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Hey guys, so I have no interest in criminal law but I took a 1L internship for part of the summer with the local DA office. I did it mostly because my work experience/background is in corporate/management consulting and my resume screams corporate work, but I want to litigate. I was hoping I could leverage the court room experience at least into why I wanna do litigation.

It has been interesting so far, a lot of court observing, conducting witness and victim interviews, and doing some other discovery for some cases. However, there is times where for several hours I will have absolutely nothing to do, and coming from a high demand consulting background it kills me. I was hoping to atleast get a writing sample that I could use at oci, but no research projects yet. I was wondering if it would be out of line to ask the DA for one? I'm just worried about not having enough to talk about/spin at oci in the fall and I was nervous about taking the DA position in the first place because I was worried about the lack of work an it potenatially hurting me at oci. Top 20% at a T-10 if it matters

I don't think it's out of line so long as you pose the question nicely. I'm assuming that you have some person that manages you and gives you different tasks or things to do. I would just write that person a nice e-mail expressing your interest and asking her to keep you in mind if any research/writing opportunities come up. You might even mention that you've been told by your school that it's good to try to have a writing sample for different opportunities throughout the rest of law school.

Also, unless you'd like to return to work at this DA office, you really don't need to be too worried about these sorts of risks. Almost no firms ask for recommendations, and annoying your employer probably won't affect you on your moral character evaluation. So even if you somehow manage to offend, you'll be fine.

Oh, and be aware that surprisingly few firms ask for a writing sample. If your 1L writing stuff doesn't totally suck, you'll be fine even running with those for the few that do. As top 20% at a T10, I think you should have no problem finding a job at a great firm. Congrats on your performance.