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Your first job, or the firm where you are learning as an internee, is an integral part of the first impression you make upon the lawyers' community, and even though it may not be the last impression, it will definitely be lasting in nature. So, to return to the point at hand, great care should be taken in choosing your first legal job or where you choose to associate yourself as an internee.
Traditionally, a great percentage of students at law schools come from families with backgrounds or connections in law practice. Conservative law schools often act as extended repositories of courtroom gossip and it is common to find court gossips filtering into law campus. On the other hand, be aware, that law school gossip also finds their way to courtrooms, though you may not be aware of it. So, even at law school, if you play cool and try to learn, you can learn a lot about the practicing lawyers and law firms while sitting at your college canteen.
On campus, recruitment is always there for a law student, and this makes many miss the importance of a proper and effective job search. Since a majority of the students who come from families of lawyers are determined to carry on family practice, a job search or job search strategy means little to them. Further, placement counseling at law school makes any law students feel secure and most deny the need for any well-defined job search strategy. Mostly, that plays against students who are absolute newcomers to the legal fraternity. At the end of the day, usually and ideally, you get only what you want. However, if your idea of what you want is hazy, then what you get usually turns out much below your expectations.
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Learn the 10 Factors That Matter to Big Firms More Than Where You Went to Law School
Don't take my word for it, but researches made on job search strategies of white collar employees clearly show:
- Your objective quality as a law student or a potential lawyer has little to do with your starting salary or emoluments
- Your strategy used for searching jobs has a direct impact on your starting salary
- Having more interviews outside your readily visible range of opportunities contributes to ending up with a higher starting salary
- Your job search strategy has a great impact on non-salary components like work-life balance
- Rejecting your first job can lead to a higher salary
- The number of job offers you receive is directly related with your quality and reputation as a student
- Your job search strategy does not influence your starting salary as much as the number of placement offers
All that sweat and data gone into convincing you, jus means one thing: being a fantastic law student does not mean that you will end up with a fantastic legal job. You require approaching the problem methodically, and creating a job-search strategy that is optimized to your career goals. Being casual about opportunities just because a lot of them are visible, only means you are missing out on what is not visible to you. So buck up and start defining to yourself what you really want to be, and then form a suitable job-search strategy to build that career you want.
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