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I am interested in food law, both regulatory and consumer protection in food safety. This is a pretty niche area, and I havent had much success finding anything in it for this (my 2L) summer. If I want to practice in food law ultimately, how much will it hurt if my job this summer has nothing to do with food law. I have a few options with small personal injury firms. Definately not impressive jobs, but they pay, and they are at least a job!

And anyone have any suggestions for the food law area? I am in the sf bay area by the way.. thanks

Since most of your "food law" related jobs will be in state or federal agencies, you should try to do something with the gov't to display your interest in public service. Ideally, a position with the FDA, USDA, etc. If you can't get in with one of those more food-related agencies, the next tier down would be other types of consumer protection agencies, like CPSC. Most of theses agencies of course will have state counter parts that you could also look into.

I'm sure large firms have associates who specialize in food law, i.e. FDA regulations and the like, but not very many.

Greenburg Traurig has a pretty notable FDA practice. But that's NY, not SF. Most regulatory work, and therefore FDA work is going to be in Washington.

McBean wrote:Since most of your "food law" related jobs will be in state or federal agencies . . .

I'm sure the number of legal professionals representing regulated entities exceeds the number employed by government agencies by a pretty large margin.

OP, have you considered approaching any of the central California agricultural corporations to see if they may have a need for an intern in their legal departments? Bear in mind that you are interested in a highly-specialized niche of a practice area that is not well-represented on the West Coast, so you are severely limiting your employment options.