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Today, I found out a son of the federal judge I am interning for is a partner at a decent V50 firm in my city. I have an interview at Loyola IP fair with said V50 firm in said city. I've had only limited interaction with my judge, but each one was positive...VERY positive.

How can I maximize the benefits of this connection? Ask the judge to reach out/introduce me to his son? Ask the judge for a LOR? Just reach out to the son independently? Any other ideas?

Anonymous User wrote:Today, I found out a son of the federal judge I am interning for is a partner at a decent V50 firm in my city. I have an interview at Loyola IP fair with said V50 firm. I've had only limited interaction with my judge, but each one was positive...VERY positive.

Are we talking Monica Lewinsky positive?

Notor wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Today, I found out a son of the federal judge I am interning for is a partner at a decent V50 firm in my city. I have an interview at Loyola IP fair with said V50 firm. I've had only limited interaction with my judge, but each one was positive...VERY positive.

Are we talking Monica Lewinsky positive?

No, but as good as it gets on a platonic level. He said I was "very respectful and hard-working", etc etc. But I've only met with him a total of 5 times this entire summer and each conversation was short ~ 10min. Basically he said "great job" and then told me why he was going to follow or not follow my proposed opinion.

Tell the judge what you want to do, and where you want to work, and ask if he knows anyone you should talk to.

This is an easy answer - this is essentially what "networking" means, converting personal connections, fortuitous connections, tangential connections, into an edge.

Everyone is doing it - everyone with any common sense anyway - do it.

Anonymous User wrote:Today, I found out a son of the federal judge I am interning for is a partner at a decent V50 firm in my city. I have an interview at Loyola IP fair with said V50 firm in said city. I've had only limited interaction with my judge, but each one was positive...VERY positive.

How can I maximize the benefits of this connection? Ask the judge to reach out/introduce me to his son? Ask the judge for a LOR? Just reach out to the son independently? Any other ideas?

I'm the child of a Federal judge (posting anonymously since I don't post it elsewhere on TLS) and while I'm hardly a big networking connection I've encountered professionally many people who appear in front of/have worked for him. My advice is just to use it as an icebreaker. Go up and say "Hi. By any chance is your father X." Why he says yes, explain that you worked for his father and chat him up a bit. Hopefully you can just have a pleasant conversation about how great he was to work for, etc. Hand him your card and I promise if he is interested he will call his father and say "I saw so and so, what do you think of the guy." Instant reference, and a positive one at that. Maybe follow up with an email to the judge saying "I met your son, blah blah."

berkcol wrote:This is an easy answer - this is essentially what "networking" means, converting personal connections, fortuitous connections, tangential connections, into an edge.

Everyone is doing it - everyone with any common sense anyway - do it.

This is no help. The question is how to do it.

How not to do it: Go to the interview and pull out a picture of you shaking hands with the judge and say (louder than necessary), "I am friends with this judge and here is the proof!"