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I have the opportunity to work at a large financial institution for the summer, but on the business side of the company not the legal side, although my work would be focused on contracts. Would this be acceptable employment for my first year or should I keep looking?

Anonymous User wrote:I have the opportunity to work at a large financial institution for the summer, but on the business side of the company not the legal side, although my work would be focused on contracts. Would this be acceptable employment for my first year or should I keep looking?

I would try to do some legal work if you can. it would help during your OCI/EIP during interviews--providing topics of conversation. During my 1L callbacks, every interview largely focused on my resume. I think it would be very useful to have something legal to talk about.

Also, it might be useful to get a writing sample out of the summer if you can. Will you have the capacity to do this in your summer job?

It might be worth to keep looking.

I understand money is a concern for the summer, but if you're into Biglaw, you should keep screeners/callback in mind as you pick your summer jerb.

I've spoken to a managing partner at a big firm about this for my own situation and he thinks that doing something in finance would be a good idea if you're going into corporate law. You're going to be dealing with that kind of stuff and actually knowing what you're doing is going to help. It's def more helpful than a typical 1L internship. With that said, the MP did say he's not sure how the hiring committee views something like a finance internship.

It's a real crapshoot b/c in reality, a finance internship is definitely much more useful if you plan on going into business related law practice but firms are very different in how they might view it.

I wouldn't do anything non-legal if you can avoid it.

I appreciate the advice from everyone. I am looking for a Biglaw job next summer so it does matter if you believe that this could have a negative impact on that. I would have a lot of leeway with what I would be doing up there because I am getting this job from a family member that is in a top position at the company, but they haven't been exactly clear what I would be working on anyways, besides it being focused on contracts. I will most likely continue to look for a different job this summer.

Contract compliance work is legal in nature.

this sounds like an awesome opportunity. i would try to find out more about it and see if there is anything you can do to make it more legal oriented. as long as you can sell it to firms (without lying), i would go for it.