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BC Law 1L here. Just got offered an RA position with a professor doing transactional research for the summer. It sounded really interested but I got a bit spooked when my CSO advisor told me "the research is great and a lot of RAs do really well but many employers at OCI prefer you to come in with practical as opposed to academic experience".

In your guys experience is there any truth to this? I don't really have much else out there right now other than a few nibbles on jobs without something that's really promising. Should I hold out for better?

I don't think anyone cares what you do 1L summer, as long as it's law related. I RA'd my 1L summer, and it was a nice conversation starter at OCI, but I don't think it got me or cost me any offers. Do it if you're interested in the work.

If you don't have anything else right now, you should accept. It's April, and an RA position is better than no position. You could keep applying other places and see if you could convert your RA position into part time or just half the summer (or renege, if you're comfortable with that or think the professor would understand).

I went to BC Law. There are people I know who did the dumbest stuff 1L year and got good jobs (Ropes, Goodwin, etc.). No one cares what you do as long as you do well during 1L