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If you do this I'd at least do research for a professor for 15-20 hours per week as well, so you have something legal on your resume. Then again you go to Stanford and will likely be fine anyway.

Might be a good sell in itself if you want to do emerging company work as a lawyer.

Fresh Prince wrote:Might be a good sell in itself if you want to do emerging company work as a lawyer.

+1

Thanks, the RA position sounds like a good call, I could definitely do 15-20 hours on the side. Are there any other legal internships that are part time like that?

I can't speak to whether it's necessary, but yeah, an RA gig would be really easy to do on top of that. Mine was full time but incredibly flexible. It's a nice way to get a working relationship with a professor, too. One thing to keep in mind is that if you don't do anything besides the startup, you won't have a fresh recommendation from the summer.

Good point with the recs. Is RAing the main part time legal internship available?

Any idea what kind of law you want to practice? For instance, if you want to do patent law and the startup is some kind of tech startup, you could just go with that and skip the RA thing.

I'm not sure why you would need a recommendation from a professor for your 2L summer. Most firms don't ask for references. It may be helpful later if you want to clerk.

I know of several SLS grads who are now working at startups, in some cases ones they founded. Some did this directly out of law school and others practiced for a few years. Either way, they seem on the whole happier than the people working at firms. So if this startup is promising, you might want to focus your efforts on that.

Anonymous User wrote:Any idea what kind of law you want to practice? For instance, if you want to do patent law and the startup is some kind of tech startup, you could just go with that and skip the RA thing.

I'm not sure why you would need a recommendation from a professor for your 2L summer. Most firms don't ask for references. It may be helpful later if you want to clerk.

I know of several SLS grads who are now working at startups, in some cases ones they founded. Some did this directly out of law school and others practiced for a few years. Either way, they seem on the whole happier than the people working at firms. So if this startup is promising, you might want to focus your efforts on that.

This seems like terrible advice if the goal is to do patent law. I mean by Law, you will not be able to do anything law related the entire time youre there --at best you get to chat on the phone with the lawyer you hire.

Finish 1L - take a semester or year off from SLS and focus on start up is TCR.

I did the exact same thing my 1L summer (also did an RA job and took a summer class while doing so). It hurt during OCI, significantly in my opinion. Almost everywhere I went, I struggled to convince people that I actually wanted to do biglaw and wasn't just there for a couple of paychecks/until an interesting startup idea came along (I even had an attorney that hated his job tell me that they would be doing me a favor if they rejected me). It was tough because all of my interviews went fantastically (and i've been told repeatedly that i'm a great interviewer) and everyone was really interested in the startup. I actually ended up taking a semester off to allow me to redo OCI (without the startup on my resume, which was sold shortly after the summer). OCI went a lot better (multiple V50 offers) without the startup experience on my resume.

My suggestion is that if you choose to go this route, try to find something legally substantive (working for a judge etc.; something more than just RAing) that is also flexible/low on hours requirement. Then work on the startup at the same time but leave it off the resume completely. If you're interested in chatting more about this, let me know and I will PM you my email/cell.

Hipster but Athletic wrote: This seems like terrible advice if the goal is to do patent law. I mean by Law, you will not be able to do anything law related the entire time youre there --at best you get to chat on the phone with the lawyer you hire.

Technical experience and experience with start-ups is pretty valuable for patent law, where you spend a lot of your time interacting with engineers, often at start-ups. At least for prosecution or transactional ip work.

Anonymous User wrote:I did the exact same thing my 1L summer (also did an RA job and took a summer class while doing so). It hurt during OCI, significantly in my opinion. Almost everywhere I went, I struggled to convince people that I actually wanted to do biglaw and wasn't just there for a couple of paychecks/until an interesting startup idea came along (I even had an attorney that hated his job tell me that they would be doing me a favor if they rejected me). It was tough because all of my interviews went fantastically (and i've been told repeatedly that i'm a great interviewer) and everyone was really interested in the startup. I actually ended up taking a semester off to allow me to redo OCI (without the startup on my resume, which was sold shortly after the summer). OCI went a lot better (multiple V50 offers) without the startup experience on my resume.

My suggestion is that if you choose to go this route, try to find something legally substantive (working for a judge etc.; something more than just RAing) that is also flexible/low on hours requirement. Then work on the startup at the same time but leave it off the resume completely. If you're interested in chatting more about this, let me know and I will PM you my email/cell.

Did you go to Stanford? I generally agree with what you are saying, but the rules are a little different for SLS students, especially with SLS being located in the start-up capital of the world.

Anonymous User wrote:I did the exact same thing my 1L summer (also did an RA job and took a summer class while doing so). It hurt during OCI, significantly in my opinion. Almost everywhere I went, I struggled to convince people that I actually wanted to do biglaw and wasn't just there for a couple of paychecks/until an interesting startup idea came along (I even had an attorney that hated his job tell me that they would be doing me a favor if they rejected me). It was tough because all of my interviews went fantastically (and i've been told repeatedly that i'm a great interviewer) and everyone was really interested in the startup. I actually ended up taking a semester off to allow me to redo OCI (without the startup on my resume, which was sold shortly after the summer). OCI went a lot better (multiple V50 offers) without the startup experience on my resume.

My suggestion is that if you choose to go this route, try to find something legally substantive (working for a judge etc.; something more than just RAing) that is also flexible/low on hours requirement. Then work on the startup at the same time but leave it off the resume completely. If you're interested in chatting more about this, let me know and I will PM you my email/cell.

I'd love to chat, PM your info and I'll get back to you about a time thats good for both of us

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I did the exact same thing my 1L summer (also did an RA job and took a summer class while doing so). It hurt during OCI, significantly in my opinion. Almost everywhere I went, I struggled to convince people that I actually wanted to do biglaw and wasn't just there for a couple of paychecks/until an interesting startup idea came along (I even had an attorney that hated his job tell me that they would be doing me a favor if they rejected me). It was tough because all of my interviews went fantastically (and i've been told repeatedly that i'm a great interviewer) and everyone was really interested in the startup. I actually ended up taking a semester off to allow me to redo OCI (without the startup on my resume, which was sold shortly after the summer). OCI went a lot better (multiple V50 offers) without the startup experience on my resume.

My suggestion is that if you choose to go this route, try to find something legally substantive (working for a judge etc.; something more than just RAing) that is also flexible/low on hours requirement. Then work on the startup at the same time but leave it off the resume completely. If you're interested in chatting more about this, let me know and I will PM you my email/cell.

Did you go to Stanford? I generally agree with what you are saying, but the rules are a little different for SLS students, especially with SLS being located in the start-up capital of the world.

I should add that I do not go to SLS (lower ranked school) however I interviewed for a number of biglaw jobs in the bay area, including almost all of the biglaw firms that do emerging companies work (WSGR etc.). I agree that its a bit different for SLS folks, however, I would still say that it would probably harm your biglaw outcomes. Even the firms that did lots of startup work didn't seem to really like my startup aspect of my work. I think the biggest thing was that the work was during law school (when they want to see commitment to legal work) vs. before law school (when it would have been very beneficial, IMO, akin to working at Goldman and then wanting to do banking law work)

Anonymous User wrote:
I should add that I do not go to SLS (lower ranked school) however I interviewed for a number of biglaw jobs in the bay area, including almost all of the biglaw firms that do emerging companies work (WSGR etc.). I agree that its a bit different for SLS folks, however, I would still say that it would probably harm your biglaw outcomes. Even the firms that did lots of startup work didn't seem to really like my startup aspect of my work. I think the biggest thing was that the work was during law school (when they want to see commitment to legal work) vs. before law school (when it would have been very beneficial, IMO, akin to working at Goldman and then wanting to do banking law work)

Agreed that it may harm your biglaw outcomes, depending on what practice areas you are focused on and how you spin it. I would recommend doing it if you think it would be a valuable experience, and especially if you think it might lead to a job you'd rather do instead of biglaw some day. I wouldn't recommend doing it to help your chances of getting a biglaw job. SLS students may be in the unique position of being able to get away with it and still basically being guaranteed biglaw as a 2L. Outside of HYS, the risk of striking out at OCI is probably too great to risk something like this though.