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A few weeks ago, I was fired from an unpaid government legal internship.
I am now applying for a particular private sector summer job opening and would like to know whether to leave the internship on my resume.

Additionally, I would like to know in general how badly this will affect me in the future.
When I had applied for jobs as a 2L, no one ever called my 1L summer internship to ask about me unless I specifically provided someone from there as a reference on my reference sheet.
So I was hoping that I can leave this job on my resume and no one would really know I was fired unless I specifically provide them as a reference?

Also, will any other problems come up from this such as C&F or anything else?

Why were you fired?

This is a part-time internship during the school term? You don't have to include it on your resume at all - no one expects you to work now and it won't hurt to eliminate it. My suspicion is that no one would call for a reference if you don't provide a reference from that internship, but maybe it's best not to risk it (and not to risk anyone asking why the dates are suspicious like Jan - March rather than all semester).

I think you have to say why you left each position for C&F. So whether that might cause you problems depends on why you were let go.

What happened?
If I were you, I probably wouldn't put that internship on my resume just in case a current prospective employer looks back, knows someone from there, asks about you, and BAM. just my 2 pennies tho

Yeah it all depends on why you were fired. So we're going to need a detailed story.

I was fired due to showing up late too often for the most part.

I guess I could leave it off my resume but I am really hoping I can leave it on because I made a LOT of sacrifices for this internship (dropped courses I really wanted to take, gave up other activities, gave up personal/family events, etc) and I would feel like it was all a waste if I don't get something out of it. At least if I can leave it on my resume that benefit would be worth the sacrifices. Does anyone with experience applying for legal jobs know how likely it is that employers call jobs that you have not listed as references? If the chance is REALLY low, then it's probably worth the risk?

And worst case, assuming they did call, would it really ruin my chances? The internship people said they'd be honest about what happened but they'd also include the good things about me (that my work was actually really good).

It would be absolutely insane to leave this on your resume. This one isn't even close.

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The jurisdictions I am familiar with require disclosures of all jobs for past ten years, paid or unpaid. So yes, leave it off resume but try to clear the air before your bar application

JusticeJackson wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:It would be absolutely insane to leave this on your resume. This one isn't even close.

This is right. As an interviewer at a firm, if I know anyone at the agency you interned at, I call, even if they're not listed as a reference. Even if I don't know anyone at the agency, I might call.

I get what you're saying regarding not losing out on the sunk cost of taking the internship, but at this point you need to distance yourself from that internship and hope it never ever surfaces again. They way I'd look at it as an interviewer is, "these guys fired him from working for free--why would I ever pay for this guy's work?" No offense to you, and you have time to turn it around, but learn from it, never make the same mistakes again, and try to keep this off your resume if you can ethically do so.

In fact, for other people reviewing this thread, this is true no matter why you were fired.

OP here,

Thanks for your response. I am just wondering, if it is common for prospective employers to call prior jobs, how come no one bothered to call my 1L summer job? I applied to many many places for 2L summer and 2L spring and fall internships, and not one person called my 1L summer job. (My 1L job was a judicial internship)

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Other employers may not call this internship to ask about you. Chances are probably decent that they won't, in fact. But they might, and you don't know ahead of time which a given employer will do. All you need is one time that you run into an interviewer who knows someone at the internship, and they decide to ask their good buddy about you, and it's going to look terrible that you left it on.

Also, leaving it on your resume makes it a possible topic for any interview in the future. If someone asks you about the experience, what are you going to say? If you tell them you were fired, you're sunk. But if you don't, you're going to have to dance around the fact that you were fired. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable going into an interview and talking about what I did at a job I got fired from without actually saying I got fired. In part because I think that would be deceptive (not sure people will agree), in part because I just wouldn't be able to pull it off.

Even if the chances are low, they are absolutely not worth it. To me, anyway.

Anonymous User wrote:I was fired due to showing up late too often for the most part.

I guess I could leave it off my resume but I am really hoping I can leave it on because I made a LOT of sacrifices for this internship (dropped courses I really wanted to take, gave up other activities, gave up personal/family events, etc) and I would feel like it was all a waste if I don't get something out of it. At least if I can leave it on my resume that benefit would be worth the sacrifices. Does anyone with experience applying for legal jobs know how likely it is that employers call jobs that you have not listed as references? If the chance is REALLY low, then it's probably worth the risk?

And worst case, assuming they did call, would it really ruin my chances? The internship people said they'd be honest about what happened but they'd also include the good things about me (that my work was actually really good).

Not to layer it on here, but if you made "a LOT of sacrifices" for the internship, why didn't you at least make a concerted effort to show up on time? I understand there is likely more to the story than you're leading on, but it just sounds to me that you actually didn't take it seriously because you got fired by an agency that wasn't even paying you. So not only were you not worth the money, you weren't worth the hassle, headache, or time. With that said, you probably don't deserve any benefit by having it on your resume. Doing so is just begging for trouble. Cut your losses, recognize what you did, learn from your mistakes, move on, and don't think of putting it on your resume or bringing it up to any future employer.

Anonymous User wrote:I was fired due to showing up late too often for the most part.

Anonymous User wrote:I made a LOT of sacrifices for this internship

Not to sound like a dick, but, if you feel you made a lot of sacrifices for a job you didn't bother showing up on time for, then you need to re-examine your entire work ethic. Obviously you did not sacrifice whatever it was that you were doing when you should have been at work.

Or do you plan on having the same attitude when you have meetings with potential clients? With court filings or appearances? Closings?

You're lucky. Right now, the only repercussion is that you got fired from a job you don't need to disclose to anyone (other than C&F, and I don't think that's a big deal). In the real world, shit like that could make you unemployable.

eta: scooped

guano wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I was fired due to showing up late too often for the most part.

Anonymous User wrote:I made a LOT of sacrifices for this internship

Not to sound like a dick, but, if you feel you made a lot of sacrifices for a job you didn't bother showing up on time for, then you need to re-examine your entire work ethic. Obviously you did not sacrifice whatever it was that you were doing when you should have been at work.

Or do you plan on having the same attitude when you have meetings with potential clients? With court filings or appearances? Closings?

You're lucky. Right now, the only repercussion is that you got fired from a job you don't need to disclose to anyone (other than C&F, and I don't think that's a big deal). In the real world, shit like that could make you unemployable.

eta: scooped

Great contribution.

3|ink wrote:

guano wrote:[comments on unprofessionalism]

Great contribution.

Sorry, but I have limited patience for people who are full of themselves with nothing to back it up. It takes a lot of gall, or a totally fucked up view of the world, to claim you've made a lot of sacrifices, when you can't even bother to show up more or less on time, or, as the poster above me put it:

downinDtown wrote:not only were you not worth the money, you weren't worth the hassle, headache, or time.

Did you reduce your course load to take the internship? If so, this may be lose-lose. An employer looking at your transcript will probably wonder why you only took 2 classes this semester and ask you about it, if they don't see a corresponding externship or other explanation on your resume.

This is a tough one. You should figure out how to dodge this without lying, if that's even possible. Sorry to rub salt in the wound, but employers will have no sympathy for someone who got fired from a semester-long unpaid internship for showing up consistently late, though I suspect you aren't telling the whole story.

WhiskeynCoke wrote:Did you reduce your course load to take the internship? If so, this may be lose-lose. An employer looking at your transcript will probably wonder why you only took 2 classes this semester and ask you about it, if they don't see a corresponding externship or other explanation on your resume.

This is a tough one. You should figure out how to dodge this without lying, if that's even possible. Sorry to rub salt in the wound, but employers will have no sympathy for someone who got fired from a semester-long unpaid internship for showing up consistently late, though I suspect you aren't telling the whole story.

If the OP wasn't taking a full time course load, then he was probably getting credit for the internship which would raise a few more concerns.

Hell no you don't put this on your resume. Who the hell gets fired from unpaid internships? WOW.

Out of curiosity, why were you habitually late? Couldn’t get motivated for an unpaid gig, car problems, late nights, SO was always frisky in the AM, or… Does habitually late mean ten minutes every morning or a few hours several times a week?

Do not have any advice on how you get out of this trick bag…

Jobs verify more than you think--my firm does, and I got verified a lot in LS. And you're going to be the guy, in those firms that do call, as the incompetent, unpunctual U.S. Agency intern forever. This could translate into gym/country club/bar association sidebar. Legal cliques are surprisingly tight knit. That internship doesn't show a whole lot to employers

Don't put it on your resume. There is no reason employers have to know about it.

Be aware, however, that you will have to disclose on your bar application (which is confidential to employers) that you were fired from this job and the reasons for it. It won't hurt you, but you'll have to put it on there.

I can't imagine any of those calls will do anything more than confirm dates of employment. It's not like you listed them as references.

How long did you work there? Was it a very short period of time?

You got fired from an unpaid internship. Imagine interviewing someone who was fired from McDonald's. Imagine laughing at them as they try to explain it away and then imagine the look on the hiring partner's face as you try to explain how you were fired from indentured servitude. You claim to have made sacrifices, and clearly work ethic was one of them (assuming tardiness is the explanation, which I sincerely doubt ). Tolkien characters don't troll that hard.

I think some of these responses are a little harsh. Being fired for habitual lateness is probably the best reason to be fired. It'd be much, much worse to be fired for bad work product -- or even worse, for breaking a client's confidence or any other real issue that suggests you're unethical or not competent. Being tardy is absolutely nothing in comparison and it's something you can easily correct.