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I am a 1L at a T-10. I have no work experience, k-JD, however I will be doing a judicial internship with a state appeals judge in California. While I have yet to receive my grades, if I end up hitting median (where I hear that softs become very important) how much will my lack of w/e hurt me? Will my judicial internship help make up for that? Should I volunteer for a Pro-Bono club or other school organizations to try and pad my softs a bit?
Thanks!

you have literally no work experience? nothing from HS or UG that you could spin in an interview?

patogordo wrote:you have literally no work experience? nothing from HS or UG that you could spin in an interview?

A tiny bit. I was a summer intern during my HS summers chasing coffee at my dad's office in order to earn money for my car. That's it.

You should consider picking up something else legal between now and then. Working for a judge can be a very good experience, but it also might be hit or miss what sort of tangible work you get. It would be safer to have something else, even if it is like a part time RA job or 10 hours a week with legal aid or something.

2014 wrote:You should consider picking up something else legal between now and then. Working for a judge can be a very good experience, but it also might be hit or miss what sort of tangible work you get. It would be safer to have something else, even if it is like a part time RA job or 10 hours a week with legal aid or something.

yea, basically this. all you're looking for, really, is some interesting work anecdotes to use in interviews. interviewers like to hear "oh yea, that reminds me of a time at X job when i did Y" because it shows that you can actually do something productive in a work environment, which is rare.

What else did you do in undergrad? You could use stories from things that aren't technically "jobs" if you need to. Like I know one girl in a similar situation who started a new organization at her undergrad institution and used that as a springboard in interviews. If you held any kind of leadership role in anything during undergrad that's at least something.

You aren't doing any pro bono work or volunteering during the year? No PT job or volunteering in undergrad?

I'm not sure exactly how bad it will hurt you, but think about the context of an actual interview. Interviewers realize you just have 1L summer of legal experience, unless maybe you were a paralegal before law school or something. In every interview I had that went well the interviewer saw some random internship or activity that I did in UG or summers and said "hey that's cool, I did something similar back in the day" and it led to good conversation. As the poster above said, it's mostly about giving you interesting anecdotes that an interviewer might want to talk about. If you can, try to volunteer a few hours a week somewhere this spring. For example, I helped out at the after school program for the Boys and Girls Club at a middle school in my area. I got paid to play games with middle schoolers in the afternoons and it was a good way to take a couple hours off from the LS grind. These types of organizations are always looking for people to help out, and it was a positive conversation topic in a lot of interviews. K-JD here also for the record.

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From what I can tell, substantial work experience (esp FT) is a big plus, but not a necessary condition for a firm job at a T14. Interviewers are always happily surprised by my WE, which indicates more that they often don't see much - and tons of those people get jobs anyway.

As others have said, you do need to fill a 1pg resume with something. You couldn't have gone thru 4 yrs of undergrad and gotten into a "T10" law school without any PT jobs, summer internships, volunteering, club leadership, even tutoring. It's just not possible. Even if it wasn't paid work, it can go under "experience" on a resume when it needs to, as long as you can speak to it and say something mildly interesting about yourself as a candidate.