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I'm a 1L at a T2 (full scholarship) and still have no summer job. Is it normal for this time?

I've had 2 interviews at a career fair and have sent out about 20 applications to judges, DA's offices and public defenders.

Time to start panicking?

Its certainly getting late. Start resume bombing any place you can find for some legal work 1L summer. It doesn't have to be something spectacular. It just has to be something law-related.

You should have applied to 10 times as many places. There is still time, but you better apply to everything you can now. You can always try RA at school.

I'm at 2L at a T20 and on LR with no job. law school is awesome! good luck..

Speak to all your professors too to see if they need help this summer as an RA.

Only 20 applications? No surprise that you have nothing. As the above poster said, you should literally have hundreds of apps out right now. There are hundreds of federal and state judges, public interest organizations, small law firms, etc. Don't be picky and choosy. Just send out the damn resume to anyone you possibly can.

State trial judges. Every DA/PD office in your state. Go to career services and see if they have a database of state gov't internships (since a lot of those end up going unfilled). Don't be picky.

Also, if you're not applying in your school's market, you should be.

I have an interest in criminal law so that's what I focused on based on my CDO counselor's advice. I also applied to a couple public interest firms.

When I'm mass mailing, should I even bother customizing my cover letters (e.g "Dear: John Doe" as opposed to "To Whom it May Concern") to each person I send to any more?

Anonymous User wrote:I have an interest in criminal law so that's what I focused on based on my CDO counselor's advice. I also applied to a couple public interest firms.

When I'm mass mailing, should I even bother customizing my cover letters (e.g "Dear: John Doe" as opposed to "To Whom it May Concern") to each person I send to any more?

You absolutely do not want to send out "To Whom it May Concern" letters to judges. It's a pain in the ass, but you really have to personalize each one. Just about every federal judge will have their 1L summer clerks by this point, but definitely send out letters to state judges, email all the professors you've had so far re: summer research, etc. and mass mail small firms in your region asking for consideration for an unpaid summer position.

To whom it may concern letters will not be of concern to any prospective employer. Be smart. It is still a bad market. ATL reporting 20 more law schools to be added to the fraud suits by former students who are still unemployed based upon employment representations by the schools.

First, I think unless you have some great tie that inexplicably you've failed to leverage to this point, the firm ship has long since sailed.

But, lots of state and municipal agencies have later due dates (e.g. I know that the IL atty gen'l just started reviewing apps) so if you get on those TODAY you can maybe still get something...personally I'd try to follow up on each app sent with a phone call or email the following week.

Or check into RA positions/clinic work (even just for course credit) something you can talk about in the fall.

Also, don't send "To Whom it May Concern/unpersonalized letters. Personalize opening paragraph (who you are, why you're applying to that Agency) and last paragraph.

good luck

Anonymous User wrote:I have an interest in criminal law so that's what I focused on based on my CDO counselor's advice. I also applied to a couple public interest firms.

When I'm mass mailing, should I even bother customizing my cover letters (e.g "Dear: John Doe" as opposed to "To Whom it May Concern") to each person I send to any more?

If you don't customize your letter it will be thrown in the trash. No one wants to receive spam and it shows that you're lazy. You could not take the two minutes to figure out who their hiring person is, very impressive to that employer. Also, 20 apps is a joke. You need to step it up big time. You should have sent hundreds of apps out by now. There's still time but you must increase your apps, customize them, and apply broadly. You cannot afford to be picky in March!

*Didn't mean to post anonymously: newyorker88

Everyone says to customize the letters and not write them to hiring directors. Please inform me how to find the hiring director of a 50,000 person corporation.

homestyle28 wrote:First, I think unless you have some great tie that inexplicably you've failed to leverage to this point, the firm ship has long since sailed.

Correct, and the few small to mid sized positions that come available in March or April many times do not publish and are gone very quickly when they find a candidate that they like. There is no process for many of them.

deebs wrote:Everyone says to customize the letters and not write them to hiring directors. Please inform me how to find the hiring director of a 50,000 person corporation.

Call the company, go through the automated menus, push the button options for human resources/whatever. Then you will either have the person's name from their voicemail greeting, or if they pick up the phone you can just talk to them (no need to ask for a job over the phone, you just want their name for your letter anyway).

At much as it is a pain in the ass, you should dedicate at least a day, maybe the whole weekend, to just sending out resumes and cover letters to anything you can get a hold of. I sent out over 100 applications, did 8 interviews, and finally scored 1 offer yesterday from a government agency. I can't even count how many places didn't even bother responding to me. I also recommend combining your documents into a single pdf (you can use http://www.pdfcombine.com/ or something similar) to increase the chances that it will actually get looked at. Your best bet at this point is probably public interest, from quick glance at http://pslawnet.org/ there seems to be a decent amount of positions out there, if you have access to that site I suggest you use it. There are also some decent government gigs out there, but they can be somewhat hard to track down.

thegrayman wrote:At much as it is a pain in the ass, you should dedicate at least a day, maybe the whole weekend, to just sending out resumes and cover letters to anything you can get a hold of. I sent out over 100 applications, did 8 interviews, and finally scored 1 offer yesterday from a government agency. I can't even count how many places didn't even bother responding to me. I also recommend combining your documents into a single pdf (you can use http://www.pdfcombine.com/ or something similar) to increase the chances that it will actually get looked at. Your best bet at this point is probably public interest, from quick glance at http://pslawnet.org/ there seems to be a decent amount of positions out there, if you have access to that site I suggest you use it. There are also some decent government gigs out there, but they can be somewhat hard to track down.

Thanks man. I applied to about 30 jobs today. A bunch from symplicity and a bunch from pslawnet.

I'll keep doing that every few days, definitely can't waste an entire weekend of reviewing on job searching. I have one contact that I haven't reached out yet too which I will do this week.



Thanks everybody else for the advice. I was definitely more interested in public interest work than firm work.

thegrayman wrote:At much as it is a pain in the ass, you should dedicate at least a day, maybe the whole weekend, to just sending out resumes and cover letters to anything you can get a hold of. I sent out over 100 applications, did 8 interviews, and finally scored 1 offer yesterday from a government agency. I can't even count how many places didn't even bother responding to me. I also recommend combining your documents into a single pdf (you can use http://www.pdfcombine.com/ or something similar) to increase the chances that it will actually get looked at. Your best bet at this point is probably public interest, from quick glance at http://pslawnet.org/ there seems to be a decent amount of positions out there, if you have access to that site I suggest you use it. There are also some decent government gigs out there, but they can be somewhat hard to track down.

Took me 383 1L apps and ended up with 3 offers. The idea of only 20 stuns me.

LawIdiot86 wrote:
Took me 383 1L apps and ended up with 3 offers. The idea of only 20 stuns me.

Same. I did around 300 apps, 15 interviews, 6 offers.
But organizations are still hiring. Try contacting the legal department of your local city government or the sheriff's office. I did that where I live and they said I was the only one who applied because they don't have a formal internship program.

cinephile wrote:

LawIdiot86 wrote:
Took me 383 1L apps and ended up with 3 offers. The idea of only 20 stuns me.

Same. I did around 300 apps, 15 interviews, 6 offers.
But organizations are still hiring. Try contacting the legal department of your local city government or the sheriff's office. I did that where I live and they said I was the only one who applied because they don't have a formal internship program.

Oh yeah, it's shocking how lazy us law students are. I know of two federal agencies who have unadvertised summer programs and I just heard from my contact at one of them that no one applied this year for their paid program and I know no one applied to the other one last year.

LawIdiot86 wrote:

cinephile wrote:

LawIdiot86 wrote:
Took me 383 1L apps and ended up with 3 offers. The idea of only 20 stuns me.

Same. I did around 300 apps, 15 interviews, 6 offers.
But organizations are still hiring. Try contacting the legal department of your local city government or the sheriff's office. I did that where I live and they said I was the only one who applied because they don't have a formal internship program.

Oh yeah, it's shocking how lazy us law students are. I know of two federal agencies who have unadvertised summer programs and I just heard from my contact at one of them that no one applied this year for their paid program and I know no one applied to the other one last year.

Why are they keeping the job a secret? Why not just advertise it.

to be fair, i think 300 apps is excessive. I'm a 1L, I did probably 90-100 applications, and I had 5 offers. Obviously if you have the time, sending out 300 apps won't hurt you, but i think 100 is much more reasonable. Unfortunately, 20 won't cut the mustard.

Anonymous User wrote:

thegrayman wrote:At much as it is a pain in the ass, you should dedicate at least a day, maybe the whole weekend, to just sending out resumes and cover letters to anything you can get a hold of. I sent out over 100 applications, did 8 interviews, and finally scored 1 offer yesterday from a government agency. I can't even count how many places didn't even bother responding to me. I also recommend combining your documents into a single pdf (you can use http://www.pdfcombine.com/ or something similar) to increase the chances that it will actually get looked at. Your best bet at this point is probably public interest, from quick glance at http://pslawnet.org/ there seems to be a decent amount of positions out there, if you have access to that site I suggest you use it. There are also some decent government gigs out there, but they can be somewhat hard to track down.

I'll keep doing that every few days, definitely can't waste an entire weekend of reviewing on job searching.

Yes, you absolutely can. It is not a waste. What is a waste is spending the next few weeks studying/dicking around without a 1L summer job lined up.

Moreover, you can easily do both. You will not be spending all day studying every day, so you can still do all of your work and then spend the rest of the night doing applications.

Seriously, this is very important. A friend of mine was top 10% of the class our 1L year so he figured he didn't "have to do" anything over 1L summer and it fucked him over in the long run. It looks very bad not to have anything lined up because anyone can get something if they hustle.

since you're interested in criminal law and it's so late in the game, i would just start calling public defender offices if i were you.

newyorker88 wrote:

LawIdiot86 wrote:

cinephile wrote:

LawIdiot86 wrote:
Took me 383 1L apps and ended up with 3 offers. The idea of only 20 stuns me.

Same. I did around 300 apps, 15 interviews, 6 offers.
But organizations are still hiring. Try contacting the legal department of your local city government or the sheriff's office. I did that where I live and they said I was the only one who applied because they don't have a formal internship program.

Oh yeah, it's shocking how lazy us law students are. I know of two federal agencies who have unadvertised summer programs and I just heard from my contact at one of them that no one applied this year for their paid program and I know no one applied to the other one last year.

Why are they keeping the job a secret? Why not just advertise it.

I don't know. Maybe they're only looking for people actually interested in that kind of law or don't have the time/resources to go through hundreds of resumes and dozens of interviews. I've gotten four federal internships (two paid) in this manner and turned down offers or interviews for half a dozen more.