How does employment work for PT students? Forum

[goosey]

I am familiar with (roughly) how ft students get jobs. I understand that you go through oci during 2L, if you are lucky enough to land something for the summer, you do it, and hope for an offer? Is this correct?

How would this process work for a pt student? I have read that pt students at Fordham, for example, participate in the same oci as ft students. If a pt student got a summer offer after their 2nd year, what would happen the summer of their 3rd year?

I apologize if this question is completely stupid, but I am just trying to get a little more info on what I can expect if I am pt.

[Kohinoor]

99.9999% sure you guys OCI too. I suspect that you OCI a year later?

[CourierTwelve]

Also depends if you make the switch to full time.

Just assume your part-time 2L summer = full time 1L summer, etc...

[goosey]

Also depends if you make the switch to full time.

Just assume your part-time 2L summer = full time 1L summer, etc...

so would this mean pt students dont do oci until pt 3L? and would their class rank be along with the ft 3Ls (the people they started law school with) or full time 2Ls?

[Connelly]

I only know how this works for my school.

We do not receive our 1L ranking until the end of our second year of part-time classes, as it takes until then for us to complete all of our 1L courses. When we are ranked at the end of that second year, it is based solely on our 1L grades (PT students will have taken additional, non-1L courses by that point), and we are ranked with the full-time 1L's who started a year after we did. So the fall of our third year of PT study will be the first time we can participate in OCI with a 1L ranking.

This does not mean that summer legal employment is not available to PT students; it is just less likely for two main reasons. The first is that many employers still follow the traditional model of hiring, and having no rank leaves you as a question mark. I have seen students overcome this hurdle, however. The biggest reason many PT students at my school (and at PT schools outside the top 30 schools or so) do not get summer legal employment the first year or two is that they have to keep their day job.

Fordham would likely be a different story, as more students are probably in the PT program there in order to just be at the school. At lower ranked schools, PT students are usually going PT because they have to from a financial perspective.

[nahgems]

Ranking groups vary by school. I'm PT/evening and our 1L rankings are combined with all other first years. My school lumps rankings into three groups:

(1) anyone who is scheduled to graduate (presumably 3Ls and PT4Ls),
(2) anyone who started in August (1L and PT1L) and
(3) everyone else (2L, PT2L, PT3L).

This means PT students get 2 years of being ranking with "regular" 2Ls. As far as OCI goes, career services basically uses the same groupings. They view us as 1L for our first year, 2L for both our 2nd and 3rd year and 3L for our 4th year.

[OperaSoprano]

Also depends if you make the switch to full time.

Just assume your part-time 2L summer = full time 1L summer, etc...

so would this mean pt students dont do oci until pt 3L? and would their class rank be along with the ft 3Ls (the people they started law school with) or full time 2Ls?

If you switch over, you'll do OCI with everyone in your day year. That's the way Fordham rolls. August 2011 for you.

[goosey]

Also depends if you make the switch to full time.

Just assume your part-time 2L summer = full time 1L summer, etc...

so would this mean pt students dont do oci until pt 3L? and would their class rank be along with the ft 3Ls (the people they started law school with) or full time 2Ls?

If you switch over, you'll do OCI with everyone in your day year. That's the way Fordham rolls. August 2011 for you.

and if I stay pt? I would do it during pt 3L?

[Mattalones]

This is an interesting question. I will be full time, but I wonder if anyone ever transfers from FT to PT. Anyone here ever heard of that?