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Working for a judge in a state trial court right now. I'm happy with it, but I'm worried it puts me at a disadvantage compared to classmates who are working in federal court/US attorneys office, etc. Is this something that would hurt me in an interview with a biglaw firm, or would a firms just care that the person they're interviewing have some type of substantive legal experience during their first summer, regardless of where?

Anonymous User wrote:Working for a judge in a state trial court right now. I'm happy with it, but I'm worried it puts me at a disadvantage compared to classmates who are working in federal court/US attorneys office, etc. Is this something that would hurt me in an interview with a biglaw firm, or would a firms just care that the person they're interviewing have some type of substantive legal experience during their first summer, regardless of where?

Just want some type of substantive legal experience, regardless of where. 1L summer doesn't matter for the most part.

There is no such thing as a "bad" 1L summer legal experience unless you're working for like, traffic court. And even then you can still spin it.

Start thinking about a way to frame your summer experience, or even just one project that you worked on, that will make your experience look valuable or unique. Don't get caught up with relative "prestige," just be enthusiastic and sell the experience that you had and show that you've learned something from it, and that it's made you more eager to become a lawyer.

Anonymous User wrote:Working for a judge in a state trial court right now. I'm happy with it, but I'm worried it puts me at a disadvantage compared to classmates who are working in federal court/US attorneys office, etc. Is this something that would hurt me in an interview with a biglaw firm, or would a firms just care that the person they're interviewing have some type of substantive legal experience during their first summer, regardless of where?

If you are working there because your grades are bad and you weren't able to get a position anywhere else, then yes, it will hurt you. Otherwise, no.

Here's what you need to understand and what almost every interviewing law student fails to understand: the "work experience" you gain in a summer during law school is not really treated by employers, especially big firms, as "work experience" at all, because spending 2-2.5 months doing ANYTHING is almost completely inconsequential to how you perform as a junior associate in a large firm. I.e. you're not going to actually gain significant work experience or training in any summer internship -- and I don't care if it's an internship at SCOTUS -- that will actually make you more employable.

The only value it really has to your interviewer is to demonstrate interest in something law-related. I mean maybe there's a very slight prestige bump, and I mean very slight, for certain kinds of internships, but it really doesn't matter much.

They aren't hiring your 1L job, they're hiring your personality.

johndhi wrote:They aren't hiring your 1L job, they're hiring your personality.

Ha. They might be looking for a few other things as well.

Mce252 wrote:

johndhi wrote:They aren't hiring your 1L job, they're hiring your personality.

Ha. They might be looking for a few other things as well.

And none of them have anything to do with your 1L job, hth.