Top Law Schools

I apologize for asking a question that will be easily answered by the CSO of whatever school I end up going to, but I'm curious about this. If you end up doing your 1L summer in a large company's legal department (assuming these internships exist) are they usually paid or unpaid? If paid is it around how much a 1L SA is or way less? I'm guessing they're not covered by summer PI funding so unpaid would be tough.

It depends. It can be unpaid if it is for academic credit. It can't be for both academic credit and money (I think). And no, its not going to pay as much as a 1L SA, unless the SA is substantially below market.
SA positions pay so much because the firm is trying to lock you in for 2L and after graduation, so they spend for that privilege. The company (with few exceptions) is not going to hire you right out of school, so you are being used for cheap labor.

ImNoScar wrote:It depends. It can be unpaid if it is for academic credit. It can't be for both academic credit and money (I think). And no, its not going to pay as much as a 1L SA, unless the SA is substantially below market.
SA positions pay so much because the firm is trying to lock you in for 2L and after graduation, so they spend for that privilege. The company (with few exceptions) is not going to hire you right out of school, so you are being used for cheap labor.

Makes perfect sense, thanks.

If it's for academic credit, do you have to pay for those credits?

.

Yukos wrote:

ImNoScar wrote:It depends. It can be unpaid if it is for academic credit. It can't be for both academic credit and money (I think). And no, its not going to pay as much as a 1L SA, unless the SA is substantially below market.
SA positions pay so much because the firm is trying to lock you in for 2L and after graduation, so they spend for that privilege. The company (with few exceptions) is not going to hire you right out of school, so you are being used for cheap labor.

Makes perfect sense, thanks.

If it's for academic credit, do you have to pay for those credits?

Yes, unfortunately. However, most I have seen have been paid. As far as how much, I have seen anywhere between 10 and 30 dollars am hour. The average seems to be 20 or 25.
This has just been my experience, some may pay more or less.

ImNoScar wrote:

Yukos wrote:

ImNoScar wrote:It depends. It can be unpaid if it is for academic credit. It can't be for both academic credit and money (I think). And no, its not going to pay as much as a 1L SA, unless the SA is substantially below market.
SA positions pay so much because the firm is trying to lock you in for 2L and after graduation, so they spend for that privilege. The company (with few exceptions) is not going to hire you right out of school, so you are being used for cheap labor.

Makes perfect sense, thanks.

If it's for academic credit, do you have to pay for those credits?

Yes, unfortunately. However, most I have seen have been paid. As far as how much, I have seen anywhere between 10 and 30 dollars am hour. The average seems to be 20 or 25.
This has just been my experience, some may pay more or less.

At the schools I'm looking at, summer PI funding ends up being about 10/hour, so 20 is actually pretty good.

Thanks to both of you, curiosity satiated

PriOSky wrote:1L in-house internships can pay anything from $0 to $2000+/week depending on the company.

To second this, I've seen jobs advertise unpaid, $10/hour, $15/hour...35/hour, 1700/week