Recind DOJ internship acceptance and accept DOC offer?
Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:25 pm
deleted. Thanks for the advice!
1. I've worked at a few federal agencies and according to my supervisors, the only thing that will get someone permanently blacklisted in their books is accepting a job and then reneging. From what I understand, this happens a fair bit at the lateral level in the federal government and basically shuts a door to that agency.Anonymous User wrote:Hi, I am a 3L law student who was recently offered a spring internship with the Department of Commerce ("DOC") Office of General Counsel, but already has accepted a spring internship position within the Civil Division of the Justice Department ("DOJ"). Here is my predicament, I would really like to ultimately work for either department, but the main issue lies in the fact that the DOJ only hires recent graduates through the Honors program (which as a 3L I am out of luck for) and the Department of Commerce does have a policy of sometimes hiring from its interns (although I'm not sure how often this actually happens). I would really like to be able to be able to have the possibility of turning my internship into a fulltime position, but I know there might be some risk in turning down the DOJ position after already accepting. So here are my two questions:
1) What would the consequences be for turning down an acceptance with a DOJ Civil Division two weeks after accepting the position?
2) What is the realistic chance of turning a Department of Commerce internship into a full time position?
I've also added a poll to supplement your answers, please answer with both a poll selection and a post!
2. The DoC-OGC takes 20 summers according to the Arizona Guide and some number of year interns like yourself. That to me means there are a fair number of people out there with DoC-OGC intern on their resume. I have yet to see a federal agency like DoC hire more than 4-5 entry lawyers a year, even when the agency's work concerns law (SEC, NLRB, etc). Sounds like pretty low odds.
I'd stay with the DOJ. At least it is more portable to a firm or AG office.