Internships after Law Schools

State and local governments, political party organizations, and campaign committees often offer part-time or summer internship opportunities. So do many good-government voluntary organizations and private lobbying organizations; one of my students, for example, spent an educationally valuable summer in Springfield working for a special-interest lobbying group that represented Illinois banks. Internships are also offered by newspapers, magazines, and a wide variety of other businesses. Unlike co-op jobs, which are meant to be ongoing, most internships are one-shot deals; you'll work for a summer, or a semester, with no possibility of reemployment.

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It's usually fairly easy for a student with good grades to secure an internship in a prosecutor's or public defender's office, an urban police department, an administrative department of a city government, a state agency, or a state legislative committee. Some federal agencies offer internships, although they may be too far away from your campus for part-time employment.

To secure a part-time internship, you need to sign up for the appropriate course. On some campuses, internships are required of students in certain majors, most commonly journalism, social work, or criminal justice studies; on other campuses, they are open only to students with high grades or students majoring in certain subjects. Your prelaw adviser can tell you which departments on campus offer these opportunities; your college catalog will list the course numbers, the eligibility rules, and the names of the instructors.

You will need to sign up at least a semester in advance, and you should speak to the instructor before you sign up. Find out where you will be working (for it is the instructor's responsibility to find you a job), what you're likely to be doing, and how much time you will be required to put in. Ask for names of other students who have worked in the same office and contact them to see if they found the experience worthwhile. Before you commit yourself, make sure that you can make feasible travel arrangements if you have to travel any distance from campus.

In most cases, you will have to get a summer internship yourself. Allow seven or eight months for the process of finding one. Academic and prelaw advisers usually keep track of such opportunities. They post advertising posters on bulletin boards near their offices and may make flyers and brochures available. They may also advertise the existence of internships through their newsletters and computer bulletin boards, through departmental advisers who handle part-time internships, or through the campus placement center. If all else fails, make an appointment and find out if your adviser knows of anything. Write away for an application form to the address on the poster (or the address your adviser gives you) and follow the instructions on the form.

Internships with political parties, magazines, or good-government groups may be similarly advertised on posters, on flyers, or in political magazines. You may also hear about them through individuals who work for the organizations. You can call the office of the local Sierra Club, for instance, or any political group, and ask if they have any such opportunities. Internships with businesses and trade associations are harder to find. They are often unadvertised; the group's full-time staff will recruit students through an old-boy network that may include college professors but is often limited to families and friends of people "in the trade." Ask your prelaw adviser and the professors you feel comfortable with if they know of any job openings related to their fields. And ask your parents, relatives, and family friends.

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When you start work, the course instructor will monitor your performance. You will meet with him or her, discuss what you are learning, and eventually write a paper or two. Your instructor should give you some guidance about what to look for in your work experience and may provide detailed information about the work of your agency or organization.

The agency or organization that hires you will put you to work doing whatever they need done. In most cases, this will be that famous general office work. But the agency has also promised to teach you something. Like a co-op job, an internship should involve responsible work. Internship employers have even more of a responsibility to you because, unlike co-op employers, they're not paying you. Most recognize this responsibility, and some make extensive promises. For example, the Illinois Attorney General's Office advertises that "typical internship assignments include: performing legal research in the law library; working with consumers who complain about unfair business practices; [and] assisting lawyers with case study and legal writing."

As with co-op jobs, you should complain to the course instructor if you feel that you're not learning anything. Sometimes internships don't work out. But in contrast to co-op jobs, it's rare for students to have such complaints about internships. In fact, it's much more common for interns to complain that they are being worked to death. They conduct witness interviews for the state's attorney or work on appellate briefs for a public defender and wind up working much more than their nominal fifteen hours a week.

The reason for this is that the governmental agencies that take interns are usually understaffed and overworked. When they obtain the services of bright young students-who are, remember, working for free or for very little-they load these volunteers with as much work and as much responsibility as they will bear. Because of this well-known tendency, internships in public prosecutors' offices and similar government bureaucracies are perceived by the law schools as extremely good experience. But not all students can afford to participate in them.

If you are in this position, ask the course instructor if some support is available, either from your college or from the agency. Sometimes small grants are available. Investigate whatever private organization internships you can find out about. Special-interest lobbying groups and other private organizations sometimes provide better pay.

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