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Hello all,

I've been working at a small-to-medium sized boutique firm for the past few months and I'm trying to figure out if they're eventually going to offer a full-time job. It started off as an unpaid internship, just for experience, etc., and then they decided to upgrade me to a paid "clerkship," (I have no idea why they decided to change the job title). After getting my first semester schedule, I informed my boss that I'd only have class three days a week (thanks 3L) and she said something along the lines of "good, now we can start to increase your hours more and more" and then sort of trailed off. I couldn't tell if that meant "increase your hours so that we can just eventually turn you into a full-time worker after you graduate" or just "good, now we can increase your hours."

I'm just completely unsure about how I could bring up the subject. Should I be forward and say "I'd love for my hours to be increased to 40-80 after May" or just bring it up more gently in a couple of months if I don't hear from anywhere else.

I really love the job, they're a boutique in the specialty that I want to practice and are in the location I want to practice, so it'd basically be the dream job.

Any thoughts?

Have you explicitly asked them? Perhaps you could tell someone who is in the position to make offers how much you would like to come back as an Associate Attorney, and then you can ask if they have plans to hire someone around the time that you will graduate and take the bar. The title "clerk" doesn't help you; you're looking for the "associate attorney" title.

You should absolutely just ask--there's nothing wrong or unprofessional about it. Just broach the topic by saying that you're beginning your post-law school job hunt and that you've enjoyed your time with them tremendously and wanted to know if a full-time associate position was a possibility. Be clear (as the prior poster mentioned) that you're looking for an associate position; if they promise something more along the lines of a permanent law clerk position post-grad, I would start looking elsewhere.