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1L at a lower T1 somewhere between 35-50. I'm trying to work out a game plan for summer 2012, but i really am unsure of what my application strategy should be. I know options are limited, even for those from much better schools, but i'm not looking for anything glorious or paid for that matter. What would i grade wise need to be competitive for federal district court or state level court of appeals internships in less competitive areas? I'm really just looking for anything with the courts, but am admitantly naive about the requirements. Any insight would be just peachy.

What I did: send fancy folders with resume, writing samples, cover letters to individual judges. pay attention to presentation. grades, in my view and experience, didn't matter a whole lot for the judges i applied to. probably matter more for fed. dist. judges. however, i landed both a trial court internship and one with a justice on the state supreme court using the above strategy (I interned for both at the same time). apply soon out of the gate of first semester finals. do the best you can on grades but i doubt there's a cut off given the subjective nature of hiring by judges. otherwise, get together a perfect resume, do your best on your legal writing memo to prepare it as a writing sample and research the judges you are interested in.

people say 1L internship doesn't matter. in my experience this is absolutely not true.

good luck to you!

As high as possible?

Maybe top 1/3 to 1/4 minimum, I'd imagine. At the very minimum, ace legal writing.

EDIT: Note, some schools only allow extern credit for judicial externships at certain GPA cutoffs. Loyola, I believe, has a 3.3 minimum for judicial externships.

At a T20-T30 school and myself, as well as at least 25 other students from my school all landed jobs in the same federal district court during winter break before any of our grades were released.

The key is to stay on the ball with mass-mailings, so once December 1 rolls around you can send out applications like crazy. I know it seems too simple, but a lot of kids at my school just wait way too long til after finals to start looking for jobs. If you're ready to go before everyone else, you markedly improve your chances at landing a solid job early on in the process.

DrGuano wrote:At a T20-T30 school and myself, as well as at least 25 other students from my school all landed jobs in the same federal district court during winter break before any of our grades were released.

The key is to stay on the ball with mass-mailings, so once December 1 rolls around you can send out applications like crazy. I know it seems too simple, but a lot of kids at my school just wait way too long til after finals to start looking for jobs. If you're ready to go before everyone else, you markedly improve your chances at landing a solid job early on in the process.

forget about grades, just do this