culture in which attorneys and staff are collegial, collaborative, cooperative, and team-oriented, and I’m excited to jump back into this culture and contribute to the Firm’s mission in any way possible.

For me, the value of serving as a summer associate with Jackson Kelly lies in the chances I’ll have to sharpen and develop my legal analytical, research, and writing skills under the guidance and supervision of the Firm’s experienced attorneys. In addition, to have the opportunity to serve as a summer associate at Jackson Kelly during the year in which the Firm is celebrating its 200th Anniversary is a special honor.

My hopes and plans for my summer at the Firm are myriad. First and foremost, I plan on learning as much as possible about practicing law from some of the best attorneys in West Virginia and beyond (from all 10 of the Firm’s offices). The Firm’s lawyers have decades of experience in a wide variety of practices, and I hope to be exposed to as many of them as possible while at the Firm, including the bankruptcy, IP, M&A, regulatory, and complex commercial and class action litigation practices. Jackson Kelly’s attorneys have the well-deserved reputation of doing cutting-edge legal work in an array of areas, and I look forward to learning from the Firm’s attorneys and staff over the course of the coming months.

To the experience of serving as a summer associate at Jackson Kelly, I’ll bring an open mind, intense focus, eagerness to learn, and an excitement to collaborate with my fellow summer-associates and the Firm’s attorneys and staff. By the end of July, I know I’ll have had the good fortune to have learned a great deal about the practice and the business of law from the Firm’s great attorneys and staff, and I’m looking forward to what I know will be a very positive experience.