Om.
I finally sent out an application for a summer gig today. (I am late out of the gate this year; last year I already had a gig lined up in February, and this year I haven't even applied until March 2.) I applied for acceptance to my school's small business legal clinic for the summer. You do actual legal work for actual clients in an actual law office downtown under the supervision of actual attorneys from my school. You do it for school credit. Clinics look good on resumes, and should provide really good experience to prepare you for actual practice (which law school surprisingly really doesn't do).
There are only 4 slots available for the summer, and I'm sure it's a popular clinic, so I'm not holding my breath or anything, but I think it would actually be a good fit for me and would help me feel more confident to go out and practice after law school. I would have the opportunity to learn how to interview and advise clients, help them negotiate contracts, draft agreements, and stuff like that. It would be cool, I think.
Ian doesn't think it sounds like a very good idea. "It would be nice to work for a law firm," he said. Yeah, it would, because I would get paid, but I worry that the type of supervision/instruction/feedback at a law firm might not be as good as at a clinic, where the focus is still on teaching us, albeit by doing. Also, the pickings for law firm gigs are really, really slim right now. But I don't think he understands that the clinic really is a law firm anyway. Yes, it is run by law students under professorial supervision, but they actually work with real world clients and do the same types of things I would need to do if I had my own practice advising business clients with their needs, which is exactly what I'd like to do.
The other plus side is that the hours are nice -- 9:AM to 3:30 Monday through Thursday. So I would be able to decompress this summer a little as well. All in all, I would welcome the opportunity. I'm still going to apply for other things as they come up. There is one gig working at the Small Business Administration focusing on bankruptcy type things that I'm probably going to apply for, but it is only two days a week, so I would have to take classes or find some other way to supplement my time. I'm gonna send out a few cold solicitations, and apply to any good-fit law firms that post jobs, but there really haven't been many good fits popping up on the job boards. There're all these opportunities for environmental type gigs (but all the enviro students have to fight for those, so they aren't sitting pretty either), but the soft-IP firms are not really coming forward (maybe they don't exist?). It's just a sucky market, especially for law students who really don't know what they're doing and need a lot of hand holding.
School-wise, I have been really behind on my reading since last week when I put my reading aside in order to write a damn ethics paper. So I will be continuing playing catch-up this weekend. Usually when I miss just one reading assignment in a week, it stresses my workload for the weekend. But right now I am 4 assignments behind, so that's a little more stress on my work load than I like to have. But I still feel so much calmer than last semester. Almost zen, sometimes. Om.
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There are only 4 slots available for the summer, and I'm sure it's a popular clinic, so I'm not holding my breath or anything, but I think it would actually be a good fit for me and would help me feel more confident to go out and practice after law school. I would have the opportunity to learn how to interview and advise clients, help them negotiate contracts, draft agreements, and stuff like that. It would be cool, I think.
Ian doesn't think it sounds like a very good idea. "It would be nice to work for a law firm," he said. Yeah, it would, because I would get paid, but I worry that the type of supervision/instruction/feedback at a law firm might not be as good as at a clinic, where the focus is still on teaching us, albeit by doing. Also, the pickings for law firm gigs are really, really slim right now. But I don't think he understands that the clinic really is a law firm anyway. Yes, it is run by law students under professorial supervision, but they actually work with real world clients and do the same types of things I would need to do if I had my own practice advising business clients with their needs, which is exactly what I'd like to do.
The other plus side is that the hours are nice -- 9:AM to 3:30 Monday through Thursday. So I would be able to decompress this summer a little as well. All in all, I would welcome the opportunity. I'm still going to apply for other things as they come up. There is one gig working at the Small Business Administration focusing on bankruptcy type things that I'm probably going to apply for, but it is only two days a week, so I would have to take classes or find some other way to supplement my time. I'm gonna send out a few cold solicitations, and apply to any good-fit law firms that post jobs, but there really haven't been many good fits popping up on the job boards. There're all these opportunities for environmental type gigs (but all the enviro students have to fight for those, so they aren't sitting pretty either), but the soft-IP firms are not really coming forward (maybe they don't exist?). It's just a sucky market, especially for law students who really don't know what they're doing and need a lot of hand holding.
School-wise, I have been really behind on my reading since last week when I put my reading aside in order to write a damn ethics paper. So I will be continuing playing catch-up this weekend. Usually when I miss just one reading assignment in a week, it stresses my workload for the weekend. But right now I am 4 assignments behind, so that's a little more stress on my work load than I like to have. But I still feel so much calmer than last semester. Almost zen, sometimes. Om.
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