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I'm a senior in college attending a top ten school in the fall. My long term goal is biglaw. I've been offered a part-time unpaid internship at a very small (one lawyer) practice in my city. The office does mainly small time real estate stuff like landlord-tenant disputes. It's definitely the opposite of prestigious and the office seems a little bit disorganized and overwhelmed. I know I'd be interacting with clients and doing some substantive things in addition to some menial tasks.

Questions: How valuable will this experience be for my 1L summer job search a year from now? Is it possible that snooty biglaw attorneys might actually see this experience as a negative? Or is any experience in a law office, no matter how insignificant, considered a positive?

I'm interested in the experience itself, but the real reason I would take this internship is to build my resume for later.

I'd really appreciate the perspective of current biglaw attorneys and that of those students who have firsthand knowledge of the value of these sorts of internships in recruiting. Thank you very much.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm a senior in college attending a top ten school in the fall. My long term goal is biglaw. I've been offered a part-time unpaid internship at a very small (one lawyer) practice in my city. The office does mainly small time real estate stuff like landlord-tenant disputes. It's definitely the opposite of prestigious and the office seems a little bit disorganized and overwhelmed. I know I'd be interacting with clients and doing some substantive things in addition to some menial tasks.

Questions: How valuable will this experience be for my 1L summer job search a year from now? Is it possible that snooty biglaw attorneys might actually see this experience as a negative? Or is any experience in a law office, no matter how insignificant, considered a positive?

I'm interested in the experience itself, but the real reason I would take this internship is to build my resume for later.

I'd really appreciate the perspective of current biglaw attorneys and that of those students who have firsthand knowledge of the value of these sorts of internships in recruiting. Thank you very much.

Interesting work is preferred over no work. I don't think anyone would look down at it. What are you giving up in order to take this unpaid internship?

I currently have a somewhat prestigious paid part time job on campus, and I have a few past experiences. so it's not like my resume is blank. I'd probably be working fewer hours and making less money if I were to take this new internship.

Anonymous User wrote:I currently have a somewhat prestigious paid part time job on campus, and I have a few past experiences. so it's not like my resume is blank. I'd probably be working fewer hours and making less money if I were to take this new internship.

I'd go with the paying job, but that's just me.

Edit: 2 out of 3 of my firm callbacks came to me because I had a background related to the specific field they were looking for associates for. I doubt real estate will be what a firm is looking for in this market... Its funny that I'm saying that because Real Estate was my previous field.

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:It really won't matter much one way or the other. The fact of having worked in a law office, even if a small one, might give *you* some added personal perspective as to what you are interested in and why, which in turn might make you a better interviewer, but beyond that no legal employer is really going to give it much of any weight. Even for 1L summer jobs.

^this.

vamedic03 wrote:

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:It really won't matter much one way or the other. The fact of having worked in a law office, even if a small one, might give *you* some added personal perspective as to what you are interested in and why, which in turn might make you a better interviewer, but beyond that no legal employer is really going to give it much of any weight. Even for 1L summer jobs.

^this.

+1. Any work experience is better than no work experience, but for the most part any experience will be a plus that you can use to sell yourself during the job hunt. The only kind of job that makes you stand out is when you're trying to return to the place you worked before (I worked with someone this summer who was a paralegal at Cravath before going to law school, for example) but that doesn't sound like what's going on here.