<p>What is the best way for a law student to spend the 1L summer? Sure, a paid summer associate position would be great, but seems to be really difficult to get. What are the best alternatives, to help to position for eventual permanent employment after finishing law school?</p>
<p>This depends somewhat on your interest. For market BigLaw, any legal work will do. BigLaw just wants to see that you did something legal. Certain jobs can be advantageous, such as having worked at a firm for a summer, or interned for a USCA judge, but nothing will really hurt you so long as its legal.</p>
<p>For secondary market BigLaw, where things like ties start to really matter, you want to do something in the proper geography. You have to prove you want to be there, and having worked there helps. Plus it lets you network over your 1L summer.</p>
<p>Public interest I know less about, since I went private. My understanding is that PI likes to see dedication since their primary concern is burnout. That means doing something PI related during 1L (luckily far easier to get than actual PI jobs). The same is true of PDs/DAs. Notably, while most DAs do not seem to care if you spend the summer with a PD, PDs do seem to care if you spent the summer with the DA. </p>
<p>For small firm work, whatever you can get in the right practice area. There is no clear recruiting schedule for small firms, and one of the best ways to break in is to work over the school year/summer for a small firm, that hopefully hires you on full time after graduation.</p>
<p>Federal government is a mess. There’s the various honors programs, certainly, and they seem to like the same things BigLaw likes. Then there’s agency recruiting. My very narrow experience with that tells me its highly eccentric and different with every agency. A lot of the people I know in government tell me horror stories about USAJobs and multi-month recruiting processes.</p>
<p>I have no idea about state governments because there are a lot of states. </p>
<p>How hard is it to find a position interning for a judge, or in a DA or US Attorney office? Is it safe to just target the desired city (secondary market), or do you have to cast a very wide geographic net to hope to get something? From a Top 20 law school, with some weak ties to the desired city, no grades/rank available yet but with some decent activities to put on the resume. </p>
<p>It’s generally pretty easy, in my experience. Everyone loves free labor, especially the government (which exempted itself from wage laws). As long as you’re applying, as a 1L you’ll get something. Which T20 and which desired city can matter though, if you want to get more specific (or PM would work).</p>
<p>If you are looking in bug cities internships at DA’s office is very competitive as well as US Attorney’s office.</p>
<p><a href=“Student Volunteer Intern Positions”>http://www.justice.gov/usao/dc/programs/employment/vol_intern.html</a></p>
<p>I’ve been a government attorney on and off for 30 years, and positions in DA/USA/AG offices-even volunteer positions-are very tough to get. These offices are awash in resumes from 1L volunteers, which sit on the stack of resumes from college students who think they might want to be lawyers. Because no one has the time to supervise them, very few are offered even volunteer positions. So if you have plans to get a volunteer position for the summer, I’d recommend that the search start now.</p>
<p>Any suggestions as to how to make an application to a DA/USA/AG position standout from the stack? </p>
<p>Officially, NALP guidelines say that 1Ls can’t apply until Dec 1. </p>