Holland & Knight, McDermott Will & Schulte, and Day Pitney share how they're giving associates real deal experience without putting the full burden of content creation on their partners.

For many firms, one of the most persistent challenges in associate development is this: how do you give associates real, hands-on training without burning out the partners who make it possible?

It's a genuine tension. Partners are the best people to train junior associates. They know the work, they have the war stories, and their involvement signals to associates that the training actually matters. But building realistic deal scenarios from scratch, running prep calls, and facilitating sessions on top of a full billing load? That's a hard ask.

A group of leaders in training from Holland & Knight, McDermott Will & Schulte, and Day Pitney recently joined Hotshot's Taylor Volonnino for a candid conversation about how their firms are navigating this challenge and what they've learned from rolling out Hotshot's M&A Workshop to their associates. The workshop is designed for junior and mid-level associates and walks them through five modules of realistic deal scenarios, covering tasks like reviewing diligence items, completing a diligence chart, and working through a rep and warranty insurance policy. Each module includes facilitator and participant guides, assignment videos, model answer videos, and partner-led discussion questions, so firms can run it as a standalone program or fold it into an existing boot camp or summit. You can watch the full webinar on demand here.

Here's what stood out.

1. The Real Problem Isn't Content. It's Capacity

Every firm on the panel decided to use the M&A Workshop for essentially the same reason: they knew what good training looked like, but they didn't have the bandwidth to build it.

Laura Friedman, Associate Director of Professional Development at McDermott Will & Schulte, put it plainly. Her firm runs thirteen transactional affinity groups and takes pride in highly interactive, partner-led training. The partners are engaged and enthusiastic. But asking them to build realistic deal scenarios from scratch was becoming unsustainable.

"Building realistic deal simulations from scratch is such a burden on the non-billable time that they don't have much of," Friedman said. "We wanted to preserve our partners' engagement and preserve their time while making the content creation much more sustainable."

Holland & Knight had a more acute version of the same problem. Kate Inman, Of Counsel for the National Corporate Practice, and Cathy Schenker, Director of Training and Development, made the decision to run a full business boot camp with only weeks to pull it together.

"There was no way we were going to be able to create our own fact patterns," Schenker said. The Hotshot M&A Workshop gave them a way to move fast without sacrificing quality.

2. What "Deal in a Box" Actually Means in Practice

The phrase that kept coming up across the panel was "deal in a box." The idea is that firms could hand partners a complete, realistic set of materials and let them focus on what only they can provide: firm-specific context, judgment, and war stories.

Inman said, "You hand the partner the deal, they spend a little time familiarizing themselves, and it just saves them so much time — where they can spend their time thinking about nuance and how we do things.”

That dynamic showed up differently at each firm, but the throughline was consistent: when partners aren't spending their prep time building materials, they show up to sessions ready to actually teach.

At McDermott, Friedman noted that partners weren't just relieved by the time savings. They were more effective in the room. The pre-built framework let them zero in on the McDermott perspective, adding deal-specific color and coaching that associates couldn't get anywhere else.

At Day Pitney, William Mahoney, Senior Learning and Development Specialist, described a similar experience. The firm added its own layer to the workshop by asking associates to complete each exercise twice (once manually, once using AI) and then debriefing on the differences. That kind of customization was only possible because the foundation was already there.

3. You Still Need Two People in the Room

One of the more practical takeaways from the panel came from Schenker, who emphasized that even a well-designed, off-the-shelf program needs the right internal support to run well.

Her advice: make sure you have at least two people involved: one subject matter expert who can speak to the substance, and one person from the PD or L&D team who can manage the logistics.

"Kate could go in and say, this is exactly what they need to be learning right now," Schenker said. "And then me and my team could go in and deal with the details — we're showing this video at this time, we're sending this email at this time."

Crystal L. Fernandes-Harris, Director of Organization and Talent Development at Day Pitney, echoed the same point. The first run, she said, is really about getting familiar with how the materials flow so you can start making them your own. Once her team had one session under their belts, the path forward became much clearer.

4. The Part Associates Like Most: The Debrief

When Taylor Volonnino asked the panel what associates enjoyed most about the workshop, the answers were revealing.

Schenker pointed to the assignments themselves; the chance to actually do the work rather than just hear about it. For many first-year associates, it was their first real look at what a corporate associate's day-to-day actually involves.

But across the panel, the partner debrief kept coming up as the moment where things really clicked.

Crystal Fernandes-Harris described associates sharing their analysis and realizing that their thinking had value — that partners were genuinely engaged with their answers, not just evaluating them.

"Those are really powerful moments for the associates," Friedman said. "They're in a safe space to learn. The associate may not have had the most perfect answer, but they are now thinking that these senior associates and partners understand that they have some value to add and they are being heard."

That kind of validation is hard to manufacture in a live deal environment, where the pace doesn't leave much room for real-time coaching. The workshop creates space for it deliberately.

5. On Getting Partner Buy-In

For firms that haven't tried this kind of training before, getting partners to commit time is often the first hurdle. The panel's experience here was largely positive and instructive.

Inman described leaning on Holland & Knight's private equity steering committee, which includes an associate training subcommittee made up of partners who are genuinely invested in how the program develops. Once that group was aligned, reaching out to other partners was straightforward.

Friedman noted that McDermott's partners are accustomed to a higher level of time investment, since they're usually the ones creating materials and flying in for programs. Having pre-built content ready for them was a welcome change, not an imposition.

The consistent theme: when partners understand that their job is to show up and teach - not to build the curriculum- they tend to say yes.

6. What Firms Would Do Differently

No rollout is perfect, and the panel was candid about what they'd adjust.

Day Pitney found that giving associates a full week between sessions was sometimes too long. Assignments slipped when other work picked up, especially around holidays. Mahoney said they're considering tightening the window going forward, keeping sessions closer together to maintain momentum.

McDermott ran its workshop virtually across multiple time zones and offices, which required careful planning to make sure associates in smaller offices felt like full participants rather than an afterthought. Friedman's team was deliberate about keeping group sizes consistent and making sure every group had partner access during the debrief.

And across the board, the panel agreed: start earlier than you think you need to. Even with pre-built materials, the logistics of coordinating partners, scheduling sessions, and thinking through the flow across offices takes time.

The Bigger Picture

What's most striking about this conversation isn't any single implementation detail. It's the consistency of the underlying shift these firms are describing. They're moving away from lecture-based training not because it's trendy to do so, but because they've seen experiential training work much better.

Fernandes-Harris put it simply: "Gone are the days of having people in classrooms for endless hours on end listening to someone talk. The way that learners learn is shifting."

The Hotshot M&A Workshop is one piece of that shift. It’s a way to give associates hands-on practice in a safe environment while letting partners focus on the mentorship and firm-specific knowledge that no pre-built content can replace.

If you're thinking about bringing this kind of training to your firm, the panel's collective advice is straightforward: you don't have to build it from scratch, and you don't have to get it perfect the first time. Pick a module, run a pilot, and build from there.

Watch the full webinar on demand here to hear the complete conversation, including the panel's rapid-fire answers and Q&A.

Interested in learning more about the Hotshot M&A Workshop? Get in touch.