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Hey all,

Looking for any advice/stories/experiences that any of you might be able to provide. I will be working this summer in a city I would like to end up in after graduation, but it has no chance of post-grad employment. Aside from the obvious of working hard there, and trying to get some ppl at the office to help out w/ networking, I need to know what else to do. I am a horrible at networking the cold way. If that's what I have to do, then please explain the how, because I can never seem to do it a beneficial way.

My story: finished 2L year at wustl. Grades will probably slip a little bit this semester, so I'll assume that I am top 1/3 and my journal is law review. My undergrad majors are Finance and Econ with a 4.0 in major-specific classes. Although useful, they come from a small school that has no alumni base. It also isn't known, and the people that do know it think it's a shit school. An attorney asked me how I ended up at wustl coming from there.

What I would like to do:
Transactional work - financing, M&A - I doubt my chances of breaking into big law as a 3L, and I haven't found very many firms that do this type of work outside big law.
Litigation - antitrust/securities/white collar crime - same big law stipulation applies
Tax law - depending how bad I did in international tax, this is a strong possibility

Other possibilities:
Finance - Coming from my undergrad, unless a JD from wustl would open up any other doors (not thinking so), there's no way that I'll break into investment banking, hedge funds, etc. I tried for a year in between law school and failed miserably.
Consulting - Does a JD open up any doors here? How do I network to set myself up for this? I would much rather do consulting than most types of litigation.
Network/software development? - Job descriptions say any hard quantitative degree, and then list economics. Is this actually true, or do they mean econ majors from certain schools? How to network with these people?
Tax/Accounting - I could probably get into auditing and taxation at the b-school next semester, and that would give me the required 4 class to sit for my state's CPA, and then I would only need to get more hours after that. I'm waiting on a response to see if law school tax classes count for the hours, but if anyone knows here, that would be helpful as well.
Anything I didn't think of that I might qualify for - I'm all ears.

Thanks!

You need to be more realistic about your job options. Daring to dream going into law school is one thing but now that the biglaw ship has sailed you need to temper expectations. Be looking at small firms that deal in small time commercial lit or even personal injury. Forget about financing, M&A, antitrust, securities. You could find criminal defense but I am not sure how much white collar is going to be available.

You are going to have a law degree...so look for lawyer jobs. 80% of attorneys work in smaller practices, 2-10 people. Splitting off in a different direction--consulting, network development, finance--won't be an efficient use of time. If those had been your cup of tea you presumably would have gone into them prior to law school. Why go through all the trouble, time and expense of law school only to run away from law at the end?