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I was just accepted to the SEC Summer Honors Program, but I was also offerred a paid internship at DHS (~$12k for summer).

I have several years work experience in the investment industry and an MBA, so my experience lines up with the SEC internship better, and it seems pretty interesting. I understand that the program is pretty competitive as well, so may be viewed favorably on a resume.

At the same time, the other position is paid, plus it will give me an opportunity to get something non-investment related on my resume.

The consensus on here seems to be that what you do for your 1L internship is not hugely important, so long as it is legal work.
Given that, I am inclined to take the DHS job. Need final decision by tomorrow (and SEC won't let me split my summer). Thoughts?

I would take the money in a heartbeat.

For a 1L summer, the money will be fine.

Post-stalked and saw DC biglaw is your end game. For that reason, I would seriously consider taking SEC, because it has a lot of caché in the legal community, because you'll probably make a few decent connections, and because from UIB, that's an uphill battle for DC. Honestly I think it's an uphill battle either way but I think you could give yourself more opportunities.

I can see why the SEC would sound better, but they do take 150 kids for the summer and it doesn't give you anything besides a resume line. DHS is likely to give him a security clearance and he will be one of very few interns. Also, the SEC never hires its interns, but DHS has been known to. DHS will also get him into the OPM database with time in service, which is nice down the road. And for a 1L summer, firms won't care.

LawIdiot86 wrote:I can see why the SEC would sound better, but they do take 150 kids for the summer and it doesn't give you anything besides a resume line. DHS is likely to give him a security clearance and he will be one of very few interns. Also, the SEC never hires its interns, but DHS has been known to. DHS will also get him into the OPM database with time in service, which is nice down the road. And for a 1L summer, firms won't care.

I don't agree that firms won't care in his particular case of almost certainly being a transfer aiming for DC. DC DOES seem to like people who have "prestigious" agency experience (which is pretty much limited to SEC or DOJ). At my school, which struggles to place in DC, people with 1L summers at prestigious and recognizable places seemed to do better than their similarly situated counterparts. I suspect this is part of what it means to have "ties" to DC. If there's some advantage to lawyers having security clearance, I don't know about it, but I'd love to hear.

FWIW I really enjoyed my summer at the SEC this past summer and it played really well with the firms I interviewed with. Outperformed my numbers pretty significantly, got a couple V5 offers. It fucking sucked not getting paid and having to pay DC rent on top of paying for my place back at school, though.