Project Assistant at Kirkland Forum

[Joeshan520]

Hey everyone,


I am starting as a Project Assistant at Kirkland & Ellis in about three weeks and I was wondering if anyone whose had this opportunity would care to discuss their experience? I know significant overtime is basically a requirement for the job especially for me (being in the litigation department) but I was wondering how this type of experience looks on a resume and increases school prospects?

Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

Hey everyone,


I am starting as a Project Assistant at Kirkland & Ellis in about three weeks and I was wondering if anyone whose had this opportunity would care to discuss their experience? I know significant overtime is basically a requirement for the job especially for me (being in the litigation department) but I was wondering how this type of experience looks on a resume and increases school prospects?

Thanks!

So you're a paralegal?

[Anonymous User]

Hey everyone,


I am starting as a Project Assistant at Kirkland & Ellis in about three weeks and I was wondering if anyone whose had this opportunity would care to discuss their experience? I know significant overtime is basically a requirement for the job especially for me (being in the litigation department) but I was wondering how this type of experience looks on a resume and increases school prospects?

Thanks!

Being a paralegal does not significantly increase school prospects, if it all. Schools care about your LSAT and your GPA. If it came down to you and one other person that had the exact same scores, same gpa (from the same school), then perhaps it comes into play, but I, nor anyone here, could speak to this with 100% accuracy.

As a former paralegal, however, I can say that it does come in handy when interviewing at the top firms. One example, just because it was recent, I was interviewing with the hiring partner at a V3 firm, who said (I paraphrase), I have no doubt that you can work the hours since you paralegaled at (firm X) for two years.

So, there it can help. It will also provide you with tons of talking points in OCI interviews.

[Joeshan520]

So you're a paralegal?

A paralegal essentially, yes.

Being a paralegal does not significantly increase school prospects, if it all. Schools care about your LSAT and your GPA. If it came down to you and one other person that had the exact same scores, same gpa (from the same school), then perhaps it comes into play, but I, nor anyone here, could speak to this with 100% accuracy.

As a former paralegal, however, I can say that it does come in handy when interviewing at the top firms. One example, just because it was recent, I was interviewing with the hiring partner at a V3 firm, who said (I paraphrase), I have no doubt that you can work the hours since you paralegaled at (firm X) for two years.

So, there it can help. It will also provide you with tons of talking points in OCI interviews.

How did the experience help you with law school? Did you find your practical experience helped acclimate you with the curriculum?

[Anonymous User]

I was under the impression that most paralegals at Kirkland are hot young chicks. Can you confirm this allegation?

[Joeshan520]

I am a 6'0 male, haha. But I have no idea seeing as I haven't started yet.

[Anonymous User]

As a former paralegal, however, I can say that it does come in handy when interviewing at the top firms. One example, just because it was recent, I was interviewing with the hiring partner at a V3 firm, who said (I paraphrase), I have no doubt that you can work the hours since you paralegaled at (firm X) for two years.

Yeah, I agree on it helping during the hiring cycle. I was able to do a lot of different work as a paralegal, so I felt like I could back up the claim of "I've done corporate and litigation work, and while I'm open to trying new things, I'm leaning corporate because of X, Y, and Z" with actual substantive examples instead of parroting back talking OCS talking points. Also, one of the interviewers at a V5 commented on how the paralegal work made it look like I was somebody who made an intelligent decision to apply to law school and that I was moving in a very directed manner with my career—as opposed to somebody with a liberal arts degree straight from UG who went to law school out of default because there were no better options. Ended up with an offer at the V5.

[Anonymous User]

So you're a paralegal?

A paralegal essentially, yes.

Being a paralegal does not significantly increase school prospects, if it all. Schools care about your LSAT and your GPA. If it came down to you and one other person that had the exact same scores, same gpa (from the same school), then perhaps it comes into play, but I, nor anyone here, could speak to this with 100% accuracy.

As a former paralegal, however, I can say that it does come in handy when interviewing at the top firms. One example, just because it was recent, I was interviewing with the hiring partner at a V3 firm, who said (I paraphrase), I have no doubt that you can work the hours since you paralegaled at (firm X) for two years.

So, there it can help. It will also provide you with tons of talking points in OCI interviews.

How did the experience help you with law school? Did you find your practical experience helped acclimate you with the curriculum?

Being out of school for two years helped me a bit. Even though first year is a lot of work, I really appreciated being on a student schedule again, and after working big law hours, didn't find the work to be too burdensome. As for your second question, practical work experience and law school curriculum have minimal overlap. I was a litigation paralegal and therefore I had a leg up for maybe the first 15 minutes of my civ pro class because of my basic familiarity with the litigation process. Unless you're doing very substantive work (which is highly unlikely as a paralegal), there is little to gain that will help you out in law school.

There are many skills though that may help you out in school (such as organization) and as an associate (delegating responsibility, time-management). At the end of the day though, I highly recommend paralegaling. All the paras I worked with went to great schools and are killing it at OCI...despite being unable to point out any tangible benefits, there must be something to it.

[Anonymous User]

I am a 6'0 male, haha. But I have no idea seeing as I haven't started yet.

which k&e office?

[Joeshan520]

Chicago