Value of bk judicial internship Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm considering this. Bk seems polarizing. Beyond niche restructuring work, does a bk internship hurt a general trans pitch?

[Danteshek]

In your pitch to business executives running successful companies, you can tell them about your awesome skills in dismantling failed companies and exploiting that failure for your own benefit. All litigation thrives on failure and destruction, not the best orientation and mindset to develop if you want to help businesses grow and thrive. Any corporate advisor worth his or her salt stays the hell away from litigation and litigators... and particularly far from anything having to do with bankruptcy.

[Anonymous User]

Employers view the lit/trans divide that starkly, even towards what is essentially a 3 credit class? I figured bk court could be tied to an interest in trans work somehow, but I guess that's a bit too optimistic a view.

[emciosn]

In your pitch to business executives running successful companies, you can tell them about your awesome skills in dismantling failed companies and exploiting that failure for your own benefit. All litigation thrives on failure and destruction, not the best orientation and mindset to develop if you want to help businesses grow and thrive. Any corporate advisor worth his or her salt stays the hell away from litigation and litigators... and particularly far from anything having to do with bankruptcy.

^no idea what all that is about.

OP, are you talking a school-term internship, summer, what?

ETA: Also, which jurisdiction are we talking?

[Anonymous User]

During semester, concurrent with classes.

"Other" big city jurisdiction frequently mentioned in bk threads.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Danteshek is rather an extremist. I can't say there no sense in what he's saying, but he basically hates all legal work that isn't what he's doing, so I would take it with a large grain of salt.

[emciosn]

During semester, concurrent with classes.

"Other" big city jurisdiction frequently mentioned in bk threads.

Alright, well you're probably going to be doing mostly consumer stuff with the odd corporate case mixed in (unless your clerking Judge Goldgar in NDIL (Caesars) or one of the Judges in VA on the coal cases or something like that). It will be a decent experience and you will learn a lot from observing court proceedings and perhaps drafting a short decision or something along those lines for the Judge. If you don't want to do bankruptcy work specifically, substantively some of the stuff you learn won't matter but some other stuff might. If you get a corporate case, bankruptcy often gives you a chance to see the "guts" of previous deals. An ex post review of how the deal played out, what went wrong, etc. would be pretty valuable I think for a corporate attorney. Plus developing a relationship with a judge (assuming you make a decent impression) never hurts. Maybe he/she knows someone and will put in a good word for you. There is a ton of crossover between corporate and restructuring work in practice so he/she may have worked with corporate attorneys.

I don't really see it hurting your corporate pitch, even if it's not the best possible experience one could have. Bankruptcy can pigeon-hole you a bit, which is bad if you are not interested in restructuring work. But firms won't avoid you because of it (again, not really sure I understand what Danteshek is talking about). It's all about how you structure your narrative. Just say it was an opportunity that came up and you took it because you wanted to expose yourself to a wide range of experiences while in law school. Say the experience was valuable because you learned X, Y, and Z and solidified your interest in corporate work. Then include the line above about the value of seeing how a deal plays out and what you can learn from deals gone bad. HTH.

[JenDarby]

It's a judicial externship and bk is a mix of trans/lit. There's absolutely no chance this could hurt you in your search for transactional work. Nearly every transactional interviewer I have dealt with has responded positively to my bk externship.

Its legal work experience to put on your resume and 100% better than some random 3 credit class of you can also get credits, though either way you should do it.

Bonus: if you are doing NY bar it counts as your 50 hour pro bono requirement.