Evening Student, Real Life Exp, No Moot Court Exp Forum

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lawinchgo

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Evening Student, Real Life Exp, No Moot Court Exp

Post by lawinchgo » Mon Mar 15, 2021 5:40 pm

Hello, I will try to keep this brief. I am a non-traditional student in law school. I am almost done except for 9 more credit hours. I work as a paralegal in insurance defense and have been doing so for more than 10 years. I have assisted attorneys from pre-suit claims to mediation and trial prep. Lately, I have been feeling a bit uneasy because Im not sure if those students who participate in extracurricular activities like moot/mock court really do have an edge?

I always felt my real life experience would be more advantageous so I guess I'm writing to find out if attorneys that are already practicing, if they see a resume for someone like me, would it matter to you that is not on my resume? Does real life experience trump a fabricated school hypo? Thank You!!

nixy

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Re: Evening Student, Real Life Exp, No Moot Court Exp

Post by nixy » Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:03 pm

It's going to depend on the employer and what the extracurricular experience is.

I don't think mock trial/moot court are particularly important to any employers. Moot court gives you the chance to write a brief, to the extent getting a writing sample is helpful, but not many students walk out of law school and do appellate work. Mock trial gives you some practice getting up and examining/cross-examining witnesses, but I think most employers who throw you in court right away would rather see you get that experience in a real court in an internship or clinic. They're perfectly fine, but not at all necessary.

Law review (and to a lesser extent a secondary journal) can be important to some employers, mostly those who hire based on grades like biglaw or judges. But a public defender or local prosecutor is not likely to care if you were on law review.

Getting as much work experience as you can in a real-life setting is probably the most important thing to employers who aren't all about grades. You kind of have that in that working as a paralegal is way more practical legal experience than most students get, but it's not in a lawyer role, so ideally you would have some kind of internship/summer position(s) that would say "lawyer" more than "paralegal."

But again, it will depend on the employer. Another insurance defense firm may love your current experience. A local prosecutor's office may recognize that you have a fair amount of practical experience but also want to see some kind of interest in/dedication to criminal law. A biglaw firm may be interested, or may say "but we don't do insurance defense." I don't think it's clear cut one way or the other, depending on the circumstances.

JamezPhoenix

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Re: Evening Student, Real Life Exp, No Moot Court Exp

Post by JamezPhoenix » Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:56 pm

Completely anecdotal, but I know several people who have competed, and won, at moot court. From what they have told me, none of the prospective employers cared. The main benefit to those kinds of competitions seems to be to have fun, practice your skills and network.

ESQ92

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Re: Evening Student, Real Life Exp, No Moot Court Exp

Post by ESQ92 » Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:51 pm

Assuming all other relevant factors are the same, 10 out of 10 times I would take the new associate who has 10 years of paralegl xp over someone who did moot court or mock trial.

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