Locating your Summer or Permanent Position
The Career Services Office helps students find a summer or permanent job in multiple ways:
- Assisting with your personal job plan
- On-campus interviewing/Off-campus fairs
- Resume mailings
Personal Job Search Planning
While we recommend that students participate in all the on-campus interviews for which they are eligible and interested, students should also develop a personal job search plan. National statistics show that most students find their jobs through a personal job search, NOT through on-campus interviewing
Start your personal plan by making an appointment with Jennifer Powell, Assistant Dean. or Rosalind Lister, Assistant Director. Please be sure to complete a Student Registration Form and return to the career services center when you visit. In developing a personal job search plan, it will be helpful for you to analyze your own interests, talents, and preferences. A good job search plan begins with you! Think about yourself ad be prepared to answer the following questions:
- Geography: where do I want to live and work? Where will I take the Bar examination?
- Which practice areas interest me? Am I drawn to Litigation or Transactional work? Ex: Employment Law, Intellectual Property, Insurance, Criminal Law, Family Law
- What setting do I want to work in? Law Firm – Large firm? Medium firm? Small firm? Start my own firm? Government – Federal or state agencies? Judicial Clerkship – Federal or state? Business Setting – In house counsel?
On Campus Interviewing and Resume Mailings
Each year a number of law firms conduct interviews or solicit resumes from students for positions as first or second year summer clerks and for associate positions following graduation.
Fall interviewing is restricted to second and third year students and tends to attract larger firms with on-going staffing needs.
First year students may interview during the second semester. First year students may begin their job hunt starting November 1 by creating or updating their resumé and researching firms 1L’s can begin contacting employers after December 1st. Beginning in February, a limited number of large firms return to campus specifically to hire first year clerks. It is vital that first year students complete work on their resumé no later than when they return for second semester in January.
Spring interviewing for second and third year students tends to be with entities whose long term hiring needs are more difficult to project, and who usually determine their hiring needs late in the spring. Most plaintiff firms fall in this category.