Ep 74: How To Research Work Experience for My Area of Law
Searching for a job is a scary and overwhelming experience. Today, Alice goes over some tips on how to best research for jobs in your area of law. Learn about what you should look out for and what resources to look into. Hint, building your network is key!
Episode Highlights
Career Services Office
Obvious, yes, but still needs to be said. Visit your Career Services to get into contact with alumni and learn more about upcoming networking events. The office will have done everything for you in setting up lists of people to look out for and events for you to make great connections and first impressions.
Professors
If there is a professor teaching what you are interested in, talk with them. Folks that teach, particularly folks that teach in law school, do what they do because they want to help. They do what they do because they are excited to impart knowledge to you.
Professors can let you know what steps they took and also connect you with other colleagues that are in that same field
Student & Professional Organizations
Student organizations revolving around your interested area is another resource for events and networking. They could partner with other organizations and bring in guests that you could network with.
A variety of professional organizations have a student section for you to join as a law school student. Take advantage and try to join. These organizations can connect you to jobs and keep you up to date on all things relevant to your area of interest
Internet
As a law student, you have access to some very powerful search tools and databases.If you are reading a recent case that interesting to you and is right on point for what it is you are interested in doing, there is a very real chance you have the capability to find out who the attorneys involved were and where they happen to be right now. If not direct contact information, you can at least get to their firm, front desk or a secretary or an assistant, and they can connect you.
Also look into conference information and seminar information. Especially as a student, some online events are reduced or free. Lots of places want to share information about whatever it is that they are passionate about. As an organization, as an industry, they can make that available to you for free because the cost to do events virtually is significantly less than it is to put on in person.
Tweetable Quotes
“It doesn’t matter if they[alumni] were a law school graduate. If your law school is attached to a larger institution and you happen to get connected with somebody that graduated from the business school or from the engineering school, they may know a lawyer. They may work with lawyers doing the thing that it is you wanna do, and alumni like to help alumni. Alumni like to help current students.”