Working during the academic year Forum

[goodthings]

Have you done it? Did you lose your mind? If you've done it-- How many hours per week did you work (and how demanding was the work), how many units did you take at the same time (not counting any credit you may have received), and how committed were you to other extracurriculars (mock trial/moot court, journal membership, group leadership, etc)? Any advice on making it work?

[Anonymous User]

Don't do it during 1L. After that, eh, it's fine. Unless you are on your school's flagship law review, most extracurriculars will be less helpful on your resume than working. Don't work more than 20 hours a week, don't do it unless you are a) getting paid b) getting credit or c) working somewhere that might hire you post-grad. If you already have a 2L firm job lined up, being a RA a few hours a week is a nice way to make sure you don't forget how westlaw works, polish your bluebooking, and make a little spending money. If you want to clerk, it's a great way to get a rec from a professor.

[Anonymous User]

Second semester 1L, I worked about 5-7 hr/week as an RA (on top of the standard full-time 1L stuff).

First semester 2L, I did a 2 cr. internship - about 7-10 hrs/week (sorry, I honestly forget). I took 14 graded credits and 2 ungraded credits on top of that (moot court + LR).

Second semester 2L, I did a 3 cr. internship - about 15 hrs/week. I took 11 more graded credits and 1 ungraded (LR).

Second semester 3L, I did an internship - I think again about 7-10 hrs/week. (I didn't do it for credit because my school caps the amount of credit you can get for externships/experiential courses). I took 14 graded credits and 4 ungraded credits (moot court + LR).

All of the intern/externships were pretty much all research and writing - I wrote appellate briefs, judicial orders, and memos for attorneys. I don't think the work was particularly hard, conceptually, except for the fact that as a law student I didn't know very much. What I really liked about it was you went to the intern/externship, and worked, and then you went home, and left the work behind (plus all the usual valuable stuff of seeing what attorneys actually do. etc.).

I was on the boards for both LR and MC, although the crush times for each of those came at different times, which helped. The only time I found it particularly difficult was 2nd semester 3L, because 4 of my graded credits were for a clinic. Clinic + externship + LR board + moot court board (organizing stuff/competing) was kinda nuts, especially combined with 3L senioritis. Otherwise, it really wasn't that bad (my grades tended to go up when I was busy - until the last semester when I took it too far!).

One thing I found helpful was to make sure I arranged from the beginning to have the work end a good 2-3 weeks before the end of the semester, so I wasn't trying to finish internship work and study at the same time. (This is pretty easy if you're doing it for credit - you usually have to work x number of hours per credit, and once you've done that, you're done.) Part of the problem with 2nd semester 3L was that I couldn't start the internship as early as I'd wanted, so I ended up working later in the semester, which wasn't very good.

[cinephile]

Do it.

[kryptix]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

[hangtime813]

Don't do it during 1L. After that, eh, it's fine. Unless you are on your school's flagship law review, most extracurriculars will be less helpful on your resume than working. Don't work more than 20 hours a week, don't do it unless you are a) getting paid b) getting credit or c) working somewhere that might hire you post-grad. If you already have a 2L firm job lined up, being a RA a few hours a week is a nice way to make sure you don't forget how westlaw works, polish your bluebooking, and make a little spending money. If you want to clerk, it's a great way to get a rec from a professor.

i am a 2L and i generally bill 20 hrs a week (i have a billables requirement) but i work way more that. if you work 20+ hrs a week, get ready to lose sleep and probably study time. cant really advise you how to cope...just the reality of it =(

[target]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

How is this possible? I thought the ABA mandates that all law students cannot work more than 20 hours per week.

[A. Nony Mouse]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

How is this possible? I thought the ABA mandates that all law students cannot work more than 20 hours per week.

Only full-time law students. Under 12 credits is usually part-time.

[iconoclasttt]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

How is this possible? I thought the ABA mandates that all law students cannot work more than 20 hours per week.

How do you suppose the ABA enforces that rule? The ABA controls accreditation of schools, not matters regarding individual students.

Individual schools can incorporate the ABA's rules into their own, and some do--meaning that if they were to find out, a student might be subject to discipline. I'm not aware that any of the upper T1 schools do any more than strongly advise students not to work more than the ABA permits. Lower ranked schools tend to take limitations on working (and attendance requirements) more seriously, because on the whole they do affect student success, which in turn factors into the school's accreditation and ranking.

If memory serves, I billed about 1300 hours during my spring 2L/fall 3L year and was attending summer session and doing LR as well. I didn't care by that point and my employment situation was secure; even so, I managed a respectable finish. Not recommending this (except for those in similar circumstances); just saying it's not impossible.

[A. Nony Mouse]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

How is this possible? I thought the ABA mandates that all law students cannot work more than 20 hours per week.

How do you suppose the ABA enforces that rule? The ABA controls accreditation of schools, not matters regarding individual students.

Individual schools can incorporate the ABA's rules into their own, and some do--meaning that if they were to find out, a student might be subject to discipline. I'm not aware that any of the upper T1 schools do any more than strongly advise students not to work more than the ABA permits. Lower ranked schools tend to take limitations on working (and attendance requirements) more seriously, because on the whole they do affect student success, which in turn factors into the school's accreditation and ranking.

If memory serves, I billed about 1300 hours during my spring 2L/fall 3L year and was attending summer session and doing LR as well. I didn't care by that point and my employment situation was secure; even so, I managed a respectable finish. Not recommending this (except for those in similar circumstances); just saying it's not impossible.

Well, technically, if the ABA finds that a school isn't enforcing the 20 hrs. week maximum, they can in fact pull the school's accreditation. I doubt this is ever likely to happen because I don't think that enough full-time students do end up working more than 20 hrs a week for it to be worth the hassle, but it is possible.

[kryptix]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

How is this possible? I thought the ABA mandates that all law students cannot work more than 20 hours per week.

How do you suppose the ABA enforces that rule? The ABA controls accreditation of schools, not matters regarding individual students.

Individual schools can incorporate the ABA's rules into their own, and some do--meaning that if they were to find out, a student might be subject to discipline. I'm not aware that any of the upper T1 schools do any more than strongly advise students not to work more than the ABA permits. Lower ranked schools tend to take limitations on working (and attendance requirements) more seriously, because on the whole they do affect student success, which in turn factors into the school's accreditation and ranking.

If memory serves, I billed about 1300 hours during my spring 2L/fall 3L year and was attending summer session and doing LR as well. I didn't care by that point and my employment situation was secure; even so, I managed a respectable finish. Not recommending this (except for those in similar circumstances); just saying it's not impossible.

Well, technically, if the ABA finds that a school isn't enforcing the 20 hrs. week maximum, they can in fact pull the school's accreditation. I doubt this is ever likely to happen because I don't think that enough full-time students do end up working more than 20 hrs a week for it to be worth the hassle, but it is possible.

I'm part time (but it works out to one less class a semester so really the ABA rule is pretty BS)... You only do it with the assumption that your not going to be competitive grades wise with the full time students with the best grades, but you do get a boost in front of a lot of employers. Interviewers who went K-JD usually don't give it much credit though.

[Anonymous User]

Yes, I've done it. Last 3 semesters of law school. It hurt my grades, but has given me good experience. Kind of needed the extra money, although honestly I would not generally recommend this. I worked 10-20 hr per week though usually more like 10. It was enough to make an impact though--there's only so much boring legal shit I can look at in a day or week.

[3ThrowAway99]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

flame

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm part time (but it works out to one less class a semester so really the ABA rule is pretty BS)...

Definitely.

[kryptix]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

flame

Lol there's a pretty big percentage of the part time students at my school who work for investment banks, actually there's one forgoing big law because they got promoted to director during school and want to try to make MD instead. How is that a flame?

You do get used to it after a while, but its really hard to stay motivated for school. Most of us have families too which doesn't help the balance at all. I do plan to take off for a long vacation post bar if I can but family = bills to be paid...

[somewhatwayward]

I work 15 hours a week at the GC's office of a public company. It pays $40/hour, and it is really interesting. The one thing that sucks is that I wasn't expecting to have this job, so I was already committed to being in a clinic, being a TA, being on the e-board of my journal, publishing my note and writing another article to (hopefully) be published, random extracurriculars...oh yeah and class. This year has been really crazy bc of it. But I would highly recommend working a legally-related job.

[iconoclasttt]

Well, technically, if the ABA finds that a school isn't enforcing the 20 hrs. week maximum, they can in fact pull the school's accreditation. I doubt this is ever likely to happen because I don't think that enough full-time students do end up working more than 20 hrs a week for it to be worth the hassle, but it is possible.

[/quote]

Yes, I acknowledged that ABA has jurisdiction over accreditation. The point is that the school is the only entity that can enforce the rule as to a student, and if it elects not to do so, the rule is a dead letter.

[kryptix]

I work 15 hours a week at the GC's office of a public company. It pays $40/hour, and it is really interesting. The one thing that sucks is that I wasn't expecting to have this job, so I was already committed to being in a clinic, being a TA, being on the e-board of my journal, publishing my note and writing another article to (hopefully) be published, random extracurriculars...oh yeah and class. This year has been really crazy bc of it. But I would highly recommend working a legally-related job.

Yeah I turned down an executive board position because the year as a staff member was pretty crazy already with 5 books...

[6lehderjets]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

flame

Lol there's a pretty big percentage of the part time students at my school who work for investment banks, actually there's one forgoing big law because they got promoted to director during school and want to try to make MD instead. How is that a flame?

You do get used to it after a while, but its really hard to stay motivated for school. Most of us have families too which doesn't help the balance at all. I do plan to take off for a long vacation post bar if I can but family = bills to be paid...

Out of curiousity, why are so many IB'ers in law school? Does it significantly help with career advancement?

[kryptix]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

flame

Lol there's a pretty big percentage of the part time students at my school who work for investment banks, actually there's one forgoing big law because they got promoted to director during school and want to try to make MD instead. How is that a flame?

You do get used to it after a while, but its really hard to stay motivated for school. Most of us have families too which doesn't help the balance at all. I do plan to take off for a long vacation post bar if I can but family = bills to be paid...

Out of curiousity, why are so many IB'ers in law school? Does it significantly help with career advancement?

Not really but it's a good insurance policy with better job security and career longevity, also a bit less luck dependent for advancement? You can control your career trajectory a bit better in law with slightly less upside room to advance. You can always go back to finance though and most of your time in law should transfer back in role/title.

The pay isn't really a motivating factor though because its at best lateral.

[$$$$$$]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

flame

Lol there's a pretty big percentage of the part time students at my school who work for investment banks, actually there's one forgoing big law because they got promoted to director during school and want to try to make MD instead. How is that a flame?

You do get used to it after a while, but its really hard to stay motivated for school. Most of us have families too which doesn't help the balance at all. I do plan to take off for a long vacation post bar if I can but family = bills to be paid...

Out of curiousity, why are so many IB'ers in law school? Does it significantly help with career advancement?

How do you work 50-60 hours a week for an investment bank and not get fired? Back Office?

I worked 30-40 hours a week my last 2 years of law school. It takes you out of the social scene when you have work every morning, but definitely worth it and I learned a lot while getting paid. If you have the chance, do it, because law school pretty much teaches you nothing about the real world.

[kryptix]

They knew about me going to school, you make up time on days without class and volunteer for weekend work. Pretty much the same applies to the others. Also on the trading side hours are more market driven so the clash with evening classes is less. I have worked many times in class though... I tell my professors about that at the beginning of the year.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Well, technically, if the ABA finds that a school isn't enforcing the 20 hrs. week maximum, they can in fact pull the school's accreditation. I doubt this is ever likely to happen because I don't think that enough full-time students do end up working more than 20 hrs a week for it to be worth the hassle, but it is possible.

Yes, I acknowledged that ABA has jurisdiction over accreditation. The point is that the school is the only entity that can enforce the rule as to a student, and if it elects not to do so, the rule is a dead letter.

No, you're right, the ABA has no direct jurisdiction over students. But it has the ability to regulate schools, and I'm just pointing out a reason why a school would want to enforce ABA rules (or at least look like they're doing so).

[target]

50-60 hours a week at a bulge bracket bank taking 11 credits throughout law school. Your going to be doing the hours as an associate, why not start early and pay for law school before you graduate?

How is this possible? I thought the ABA mandates that all law students cannot work more than 20 hours per week.

Only full-time law students. Under 12 credits is usually part-time.

Hm, interesting. I may try to do this in my last semester then. Carry on.

[Anonymous User]

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