Developing Legal Experience
Day Students

Information Gathering

The initial and most important step in developing legal experience is self-assessment.  While it is not necessary to have a crystal clear picture of the type of law you would like to practice, it is important to explore the many legal career options that are available and to begin to evaluate the kind of work environments, clients, and lifestyle which will bring you job satisfaction.  It is a time to assess yourself honestly to determine what type of employer is best suited to your skills and interests.

You can start the assessment process by setting up a counseling appointment with one of the career strategists in the Career Services Office.  Read through the general career planning guides and reference materials which are available in the Career Services Resource Library.  Also, plan to conduct informational interviews by talking with practicing attorneys who work in a variety of legal specialties and with different types of employers.  Each of these experiences will help you identify your career goals and find an employer who matches your skills and interests.

Options for Developing Practical Legal Experience

Employers seek candidates for permanent positions who possess the potential to perform well on the job.  How is this potential demonstrated?  Generally, legal employers are interested in two indicators: 1) academic performance and 2) practical legal experience.  Well prepared law students recognize these important factors and use their three or four years of law school to build their credentials.

Eighty percent of any class do not wind up in the top twenty percent, yet do become employed!  When academic credentials are not stellar, practical experience becomes even more important.  Therefore, the more legal experience you gain while you are in law school, the more you will have to market to prospective employers looking for new associates.  Keep in mind that you have two summers and two full years to develop legal experience.

There are a variety of ways to develop legal experience.  Consider all of the following options:

1) Law Clerks and Research Clerks: The most obvious way to develop practical experience is by working at a law firm.  See the "Timing of Applications for Summer Law Clerk Positions" section below for suggested application procedures to law firms of different sizes.

2) The Law Offices of Chicago-Kent College of Law: This clinical program offers students the opportunity to work in the criminal, civil, alternative dispute resolution or tax divisions, or the Advice Desk.  Read the Record and check out www.kentlaw.edu/academics/clinic for announcements regarding registration for the clinical program.

3) Advanced Externship Program: Third year students are eligible to enroll in the Advanced Externship Program.  They have the opportunity to work within a private or public, civil or criminal environment, under a supervising attorney and Professor Vivien Gross, who administers this program.

4) Judicial Externship Program: Through this program, which is also administered by Professor Vivien Gross, students gain experience and view the judicial process from the perspective of the bench.  Those who are interested in serving as judicial law clerks following graduation from law school will find the externship experience valuable and essential to meeting their goal, especially if undertaken during the summer of their first year or the fall term of the second year.  Professor Gross announces application procedures in the Record each semester.

5) Research Assistants: Many faculty members hire students to assist them during the summer and during the academic terms, and they announce open positions in the Record.  Developing good relationships with faculty members can be helpful to your career development.  Faculty members who are familiar with your legal abilities can tell prospective employers about your skills.  They can also serve as an excellent resource, sharing networking contacts and job market information.

6) Volunteer: Consider volunteering or interning for a government or public interest organization.  Many of these offices do not have the budget to hire law clerks, but can provide you with excellent experience.  To identify employers in this category, utilize the back section of Sullivan's Law Directory and the various government, and public interest directories available in the Career Services Resource Library. For an onine resource, visit Illinois Pro Bono.org and click on the "Directory" tab to find places where you can volunteer, visit the Public Interest Resource Center at Chicago-Kent, or the Career Services Office public interest webpages. The few agencies that do have funding for salaries frequently post positions in the Career Services Office job postings.

7) Corporate Legal Department: The best entry into this area is through networking.  Most corporations do not hire recent law school graduates and therefore do not develop candidates through summer employment as law clerks.  Often, the legal department is not large enough to require additional resources.  If you choose to write to corporations directly, use the Law & Business Directory of Corporate Counsel to identify companies with legal departments and their contact person (general counsel).  It may be wise to request an informational interview as an initial contact.  If this meeting is encouraging, follow up with a letter to the general counsel.

8) Study Abroad: Study Abroad programs are offered by most law schools in a number of locations.  The optimum time to consider participating in a study abroad program is the summer of your first year in law school.  The Career Services Office receives announcements beginning in January, which are filed in the gray files in the office.

Timing of Applications For Summer Law Clerk Positions

1) Large Law Firms: If you are interested in clerking for the large (100 + attorney) law firms during the summer following your first year in law school, the best time to send your resume and cover letter is during the month of December.  At that point, the large firms who participate in structured recruiting programs have completed the major portion of "fall recruiting" (which is geared towards 2L and 3L students) and begin to think about first year students.

If you have contacts at any of the large law firms, talk to them.  If you do not have a foot in the door, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) publishes a list of large firms that will consider 1L applications.  The NALP National Directory of Legal Employers will help you identify the hiring partner or recruiting coordinator to whom you will address your letter.  Both are available in the Career Services Office or you can find the same information electronically by using NALP, a directory found in LEXIS.

The very large firms that hire 1Ls select students on the basis of LSAT scores, undergraduate GPA and the reputation of the undergraduate school attended.  Many large firms don't hire 1L summer associates; those that do usually hire one to four 1L students.  Competition for the few positions in very large firms is national and extremely fierce.  It is the exception, rather than the rule, for 1L's to find summer employment within the large law firms.

Your best shot at getting employment at these firms is by participating in the Fall Interview Program during the fall of your second year of law school.  At that time, the firms are interviewing second year students for summer positions following that academic year.  The large law firms typically have strict hiring credentials based on academic performance.  Keep in mind, however; that the large law firms are only one small piece of the legal job market.

2) Mid-Sized Law Firms: Those students who are interested in the mid-sized law firms (25-50+ attorneys) should write to these firms in December and January.  Some of the firms may know their hiring needs at that point, but most will interview students during the spring.  Use the Chicago Area Law Firm List of Four or More Attorneys (available on Law Career) and Martindale.Hubbell (www.Martindale.com or MARHUB on LEXIS) to identify the firms.  Call the firm to request the name of the hiring partner, and then send a cover letter and resume.  Follow up your letter with a phone call approximately one week after you've sent your letter.  You will probably find that competition is stiff, since there aren't many firms in this category.

3) Small Law Firms: Students interested in the small firm (2 - 25 attorneys) will find that while these firms represent the bulk of the market, many will not know their hiring needs until April or May.  Most of the firms that post listings in the Career Services Office are in this category.  Few of these firms hire early in the spring semester.  In hopes of finding the handful that do, you can start writing to these firms beginning in January, but many firms will ask you to reapply later in the spring.  The only way to uncover the small firms that hire during the winter months is for you to begin the process early.

The peak hiring times for small firms tends to be in April, May and June.  Again, use the Chicago Area Law Firm List of Four or More Attorneys (on Law Career) and Martindale-Hubbell (www.Martindale.com or MARHUB on LEXIS) to target firms which practice in the areas of your interests.  The Career Services Office also has notebooks containing student assessments of clerking experiences.

4) Government Agencies and Public Interest Organizations: The best time to begin investigating these opportunities is at the end of the fall semester.  You will need time to research, network and schedule informational interviews. Every year in October, a "Meet the Public Interest Employer" reception, is held at Loyola Law School. In November, students sign up to attend the Midwest Public Interest Law Conference (MPILCC), held every year in February at Northwestern Law School, students can meet and interview with public interest employers. Starting in December, first year law students can apply for a position through the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) that includes the possibility of a grant of summer funding. Increasing numbers of students have expressed interest in volunteering for these types of employers so it is best to begin your planning early.  Make sure to check the Web, as many government organizations and some public interest organizations have extensive websites. Visit the 1L Career Planning Guide for links to these various opportunities.

Job Search Strategies

1) Job Postings: Located in the in the Career Services Office and online (password required).  Summer clerking positions are listed separately from part and full-time clerking positions.  The Summer Clerking Binders are created in January.  If you are seeking summer employment, you are encouraged to look beyond the Summer Clerking Binders to the positions listed in the full or part-time books which have yet to be filled.  Perhaps you can offer a creative alternative to the firm's immediate need.

2) The Hidden Job Market: It may surprise you that less than fifty percent of jobs found by Chicago-Kent students were actually advertised.  Often, employers find no need to advertise an opening since candidates can be found within the organization, through contacts, through unsolicited resumes or by word of mouth.  Tapping into the hidden market requires a great deal of  work and stamina.  Yet, there are a wealth of opportunities available through this means.

• Network, network, network.  Do not underestimate the power of friends, relatives, former employers, alumnae/i and other contacts.  Most jobs are found through word of mouth, so you must plug into as many of these opportunities as possible.  Don't overlook the obvious:  classmates, professors, community members and organizations to which you belong.  Also consider speaking with Chicago-Kent Alumni about their positions and how they obtained their jobs.  The contacts you make through networking may not be in a position to offer you a job, but they may open doors to potential jobs or to other people who can be helpful.

• Your contacts will help you set up informational interviews.  These are  a great way to gather information and meet persons practicing in your area of interest.  Remember to be open ended in your discussions.  Gather information and always ask your contacts for names and numbers of other persons you should meet.  Remember to ask permission to refer to them as your source.  For more detailed information about informational interviewing see the Career Development Handout titled Interviewing on the Web or in the handout rack in the Career Services Office.

3) Unsolicited mailings: These can be an effective way to uncover employment opportunities.  Be organized and selective in your mailings.  Target the mailings to specific employers and tailor your cover letter accordingly.  Follow up with a phone call to determine the status of your resume and request an interview.  Send only as many letters as you can comfortably follow up with in one week.  Use the Chicago Area Law Firm List to identify the Chicago law firms that most interest you.  Cross reference the specialty area lists which augment the law firm list.  Remember that this list is not all inclusive.  Use the many directories in the Career Services Office Resource Library and your networking contacts to identify other prospective employers.

4) Door to Door Searches: "Pounding the pavement" is successful for some students.  You must know yourself well to determine whether you can face the kind of immediate "rejection" which is foreseeable with this method.  In urban areas, handle a building at a time, working the building floor by floor.  While this method is not appropriate for every student, it can be effective for the few who make the effort.  It's important to quickly identify the person who has the authority to make hiring decisions.  Ask the receptionist who that person is and when it would be a good time to introduce yourself.

Keep the Job Search in Perspective

Paid legal employment--and occasionally even volunteer internships--can be difficult to find the summer after the first year of law school.  Remember that when employers respond to your application by saying that the job is filled, it does not necessarily mean that you were too late in applying.  Summer clerking opportunities filled by early January have probably been filled by 2L students hired through fall interviewing programs or continuing a clerking position started in the fall term.  Most employers would prefer hiring students with two years rather than one year of law school experience.  In some instances openings are filled very early on with relatives or law students who are contacts of attorneys at the organization.

First year students need not feel compelled to have a legal job for their first summer.  If there is something else you wish to do that summer, such as study abroad or working for the same summer employer you had in college, go ahead.  You still have another summer plus two full academic years to build your legal credentials.

Once You Have the Job. . .

Once you have landed your clerking position your goal is to gain as much substantive legal experience as possible.  If you've accepted a "general" clerking position which requires you to perform primarily administrative or clerical duties, perform these to the best of your ability.  Learn how the office is managed, how a law firm works, how to file documents in the courts.  After you have mastered these duties you may wish to request additional responsibilities.

Be sure that you are challenged, that you are learning and building your level of experience and confidence.  If it becomes clear that you will not be given increasingly substantive assignments, it may be time to think of moving to a new job.  Remember that the way to prove your real potential to the firm is by performing "lawyering" tasks.  If the firm is uninterested in discovering your professional potential, find a firm that will.

Students must also be aware of their limitations.  As a law clerk you are not licensed to practice law.  Therefore, you may not handle any task which can not be further reviewed by a licensed attorney or which is considered to be advisory and will impact a client.  In the past, students have occasionally been asked to perform tasks for which they are not qualified or licensed.  Refer to the Law Clerking Guidelines Memo, prepared by Professor Gary Laser and available in the Career Services Office, to learn about the specific tasks a law clerk may perform.  Protect yourself from future professional difficulties by knowing your limits.  If you have any questions regarding the appropriateness of specific assignments, talk to Professors Laser or Gross in the Law Offices.

We Wish You Luck As Your Develop Your Legal Career!

The Career Services Office is here to help!  If you are following the suggestions listed and don't see results, or feel that something is not going well with your search, make an appointment to meet with a career strategist in the Career Services Office.  You can make an appointment by stopping by suite 360, calling 312/906-5200 or e-mailing us as kentcso@kentlaw.edu.