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Hello, I'm an undergraduate student and I'm getting ready to apply to law school. I know that doing an internship in a legal office is a great plus when applying for law school, and that it's great experience to learn what real legal work is about. However I have been looking on the internet and there doesn't seems to be a whole lot of info on where to apply for legal internships. Furthermore everything I find on the internet seems to be aimed at current law students. I haven't been able to go through my school because I'm in the process of transferring to another university, but I would like to start looking before I start classes again. Can anyone tell me any websites/places I can go to find internships?

dsosah wrote:I know that doing an internship in a legal office is a great plus when applying for law school

No it's not.

Unless you have tappable connections, Monster it up.

By the way, interning at a law firm isn't nearly the best way to spend your time, if you want to beef up the resume. Law schools want to see something interesting and unique (and impressive). Joining the Peace Corps, Teach for America, founding a non-profit...those are good examples.

A law related internship won't give you an extra boost. But I believe it is useful in helping you know 100% for sure if you are ready to commit to a career in law, or are doing it for the wrong reasons. That being said, try craigslist and google. However, most "legit" places don't advertise the fact that they want interns/volunteers, at least in my experience. So probe into websites.

Regardless how helpful this is, I had the same idea in UG. So here you go:

From my experience, undergrad internships are not going to be listed.
You need to know someone at the firm, or contact the office yourself. Do not expect to be paid at this level. Some larger firms have internship programs that are unadvertised, while smaller firms may hire you simply for the free help. I have done both and if nothing else, it made me feel more confident about my resume come application time. None of them were full time, none were high stress, and I had fun.
Also, be on the lookout for other departments inside law firms that may offer undergrad internships in different areas, like marketing. I found legal marketing internships to be similar to work that I was doing as a “law” intern at this level. Plus, it’s all about networking anyway. You’ll be meeting partners and associates regardless of that name of your internship.
Also, depending where you are located, regional US Attorney’s Offices have undergrad internships as well.
Good luck!

Verity wrote:Unless you have tappable connections, Monster it up.

nominated for worst advice of the day.

seriously, Monster is worthless for most undergrads. Most positions are flooded with hundreds of candidates.

you best bet is to apply to companies/nonprofits directly that don't have posted positions, your school website or indeed.com. applying to firms that don't have posted positions is actually very effective.

I agree with the above poster, they usually don't list positions. In my experience, I had the best success by just calling firms to see if they had any positions available. I had to have called at least 50 local firms. Most only offered unpaid internships, but I needed a paid internship and luckily found one.

You can also just look at any university website for a position. When we were hiring interns at my internship, I remember people getting the position info from the university website, but went to a different school and it didn't affect our reviewing of their resumes. However, these positions usually get flooded with apps and are more competitive. I'd really recommend just going through the yellow pages or searching "law firms near [your zip code]" in google and calling each individually. Firms might appreciate the individual effort that you make. You might want to read over their websites before you call as well, so you have an idea of what kind of practice they do.

I did this during UG. The law firm internships were a bit difficult to get into and the ones I was aware of were because someone who knew somebody was pushing for people at our school to fill that spot. You might have an easier time of it trying to intern at a PD's office or a DA's as I did instead...

And while I doubt it'll be a "boost", I think it's helpful to determining whether this is the kind of work you want to do. As a sidenote, and it might have only been for me, the experience I had at a PD/DA's was the only experience I had on my resume that folks seemed to care about when I was interviewed for a 1L gig. I'm not saying that's representative, but eh, it might mean something to interviewers when it comes to that time.

Thanks a lot for your advice/thoughts everybody, really helpful. I see that some of you said that this was not something that counted as a "soft" on your resume for admissions. Does anybody have any ideas on what counts besides honors? I cannot do anything outside the country, since my resources are limited and my job schedule/family situation don't allow me to. Again thanks a lot for all your replies!

don't stress about "softs" too much. GPA/LSAT/URMstatus are what matters. As long as you don't sound like "uhh, I played halo throughout all of undergrad and didn't learn shit" then you are probably good to go. it is about creating the story of YOU through your softs, not a dick measuring contest of who has slaved away at the most internships/honors/studentorgs/etc.