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Transfer advice for legislative or policy work
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:35 pm
by Dredizzle
Hi all- I'm hoping for some help with my decision. I'm deciding between transferring to GULC at full price and staying at my current Tier 2 (70th/80th ranked), CA school with full tuition scholy. I want to work in the areas of legislative or policy. I don't care if it's CA state gov or federal gov. Obviously for federal gov, GULC is better. But for state gov, do people still think GULC has the edge, because, well, gov in general is a big focus there? Or is it dumb to leave CA if I want to return to work in CA gov? My fear at my school is lack of networking and educational opportunities in my area of interest. There's not really a clear path since most at my school just want to do local crim work or firm work.
Interested in hearing what people think!
Re: Transfer advice for legislative or policy work
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2021 2:04 pm
by crazywafflez
Dredizzle wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:35 pm
Hi all- I'm hoping for some help with my decision. I'm deciding between transferring to GULC at full price and staying at my current Tier 2 (70th/80th ranked), CA school with full tuition scholy. I want to work in the areas of legislative or policy. I don't care if it's CA state gov or federal gov. Obviously for federal gov, GULC is better. But for state gov, do people still think GULC has the edge, because, well, gov in general is a big focus there? Or is it dumb to leave CA if I want to return to work in CA gov? My fear at my school is lack of networking and educational opportunities in my area of interest. There's not really a clear path since most at my school just want to do local crim work or firm work.
Interested in hearing what people think!
I'm not terribly familiar with legislative policy crafting jobs- a lot of the folks who do it don't have law degrees and you don't need one to do it (my cousin helps a congressman from the Southwest and he and most of his team have undergrad degrees, some have law degrees [but very few] and some have masters). Nothing specific to a legal education or anything like that- usually they have professionals in the fields do it. Say you are looking at a new medical policy or legislation governing hospital safety- they would have a team of doctors, MPHs, and other folks actually write the policies (or a thinktank would), and the workers would just review or compile it, if that. You could get hired onto a senator's or congressperson's legal team, but those people aren't usually crafting legislation and those jobs are few and far between. If but fed and govt jobs you mean working for AG, ADA, PD, or doing something in a fed agency branch (or the state equivalent, if the state even has an equivalent) than for those jobs I'd highly recommend staying where you are at and getting stellar grades and interning with the appropriate agencies.
In sum: policy crafting isn't really a thing outside of think tanks and a few professional groups (although, you can of course review things or come up with talking points by interning or working on the hill/state equivalent). Moreover, if the state agencies or things like EPA are what you are after, I think you'll be better served by staying put and getting killer grades and making connections with those agencies now.
Best of luck.