Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer? Forum

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Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jan 06, 2022 6:38 pm

I'm a 1L at a T14. During finals I interviewed for and accepted an offer to spend my 1L summer with the civil rights division of my home state. It's not CA or NY, but career advancement staff at my school said the state does good work. My eventual goal is to do some kind of civil enforcement work for either state or federal government; most interested in environmental work (which is where my background is), but open to other things too.

I was pretty excited about it and felt good to be done with the process until this week, when I received invitations to interview from a few other places I applied to. This set me to thinking that maybe I hadn't aimed as I as high as I could have (CA, or maybe even DOJ). I'm also wondering whether I've closed the door on environmental work in the future — I would hope not, given that I worked in the field before law school, but maybe legal employers really want you to spend all your internship time in the field.

I know that everyone says 1L summer can only help and can't hurt, but I'm freaking out a bit (stupidly, I know, but I don't yet have my grades to freak out over) and am wondering whether I erred, or if it truly doesn't matter. Any thoughts welcome.

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Re: Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:02 pm

Congrats! I think you made a great choice. One of the many reasons your decision sounds like a good one is because of the networking opportunities it'll create, both because you're from the state and will spend a summer in the office. So much gov't hiring--state and federal--is about networking. This role sounds like a great way to make connections that can perhaps set you up for future positions, even if the office doesn't necessarily carry the name prestige of other states. Also, state AGs are really where the action is right now in terms of major public interest litigation. So aside from connections and shiny resume glitter, you'll likely get substantive experience that a peer wouldn't at some random component in DOJ. That matters. Congrats again!


nixy

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Re: Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer?

Post by nixy » Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:05 pm

You're fine. It's fine. 1L summer positions aren't materially prestigious even if they're with entities that might be prestigious post-grad. You'll get some useful experience that you can talk about in future interviews and you'll make some connections. Sometimes working for a slightly smaller entity can be better because interns get more attention and have an easier time getting to know people than at the most massive/"prestigious" ones. And as long as you can talk about how what you did relates to (say) environmental work, you don't need to do nothing but environmental work ever again. Learning about civil rights enforcement will give you information that's transferable to environmental stuff. (The only real conflict I can ID is, don't intern for a prosecution gig if you want to do public criminal defense.)

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Re: Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:56 pm

nixy wrote:
Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:05 pm
You're fine. It's fine. 1L summer positions aren't materially prestigious even if they're with entities that might be prestigious post-grad. You'll get some useful experience that you can talk about in future interviews and you'll make some connections. Sometimes working for a slightly smaller entity can be better because interns get more attention and have an easier time getting to know people than at the most massive/"prestigious" ones. And as long as you can talk about how what you did relates to (say) environmental work, you don't need to do nothing but environmental work ever again. Learning about civil rights enforcement will give you information that's transferable to environmental stuff. (The only real conflict I can ID is, don't intern for a prosecution gig if you want to do public criminal defense.)
Thanks! This is very helpful to hear. Yeah, I figure I can probably say later, "I really loved doing enforcement work, but would like to get back to environmental protection, which was my pre-law school career," or something to that effect.

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Anonymous User
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Re: Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:57 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:02 pm
Congrats! I think you made a great choice. One of the many reasons your decision sounds like a good one is because of the networking opportunities it'll create, both because you're from the state and will spend a summer in the office. So much gov't hiring--state and federal--is about networking. This role sounds like a great way to make connections that can perhaps set you up for future positions, even if the office doesn't necessarily carry the name prestige of other states. Also, state AGs are really where the action is right now in terms of major public interest litigation. So aside from connections and shiny resume glitter, you'll likely get substantive experience that a peer wouldn't at some random component in DOJ. That matters. Congrats again!
Thank you! That's a good point about where the action is happening. And yeah, I'd be happy to return there after law school, so networking can't hurt.

nixy

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Re: Did I mess up by accepting a State AG position for 1L summer?

Post by nixy » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:09 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:56 pm
nixy wrote:
Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:05 pm
You're fine. It's fine. 1L summer positions aren't materially prestigious even if they're with entities that might be prestigious post-grad. You'll get some useful experience that you can talk about in future interviews and you'll make some connections. Sometimes working for a slightly smaller entity can be better because interns get more attention and have an easier time getting to know people than at the most massive/"prestigious" ones. And as long as you can talk about how what you did relates to (say) environmental work, you don't need to do nothing but environmental work ever again. Learning about civil rights enforcement will give you information that's transferable to environmental stuff. (The only real conflict I can ID is, don't intern for a prosecution gig if you want to do public criminal defense.)
Thanks! This is very helpful to hear. Yeah, I figure I can probably say later, "I really loved doing enforcement work, but would like to get back to environmental protection, which was my pre-law school career," or something to that effect.
Sure, but I was thinking more about being able to say, "During this internship I did x, y, and z," where x, y, and z are things (like basic elements of civil litigation, or investigations into potential violations, etc.) that aren't really very different between the civil rights and environmental enforcement. Like "I assisted prepping a witness for deposition" or "I wrote memos analyzing statutes" or "I reviewed reports and outlined key points." I'm making up those examples b/c I don't do civil rights enforcement or environmental law stuff, but a lot of legal practice is understanding procedures that will apply regardless of the kind of substantial law you're addressing. If you're a litigator, for example, it's important to understand the stages of a law suit no matter what the law suit is about. (And in practice, you're probably not going to personally do a ton of stuff as a 1L, but you can talk about what you were able to learn from observing that transfers.) No one is going to expect a 1L internship to cement you into one field forever.

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