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Secure the Bag: Summer Associate Bucket List
For you rising 2L and 3Ls, it’s important to recognize that you’re halfway into your summer internship. If you’re not careful, you’ll do the day-to-day work and end your time at the firm without much to show for it. We’ve discussed before the importance of a mid-summer self-eval and to not forget that internships are summer-long interviews, but on top of all of that it’s vital for you to keep a summer bucket list of professional milestones you want to hit so that you make yourself as strong of a candidate as possible when they are considering who to give offers to/you start looking for new opportunities. But what are…
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Summer Fashion for New Interns: dos & don’ts
I always am hesitant to talk about clothing and young women. I just think finger-wagging about what women in their 20s wear is such a slippery slope that leads to micro-managing, is patronizing, and just a ball of trouble. And also the older I get, the more bitter I would look going around talking about “girls” these days. Like, I’m not about that look. So here is my preface regarding this post. Wear what you want. If you need whatever flare you think is helping you feel more put together than go for it. I mean, who am I to say that that short skirt you may wear is any…
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Quality Supervision: Ensuring Your Intern Grows
I say this all the time but it’s worth repeating: I love working with interns! I often feel like I’m drowning with work, but interns help make things move at a much faster pace. As I mentioned before, many attorneys dislike working with interns because they feel like it’s a lot of work for just a minimum amount of help. I do admit that it’s a lot of work upfront. But once you find a steady rhythm of supervising the work quality and quantity is so worth it! I can be tricky to manage when you’re new or when you’re not used to good supervision yourself–even though we’re in the midst of summer you…
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A Successful Intern is a Proactive Intern
End of June is always so exciting when SCOTUS decision come down. While I am still so sadden about DAPA/DACA+, I’m elated about Affirmative Action and the women’s rights cases decided today. But in the midst of excitement is still the day-to-day work that is never ending! I’m actually going on vacation this week (follow me on Instagram to see my trip to Italy!), but I’ve been working double-time to make sure the interns I work with have a steady stream of work while I’m gone—I mean, just because I’m out of the office doesn’t mean I can’t get work done 🙂 (kidding, kind of). I know a lot of attorneys…
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Things to NOT Do as a New Legal Intern
Summer jobs are about to start in just a few weeks—this will be my sixth (!!!) summer working with interns and it’s hilarious to me the huge difference in my supervision skills that I have now compared to my first summer. Like, the fact that my first summer I had no supervision skills for one… Now that I have some experience on working with interns I can tell you how small changes in behavior can make a big difference in having a successful summer job. The open secret is that many attorneys strongly dislike working with students because it often ends up being more trouble than it’s worth. But I LOVE…
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Rocking your Internship
Once the excitement of a new internship dies down, you may feel like you’re not getting everything you can out of your experience. I remember one stint I did as an extern (meaning, I was basically paying my school to volunteer at this agency), where by week three it seemed like the attorneys had no time for me; I was going to get lost in the shuffle, and basically just observe court every day if I didn’t become more proactive in attempting to get some experience. It wasn’t easy for me to be proactive in that environment. I had assumed the attorneys I was paired with wanted my help, and would…