3L Public Defender Applications Forum

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Hennepin Co. Minneapolis? I interviewed at EJW (3L) but haven't heard yet.

Also, it's not a post-grad job, but did anyone else interview for the spring internship with ACS? I haven't heard, so I'm assuming by now that they already hired. I'd like to get off their unrelenting spam list now if they're not going to hire me.

I also interviewed with Hennepin. He asked me to follow up with a writing sample. I never even heard if they received my writing sample or not.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Hennepin Co. Minneapolis? I interviewed at EJW (3L) but haven't heard yet.

Also, it's not a post-grad job, but did anyone else interview for the spring internship with ACS? I haven't heard, so I'm assuming by now that they already hired. I'd like to get off their unrelenting spam list now if they're not going to hire me.

I also interviewed with Hennepin. He asked me to follow up with a writing sample. I never even heard if they received my writing sample or not.

Uh oh. I don't remember this at all. I hope I didn't forget to follow up with something.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Hennepin Co. Minneapolis? I interviewed at EJW (3L) but haven't heard yet.

Also, it's not a post-grad job, but did anyone else interview for the spring internship with ACS? I haven't heard, so I'm assuming by now that they already hired. I'd like to get off their unrelenting spam list now if they're not going to hire me.

I also interviewed with Hennepin. He asked me to follow up with a writing sample. I never even heard if they received my writing sample or not.

Uh oh. I don't remember this at all. I hope I didn't forget to follow up with something.

I think it was because he asked me about one of my highlights from summer and it involved a motion that I wrote and he asked me to send it along. But like I said, still haven't heard a thing.

[Anonymous User]

Request to interview with NHPD today. Cool because they blasted my ass last year for an internship.

[kastane23]

Just FYI for LAS hopefuls- two of my sources just confirmed that they are only hiring around 25 people this year. So- if you haven't had your interviews yet- make sure you really kill them!

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Bronx Defenders?

[Anonymous User]

Request to interview with NHPD today. Cool because they blasted my ass last year for an internship.

EJW related or not?

ETA- also, anyone who interviewed or table talked Colorado at EJW hear back yet?

[spleenworship]

Man. The waiting for offices to follow up with you is killer.

[jess]

.

[spleenworship]

I was told to leave it all on and address it in a cover letter. Of course, this was by career services, FWIW, and I've only scored about 30% interviews with similar grades and experience as you. (Hi law school numbers twin!). I was told by an interviewer that my cover letter explanation was good... but ive been aske to explain it in literally every interview.

Which actually seems unfair. If we knew before and during 1L what we wanted to do with our lives, we wouldnt have gone to law school!

So anyway if you want to cut one, I guess cut the drugs... Because PDs I've met are generally cool with antitrust actions. Less so with drug prosecution. Good luck!

[Tanicius]

Have you externed at a PD at all your 2L year? If so, I'd write your resume like this:

Smith County -- wrote motions, memos, and conducted legal research............. 2012

Federal District of Southern State -- wrote motions, appeared in court on record, conducted legal research..........2013

_________

The Smith County internship was your 1L summer intership, and the Fed one is your 2L fall semester externship. Get it? It looks like you summered at two places without lying.

[Anonymous User]

Request to interview with NHPD today. Cool because they blasted my ass last year for an internship.

EJW related or not?

ETA- also, anyone who interviewed or table talked Colorado at EJW hear back yet?

I interviewed with CO at EJW and have already had my second interview via Skype. A friend who interned there last summer and is having his interview this week told me they expect to send out offers in the first two weeks of January.

[Anonymous User]

Have you externed at a PD at all your 2L year? If so, I'd write your resume like this:

Smith County -- wrote motions, memos, and conducted legal research............. 2012

Federal District of Southern State -- wrote motions, appeared in court on record, conducted legal research..........2013

_________

The Smith County internship was your 1L summer intership, and the Fed one is your 2L fall semester externship. Get it? It looks like you summered at two places without lying.

Ummm... I don't know if this advice is sincere or not, but I seriously disagree with it. Any office that you get deep into the interview process with will figure out what's going on, or you'll be forced to hide it forever. (I get that Tanicius my be analogizing this to situations in court in which you ought to figure out how to answer questions from a judge honestly but strategically to protect your client, but a PD office will not find that as cute in the interview process.)

OP, you are going to have a hard time living down the prosecution experience, as you recognize, but the best way to do it is to explain it in a cover letter and in your interview, not to obfuscate it. You'll be fighting an uphill battle, but you're best served by providing some thoughtful explanation of your misguided choice to do a prosecution internship and how what you saw convinced you you could never be a prosecutor, reaffirmed your commitment to public defense, etc.

EDIT: The extent to which you express remorse/recognition of the misguidedness of doing prosecution work should be calibrated based on the offices you're applying to. There are some offices that have such a strong defender culture that they'll likely never consider someone who's done prosecution as recently as 2L summer, but others may be more forgiving. YMMV.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Bronx Defenders?

Yes. They sent out some interview offers last week. Interviews are happening this week and next. I don't know whether they're offering more interviews after that, but they're conducting them right now.

[Anonymous User]

Request to interview with NHPD today. Cool because they blasted my ass last year for an internship.

EJW related or not?

ETA- also, anyone who interviewed or table talked Colorado at EJW hear back yet?

I interviewed with CO at EJW and have already had my second interview via Skype. A friend who interned there last summer and is having his interview this week told me they expect to send out offers in the first two weeks of January.

Well hell. They interviewed me at EJW and I haven't heard anything.

[Anonymous User]

Have you externed at a PD at all your 2L year? If so, I'd write your resume like this:

Smith County -- wrote motions, memos, and conducted legal research............. 2012

Federal District of Southern State -- wrote motions, appeared in court on record, conducted legal research..........2013

_________

The Smith County internship was your 1L summer intership, and the Fed one is your 2L fall semester externship. Get it? It looks like you summered at two places without lying.

Ummm... I don't know if this advice is sincere or not, but I seriously disagree with it. Any office that you get deep into the interview process with will figure out what's going on, or you'll be forced to hide it forever. (I get that Tanicius my be analogizing this to situations in court in which you ought to figure out how to answer questions from a judge honestly but strategically to protect your client, but a PD office will not find that as cute in the interview process.)

OP, you are going to have a hard time living down the prosecution experience, as you recognize, but the best way to do it is to explain it in a cover letter and in your interview, not to obfuscate it. You'll be fighting an uphill battle, but you're best served by providing some thoughtful explanation of your misguided choice to do a prosecution internship and how what you saw convinced you you could never be a prosecutor, reaffirmed your commitment to public defense, etc.

EDIT: The extent to which you express remorse/recognition of the misguidedness of doing prosecution work should be calibrated based on the offices you're applying to. There are some offices that have such a strong defender culture that they'll likely never consider someone who's done prosecution as recently as 2L summer, but others may be more forgiving. YMMV.

Agree 100 percent to the not listing internships / externships by year. Very shady looking. Term-time commitments run on the academic calendar, not the January-December calendar. And summer internships are certainly not full-year commitments.

I've screened resumes in prior (non-legal) jobs, and folks who manipulated dates and the like were quickly sorted into the "no" pile before even getting a first interview.

I think it's fine to list something as "summer 2011," but I do worry about leaving an internship out altogether. Law school is sorta built on a summer internship model, and it's sorta misleading to drop something off altogether. If you do want to drop off the prosecution stuff, though, please do not list the antitrust work as an all-year commitment. Just use a "summer" designation.

[Tanicius]

I'm not suggesting you try to hide this at all. What you are doing is better arranging your resume to emphasize the experience that is important to a public defender office. If they ask whether it's summer work, freely tell them the second internship is not.

My resume gives my summer internships by yearly date instead of specifying the "season," and it is written like that because an attorney who looked at my resume told me to do it that way. When they ask what part of the year it is supposed to reflect, I just tell them. This is what everyone does on their resume once they have been around in the real world. You leave the unimportant experience off. Just because you may have neglected to put McDonald's down on your resume doesn't mean you're lying about not working at McDonald's. You would obviously mention it if asked, but it's normally not a relevant thing to put on your resume for certain offices.

[Anonymous User]

I'm not suggesting you try to hide this at all. You are better arranging your resume to emphasize the experience that is important to a public defender office. If they ask whether it's summer work, freely tell them the second internship is not.

My resume gives my summer internships by yearly date instead of specifying the "season," and it is written like that because an attorney who looked at my resume told me to do it that way. When they ask what part of the year it is supposed to reflect, I just tell them.

Disagree on this count, too. Summer experiences are different from term-time commitments. Confusing to have everything lumped together under a single year. Tough for an interviewer to assess the intensity of the experience (one day a week during the semester vs. every day during the summer).

I've never seen a resume laid out like this before.

You may end up getting screened out before folks have the chance to ask you the true extent of your involvement with a particular office / internship.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Bronx Defenders?

Yes. They sent out some interview offers last week. Interviews are happening this week and next. I don't know whether they're offering more interviews after that, but they're conducting them right now.

Ugh. Well, shit. I table talked with them, don't know if that counts as a first-round interview or if I've been passed over. I really want New York, but if I get locked out by BDS, Bronx and LAS, I think I'm finished unless I'm missing something, right?
Anyone know if any New York PDs hire post-bar? If I don't get a pre-bar offer anywhere, I haven't a clue where to take the bar, but New York is the place I lived for longest and consider "home."

[FlanAl]

Just FYI for LAS hopefuls- two of my sources just confirmed that they are only hiring around 25 people this year. So- if you haven't had your interviews yet- make sure you really kill them!

bummer and why? there is supposed to be an excess of funding this year due to a state cap in caseload and essentially the end of 18b's. I feel like this should be the best year ever to apply but my sources at an alternate say that they are probably going to take the funding and hire laterals, from where I don't know. I mean if a bunch of people get poached from legal aid to go to bronx or brooklyn, won't legal aid have to hire new people? Where else would they even poach from?

[FlanAl]

Has anyone heard from Bronx Defenders?

Yes. They sent out some interview offers last week. Interviews are happening this week and next. I don't know whether they're offering more interviews after that, but they're conducting them right now.

Ugh. Well, shit. I table talked with them, don't know if that counts as a first-round interview or if I've been passed over. I really want New York, but if I get locked out by BDS, Bronx and LAS, I think I'm finished unless I'm missing something, right?
Anyone know if any New York PDs hire post-bar? If I don't get a pre-bar offer anywhere, I haven't a clue where to take the bar, but New York is the place I lived for longest and consider "home."

I haven't figured out queens law associates yet but once I do i'll post here about it. Considering the funding I posted about some nyc office has to be hiring some people.

[Anonymous User]

I'm not suggesting you try to hide this at all. What you are doing is better arranging your resume to emphasize the experience that is important to a public defender office. If they ask whether it's summer work, freely tell them the second internship is not.

My resume gives my summer internships by yearly date instead of specifying the "season," and it is written like that because an attorney who looked at my resume told me to do it that way. When they ask what part of the year it is supposed to reflect, I just tell them. This is what everyone does on their resume once they have been around in the real world. You leave the unimportant experience off. Just because you may have neglected to put McDonald's down on your resume doesn't mean you're lying about not working at McDonald's. You would obviously mention it if asked, but it's normally not a relevant thing to put on your resume for certain offices.

Currently a PD. My sense is the above advice is a bit off. I have not seen resumes sorted only by year before, and it might make me ask questions. There's so much competition that standing out in a bad way may not serve you, especially when offices can interview a limited number of people.

I see the point about highlighting only certain things. But I share some of above anon's warnings about leaving prosecution experience off entirely. You're going to have to hide it forever, potentially, because it's not just leaving "irrelevant" experience off--it's leaving off experience you have in putting people in jail / prison.

That's info that some offices would hold against you if they knew or found out. Without an explanation from you in advance, you may be sunk before you get in the pool.

[kastane23]

Re: LAS my source said they will reach their capacity for case cap money after this year. Again, she could be wrong, but my career counselor also warned me that LAS's class size will be smaller.

I had an OCI with BDS and I haven't heard either way, I haven't heard from the Bronx either- so I am in the same boat of potentially being locked out.

New York County Defender Services hires VERY FEW people out of law school and they are interviewing at the NYU PILC fair. I've worked there before- the director is an awesome guy.

If you've done any appellate work, check out Center for Appellate Litigation and Office of the Appellate Defender. CAL's deadline JUST passed, but might as well apply anyways and OAD's deadline passes at the end of December.

[Anonymous User]

Re: LAS my source said they will reach their capacity for case cap money after this year. Again, she could be wrong, but my career counselor also warned me that LAS's class size will be smaller.

I had an OCI with BDS and I haven't heard either way, I haven't heard from the Bronx either- so I am in the same boat of potentially being locked out.

New York County Defender Services hires VERY FEW people out of law school and they are interviewing at the NYU PILC fair. I've worked there before- the director is an awesome guy.

If you've done any appellate work, check out Center for Appellate Litigation and Office of the Appellate Defender. CAL's deadline JUST passed, but might as well apply anyways and OAD's deadline passes at the end of December.

So does that mean people who score a final interview with Tina may not get the job now?

[Anonymous User]

Request to interview with NHPD today. Cool because they blasted my ass last year for an internship.

EJW related or not?

ETA- also, anyone who interviewed or table talked Colorado at EJW hear back yet?

No I submitted an application and received the request the same day.