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This is wonderful, Vanwinkle. I know I'm taking a chance by following my heart to Oxford this summer, and I'm still hoping very much to find an employer who will let me volunteer for five weeks. It should be noted that it is very possible to intern during the school year, and I've been interning part time since September, but in general the "do something legal your 1L summer" adage holds.

You definitely don't want to do something illegal, hyuk hyuk. (Stealth tag)

Hey VW, thanks for the wonderful post. I was just wondering: do you have any insight on Clinical Programs? Is this something a 1L can participate in, and is it a good substitute to internship and externships? Thanks kindly.

grifter wrote:Hey VW, thanks for the wonderful post. I was just wondering: do you have any insight on Clinical Programs? Is this something a 1L can participate in, and is it a good substitute to internship and externships? Thanks kindly.

I think it's pretty universal that you have to be a 2L before you can participate in a clinic.

D Brooks wrote:

grifter wrote:Hey VW, thanks for the wonderful post. I was just wondering: do you have any insight on Clinical Programs? Is this something a 1L can participate in, and is it a good substitute to internship and externships? Thanks kindly.

I think it's pretty universal that you have to be a 2L before you can participate in a clinic.

This is, as far as I know, correct. I'll probably post info on clinics next year, so if you're a year behind me you'll still get a useful answer from me in time.

(To everyone else who's made comments, I appreciate them, and I'll integrate them when I update this article. I wasn't expecting this much feedback this soon!)

Nice work, VW.

It might be helpful to link to the relevant NALP guidelines, and explain a bit more about what exactly NALP is.

Thanks for the info. That was really kind of you to put this together for our lowly 0L benefit I also think doing pro bono work right away is a great idea!

D Brooks wrote:

grifter wrote:Hey VW, thanks for the wonderful post. I was just wondering: do you have any insight on Clinical Programs? Is this something a 1L can participate in, and is it a good substitute to internship and externships? Thanks kindly.

I think it's pretty universal that you have to be a 2L before you can participate in a clinic.

I'm part of that universe; choose your words better.

vanwinkle wrote:

D Brooks wrote:

grifter wrote:Hey VW, thanks for the wonderful post. I was just wondering: do you have any insight on Clinical Programs? Is this something a 1L can participate in, and is it a good substitute to internship and externships? Thanks kindly.

I think it's pretty universal that you have to be a 2L before you can participate in a clinic.

This is, as far as I know, correct. I'll probably post info on clinics next year, so if you're a year behind me you'll still get a useful answer from me in time.

(To everyone else who's made comments, I appreciate them, and I'll integrate them when I update this article. I wasn't expecting this much feedback this soon!)

Thanks much, man. I watch out for that info.

This is a great post. Thanks for sharing.

great post, thanks VW. how about in house gigs? i have read some threads on here about some 1Ls getting in house gigs at several big name corporations. where does this type of option rank on the 1L summer job hierarchy? assume that its a relatively big corporation (i will probably have this option my 1L summer so i am curious to see what others' opinions are on the idea).

great post. I would add: its ok to apply to judges that you don't necessarily think you would work for, its not ok to take an interview unless your serious though. This is because many judges may make you the offer following the interview or immediately in the days following; and like the Godfather, when they make you an offer you CANNOT refuse without making yourself and your law school look really, really bad.

Additionally, it is much easier to get a judicial internship during the year, instead of over the summer because there is much more competition over the summer when law students who study abroad can return home, or have the flexibility to travel to the judge. During the school year law students are limited to applying to wherever there law school is located, hence competition in your local law school market is limited to other local law schools.

This info is fabulous! Thanks so much for pulling it together!

Is there a list of firms that accept 1L interns?

seriously, this tag thing is really annoying tag

..

facetious wrote:great post, thanks VW. how about in house gigs? i have read some threads on here about some 1Ls getting in house gigs at several big name corporations. where does this type of option rank on the 1L summer job hierarchy? assume that its a relatively big corporation (i will probably have this option my 1L summer so i am curious to see what others' opinions are on the idea).

Not sure if you got a response to this otherwise (kind of an old post) but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents...NU Law 2012 here, working summer 1L in-house at a pretty huge company and loving it

I was in management consulting prior to law school, so 1) I thought in-house at a business would use some of my prior skills and be a good business-to-law bridge and 2) I think I might want to do it on down the line (like 10 years) and most in-house places don't hire full times out of law school anyway but rather with at least a few years firm experience (mine this summer actually does but I don't think I want to narrow myself to one company right out of school when a firm will give you broader experience IMO). So I figured I might as well get a taste for it during my 1L summer.

In terms of prestige on the hierarchy scale, I think it ranks pretty high if you are at a good company (where good can mean big but not necessarily). Here's why-- you get PAID at most in-house positions (not as much as a summer firm job but I get time and half for overtime beyond 40 hrs and I have yet to pull a really late night unlike my friends at firm jobs). You get to go into OCI saying that you worked for what to them is "a client" so you have a perspective from the client side. (in my job now I am working with in-house counsel on internal stuff and preparing materials for outside counsel meetings and work). Also, unlike working the summer at a DA's office or judge's office or something of the like, you are around a line of work where, like in a firm, the bottom line is profits.

The drawback I would say that I didn't realize until I was already in the swing of hunting for an in-house position is that most in-house work is going to be transactional in nature since it is generally not cost effective for a company to in-house litigation (unless you are at such a huge company that they do litigation in-house, think WalMart lol, but that is rare) so if you are totally sold on the litigation track from the get it might not make the best model, even if you do have *some interaction with outside litigation counsel. Flipside is you could go into OCI saying, no, I've seen transactional at in-house, confirmed I hate it, and am hungry for litigation my 2L summer.

I focused my job hunt pretty much exclusively on in-house stuff, both through school-posted resume requests and going through my own connections and sending out a few random letters. Got the job through the school-posted requests, and there are actually 2 interns here from NU this summer. Make sure to think ahead if you are willing to do in-house for free since some places ONLY will give you the job if you will get class credit (so also check with your school to make sure you can if that's the case)

In terms of company size, I ended up at a bigger company with a pretty big in-house counsel dept. of about 50 people across a few offices (25 or so here)...but beware that the size of the company does not necessarily dictate the nature of the in-house legal team. There are some big companies that outsource virtually everything to outside counsel, such that all they have in-house is senior attorneys to manage real estate, contracts, litigation etc. and others may be smaller but have in-house divisions which are pretty good sized (say over 10 people), super active in their own right and are really closely tied with business development and the business-size of the company. Still others might have a medium sized in-house division with a host of "contracted counsel" a.k.a. employees on temporary hire to do certain things but not a permanent member of the team (so you hire a real estate contract counsel for three big transactions over a few months).

About the part where you cannot talk to future employers until November. What if you were talking to your employer well before then, like the summer before 1L or even a year before 1L? I ask because I emailed a firm I interviewed for, it was an assistant position of some type, but didn't get the job. Sounds like an odd thing to do, but the interview and the firm stuck in my mind because not getting the job actually motivated me to get my LSAT done. Also, I am genuinely interested in the firm and potentially working there at some point. Reaching out worked, not only did they write me back, but they offered to give me a job after my first year because they regretted not hiring me in the first place. But they want me to keep in touch and such, which I have been. Will this be a problem, keeping in touch, when I start school?

Thanks, I'm sure I'll be revisiting this thread a few more times as a 1L.

Kindda wish I never read the part about no talking, that way I could have claimed stupid if asked.

Thanks! Great post.

Question concerning 1L firm summer associate positions. I have a fairly strong connection with a local law firm. Nothing family related, but I have worked with a couple of the partners and will be contacting them individually when i send the firm a resume in December. If I am able to land a 1L summer position with them, is it expected that I will come back for 2L summer as well? I know it is hoped for that a 2L position leads to a job offer after graduating, but does a 1L position usually lead to an offer for the 2nd summer as well?

Credited. Nicely done, van.

VW is FTW.