Social justice solo practitioners and small firms are increasingly seen by students and alumni as aspirational and not as a fallback plan. Young lawyers embracing the gig economy find solo practice an appealing option for the increased flexibility and independence it offers. How can we help create a more defined path for these students?
For career service professionals in charge of our departments’ employer outreach, the task of creating an employer outreach strategy to access these emerging legal career employers seems daunting. With the field being so broad, how does one even begin to formulate an employer outreach strategy? Assigned this enormous endeavor for my career services department, I decided to tackle this task by tweaking a successful employer outreach strategy I have been using for traditional legal employers. With a few key changes, I created a four-step process that breaks down outreach to emerging legal employers into bite-size, digestible pieces. Hopefully, ...
McDermott Will & Emery’s Hannah Fabrikant and Rochelle Weiner explain how to keep mentor-pairs engaged at law firms.
Authors Leanne Fuith and Laura Friedman explain how to take a whole-school approach to law student professional identity formation.
Some advice for students on preparing for and obtaining a job as a public defender.
Review of So Goes a Nation: Lawyers & Communities, a video and discussion guide, jointly produced by the New York Laywers for the Public Interest and Fordham University School of Law's Louis Stein Center for Ethics & Public Interest Law
Should You Really Be a Lawyer? The Guide to Smart Career Choices Before, During & After Law School
This article will first address counseling the patent student and the address counseling the trademark, copyright, and licensing student.
The author's own career provides an example of the most common but least discussed path to public service.
When most law students think of courthouse jobs, they think of judicial clerkships, but many attorneys find deeply satisfying non-traditional legal careers in and around the courts.
As with government agencies and nonprofit organizations, private public interest firms offer students the opportunity to use their law degree as a tool to advocate for the public interest, but how do students identify opportunities and conduct successful job searches?
The field of gaming law is increasing in popularity and offers a surprising wide array of practice opportunities.
Kudos to those of us who counsel students on public service careers — we have helped to get the word out about this important and stable sector. So, now what? How do CSOs support these enthusiastic students and prepare them for the federal job search?
Cybele Smith and Jim Tomaszewski explain the importance of listing your law school’s job openings on PSJD.org.
Traditionally, students think about fall recruiting programs as being strictly for summer associate positions. Now is the time to re-educate them to the possibility of part-time clerking positions as avenues to permanent positions down the road.
Review of Attorney and Law Firm Guide to the Business of Law
Review of Family Law Careers
Those who counsel alumni interested in becoming law professors need to know how to help these alums navigate the law teaching market.
As the criminal justice reform movement has gained momentum over the years, opportunities to work in this field have grown to include new avenues. This article details a number of ways in which students and attorneys can impact and reform the criminal justice system from many different angles.
A career services office can maximize its support of MLS students through personalized outreach and individualized counseling, programming, a specialized student/alumni job board, and conscientious inclusion into the greater law school community.
So how can career services offices effectively reach their student population and motivate students to translate career services guidance into action? While there’s no magic answer to the $100,000 question, a nice place to start is by providing students with a realistic view of the skills they will need in the profession, as well as straightforward advice and clear action items that offer ways to prepare for their career and further refine these needed skills. This gentle balance of being realistic about the demands of law, while also supportive and encouraging, is handled exceptionally well by author Neil W. Hamilton in the second edition of...
Major issues facing the spiritual community today will necessitate such action resulting in an ever-increasing need for legal representation with a two-fold expertise — a new legal specialty.
"Podferences" have helped this career office provide more students with current advice on markets abroad from lawyers who actually live and practice in these international markets.
The first 12 in an exciting new series of small books about emerging legal careers are now available from NALP.
Dena Bauman and Kathryn Liss offer four steps for how to help law school students focus, and even prosper, in a remote work environment.
George Washington University Law School Julie McLaughlin and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Janet Siegel Brown explore the advantages of the federal magistrate judge clerkship.
This is the first in a series of articles that will look at NALP members who have made their own “lateral moves” within the legal industry. We hope the stories and takeaways shared by your fellow members will inspire you to be brave in your career!
You might expect an attorney whose clients include a "Big 3" automotive manufacturer, other multinational companies, and individuals representing virtually every country and socioeconomic status to be a partner in a large firm...
The second wave of AJD findings provides added, and sometimes surprising, insights on the influence of debt on the career choices of lawyers.
Three strategies for attorneys seeking to transition their path from working in the private sector to career in public service law.
The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law’s Rachel Lawrence examines how to encourage law students who are seeking careers in public service to pursue their passion.
Review of How to Build and Manage an Entertainment Law Practice
Review of Entertainment Law Careers
Becoming a Mediator: An Insider's Guide to Exploring Careers in Mediation
Animal rights cases may relate to homeowner's association and landlord-tenant law, the endangered species act, or other land use issues.
Knowledge management and pricing analysis offer new career paths in the business of law.
The NALP Emerging Legal Jobs Work Group shares findings from their explorations of the future of the legal industry.
Academic advisors lean on basic principles to help them answer these tough questions, and law school career counselors are more than capable of using them as well. Having some basic knowledge in academic advising can not only help counselors assist students in these matters but also help in the relationship-building process.
Over the past decade or so, the number of law school graduates who pursue JD Advantage positions has risen from 8.8% to 16.9%.3 But what does one need to do to secure a JD Advantage position? As someone who is currently going through the process of finding a JD Advantage job, I want to share with you my perspectives on best practices for a JD Advantage job search. I’ve written the remainder of this article as advice I would give to someone who wants to pursue a JD Advantage job search.
Considerations for lawyers and law students who dream of a career in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and becoming a litigator.
Nixon Peabody LLP’s Shannon Callahan and Loyola University School of Law’s Maureen Kieffer share law firm and law school perspectives on the importance of promoting well-being for attorneys and law students.
Law school provides students with a robust and comprehensive academic experience but many are unaware of the incredible value of incorporating experiential learning into their legal education. An educational approach to practical experience benefits students and employers alike.
As recruitment methods shift, firms are realizing that building the legal workforce of the future requires looking beyond conventional talent pipelines and recognizing that the earliest spark of professional identity often begins in high school.
Review of International Opportunities Resource Guide
The third wave of this longitudinal study of law graduates who were admitted to the bar in 2000 provides numerous insights into lawyer career paths.
Students interested in international arbitration should be encouraged to think broadly about location, practice setting, and type of position.
In May I had the privilege of attending my second Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) conference, a gathering that attracted well over 2,000 attendees from in-house legal departments, technology companies, law firms, and law schools, among others. I came away with a stronger conviction than ever that the legal profession is but a small way through a real revolution that will change everything about the profession and the delivery of legal services.
Are the nuances of the labor market signals being picked up by law students who will ultimately constitute the legal profession of tomorrow? Do they fully understand how their aspirations align with current and near-term employment trends? It is hard to know for sure, but the Association of American Law Schools’ inaugural study, Before the JD, offers a few clues. With support from NALP — along with the AccessLex Institute, the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the American Bar Foundation, the Law School Admission Council, fourteen major law firms, and four corporate legal departments — AALS launche...
Some career clerks are hired after applying to a job posting, but many use their professional networks.
Students are increasingly interested in working at private public interest law firms (PPILFs). Given current uncertainty in Federal government employment, this path could provide students with meaningful legal work. This article define PPILFs and explores resources and considerations for students and law school career professionals.
University of Kansas School of Law’s Meredith Wiggins offers tips for career advisors about managing the expectations of law students.
Career services professionals have a duty to inform students of the many compensation systems small firms may offer. Clearly, there are more benefits available than an initial glance at national salary statistics may indicate.
Judicial clerkships are just as beneficial for students interested in public service careers as for those who want to pursue private practice, but public service-minded students are often much less likely to consider clerkships.
Contrary to popular perception, bankruptcy clerkships offer broad exposure to litigation and transactional practice and can open the door to a multitude of legal careers.
A career on Capitol Hill can be a great choice for law graduates interested in policy. Here are five tips for pursuing jobs on the Hill.
The Work in Japan program cleverly fuses the work of the alumni office and the career development office with the curricular aspirations of the school.
Review of A Guide to Careers in Community Development
it is incumbent upon all career services professionals to provide their students with the most effective advice, techniques, and strategies with regard to small firm hiring practices.
This new Summit on October 6 will be an ideal opportunity for NALP members to join in on the excitement and discussion of emerging careers for law graduates.
At NALP’s inaugural Summit on Emerging Careers for Law Grads in early October, summit attendees were provided with an in-depth look at JD Advantage jobs, based on a deep dive into NALP’s graduate employment data, and most of which has not been previously published. This column highlights just a portion of the findings presented at the summit.
One of the most important steps in building a legal career is passing the bar exam. Increased focus on outcomes, along with the ABA’s increased focus on calculating bar success among first time takers, comes at a time of decreasing bar passage rates. While more students today are looking at JD Advantage careers, bar passage still matters, given that a significant majority of all JD graduates land in positions that require bar passage. Law schools are increasingly taking an active role in bar preparation. Three types of programs are becoming common.
The post-graduate search for public interest jobs can be challenging. Here are some tips to help recent graduates stay encouraged and connect with a rewarding position.
Frequently asked questions, themes, issues, and guidelines when dealing with a serial mover.
A good number of these would-be international lawyers are surprisingly unclear about the particulars of where and how to actually pursue such distinguished careers...
In this economic downturn, career service professionals find it increasingly important to focus a portion of their programming on preparing law students for the small firm employment segment
The path from law school to public interest work is often a winding road, but under current economic conditions students and career services professionals need to be more creative in getting to public service jobs.
Weighing the pros and cons of incorporating an assessment tool into your career support options for law students.
Fordham Law School’s Linda Sugin explains the benefits of establishing and constantly improving peer mentorship programs to support law school students.
Review of Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be by Carolyn Elefant
Contract lawyering, once considered taboo and something that had to be creatively hidden on a resume, is now a viable career path for certain attorneys.
With a practice uncovering horrors, exposing fraud, and demanding redress, Scott Schutzman has dared to go where others fear to venture ... cemeteries, mortuaries, and crematoriums as well as into the world of grief and outrage.
Comprehensive hiring reform has made the pathways to federal employment clearer.
In his newest book, Richard Hermann describes in detail how small-town lawyers thrive, and how one can best prepare for a small-town law practice.
Exposing students to the opportunities for law practice outside of large urban areas can be beneficial both for students and for those in under-served areas.
Law students interested in the public service careers in the field of workers' rights have a number of options.
Regardless of a career center’s office structure or the bandwidth of its staff, many advisors provide support throughout a student’s job search — from résumé development to salary negotiation. Within this process, international students often need different types of support than their domestic peers. International students, for example, might need help accurately using English figures of speech in their cover letters or appropriately emailing prospective employers. Below are some practices to consider when serving an international law student population in the job search.
In order to advise law students on compliance as an emerging job market, advisors themselves need to know more about this field and how students can best position themselves for success.
Graduates with joint degrees often bring stronger management training, as well as different perspectives, to their employers.
Fox Rothschild LLP’s Jessica Jacobs shares takeaways from her professional journey moving from a traditional attorney role into professional development.
What do you need to know about the people who make up the contingent workforce to make it work for you?
USC Law’s Malissa Barnwell-Scott explains how law firms can support first-generation students and professionals during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
McGrath Talent Strategies President Irena McGrath reviews the Ida Abbott book, Retirement by Design: A Guided Workbook for Creating a Happy and Purposeful Future.
