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Take Back Your Summer: How to Respond If Your Summer Internship Isn’t Providing You the Experience You Need
You have two summers to make it count. Your 1L and 2L summers allow you to intern in legal spaces in an in-depth way that develops your skills, builds a professional network, and provides guidance on how the beginning of your career will look. At least that’s what we think—the reality is that you may experience an internship or two that is clearly not a fit. And when it happens in the summer, it can feel especially frustrating because this times feels so valuable. When I think back to my internship my second summer, I feel frustrated at myself for not being more active in making sure I gained better…
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Summer Series: Making it in Big Law
It’s time for Summer Series! The series where law students, law grads, and pre-laws share what they’re doing for the summer. I’m THRILLED to kick it off with Maria, a rising 3L in Chicago. A point of privilege, is that I’ve had the honor of knowing her before she started law school and have been blown away by how she has mastered this system. Get to know a little about her here and what a day in the life of a summer associate is like! Unlike many of my high school peers, I never considered higher education a realistic aspiration. Between financial instability and navigating the immigration system, I genuinely…
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Adjusting to Office Work: What Every First Gen Needs to Know
As summer is getting closer and closer, I’m thinking a lot about my summer experiences in law school. My 1L summer was also the first long-term exposure I had a professional/office setting and I’m so grateful it was in a small social service agency, focused on Latino community because it let me “ease in” to those office standards and it didn’t feel so jarring. Looking back at my other experience, I do think one reason I always felt out of place in the other internships—and thus, didn’t really make the most of my experiences—was because I felt like I was playing a role of a professional rather than being one.…
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Prepping for Your Summer Internship
As many of you celebrate the end of the semester, take a sigh of relief to be done with finals, one thing you may also be looking forward to is starting your summer internship! My 1L summer internship was a complete fluke and yet it changed the entire trajectory of my legal career. It opened doors to new opportunities and helped reignite my passion for law and justice after a somewhat turbulent 1L year. I hope that whatever you’re doing this summer, you love it and it adds to your professional development. Thankfully there is not much to do but wait for the internship to start, but, if you’re like…
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Mastering the Interview
Soon, it will be interview season for folks looking for summer positions. I’ve been thinking about my first interview for my 1L summer job and how grateful I am that the organization was so Latino-centered that they gave me a lot of grace that I wouldn’t have received in other spaces. It’s not that I didn’t take the interview seriously, it’s just that having only ever worked retail or service jobs, I didn’t get that there is an added polish that is expected in the legal industry. So if you’re about to interview what are the things you should focus on for this extra polish? Looks. Ugh, I hate offering…
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Make or Break: Summer Job Search
On top of finals, and memos, and the holidays, and next semester (anything else? A pandemic?), it’s also time to start your job search for next summer. I want to emphasize here, especially for those that didn’t grow up with parents in professional jobs, just how normal it is in this industry to apply for jobs that start six months from now. When I started law school, my only work experience was hourly work in retail/restaurants. The kind that hired you on the spot or a few weeks after you submitted an application. It was completely new to me that anyone would hire anyone for a job that started months…
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Planting Seeds: Your 1L Summer Job
Many people say your first summer out of law school doesn’t matter and that is somewhat true. It’s not like the thing you do that summer locks you into that practice area for the rest of your life. So you do have a lot of wiggle room. However, this is also where you plant a seed. If you plan it correctly, this summer can be the stepping stone to your career. It can lead to more opportunities, connections, and give you a peek of what you want your career to look like. But just how do you decide what your summer will be like? Here is how I decided:…
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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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Pick your Passion: Big Law or Public Interest?
I have noticed a trend that I want to help stop. Recently, I have met with multiple people interested in public interest jobs, but have no public interest background. The thing with public interest is that we really like seeing people “committed” to the cause. As in, experience, and rightfully so because this work isn’t easy. Yes, all lawyering is difficult, but in PI you are dealing with the most vulnerable, marginalized groups and we need to know you’re capable and have an interest in advocating for these groups. So when I ask people with no PI background why they’re interested in legal aid–imagine my anger when they tell me…
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Game On: Actions Steps to Take Now to Land a Full-Time Attorney Position
When I started law school I didn’t really know how I was going to get a job. I just assumed that closer to my graduation, I’d start applying for entry level positions. LOL. Of course, soon I learned about the importance of externships/clerkships and back then the “rule” was that where you summered your rising 3L year was where you’d likely get an offer from and you’d be set by the time you took the bar. LOLLOLOL. Cue the recession. But honestly, with or without the recession, I wouldn’t have known how intricate and long-term legal job applications can be; your interview process can begin a year from your start…