Hi everyone
I am currently a Junior at an Ivy league school majoring in Economics and minoring in French. I’m currently studying abroad in Paris (semester). I am potentially interested in law school; however I do not have enough experience to know 100 percent that that is what I want to do and so I would like to go through some kind of summer experience to help me figure that out.
All of my past summer experiences have been in the States woorking in the public sector. Last summer I worked at the US Dept of Commerce doing econ and stat work there. Next summer I would really like to come back to Europe to work here. Ive got a passport so may want to work here when I am older and want to set a groundwork for that. I am biligual (English/French). Basically I am trying to figure out what to do for next summer and what opportunities are available for undergrad. I would be interested in any private law experience (US or Europe but preferably not US). Id also be interested but not as interested in a program with some sort of large multilateral organisation.
Any knowledge or experience on this topic would be very helpful. Thanks in advance
@aminta2013: I’ve never known anyone who looked for paralegal work/internship in Europe, but my guess is that you should start by contacting the law departments of undergrads over there (in Europe law is generally an undergrad major, which may be an issue since you’re already a junior). Here firms often post job openings for interns or paralegals, and there are probably equivalents over there to look into.
Check out Van Bael & Bellis in Brussels and apply through one of the US lawyers there. It’s an English-speaking firm, so French isn’t that useful there, but at least you’d be able to use French if you wanted. Otherwise, look for local law firms that have US lawyers–particularly alumni of your school, and contact them. One alternative is to look for French firms in Paris that are small and have English-speaking legal work and perhaps they’d be able to find something. I wouldn’t expect great pay, but it’s resume-building.
Ignore the large multinational firms; if your family and friends run large companies that are their clients then they’ll find a spot for you, but otherwise they won’t.
This is not to say that you’re not super-qualified for a typical French firm–temporary jobs for non-lawyers in them are just really rare, so I think that using a US connection would be your “in”.
Thank you very much @Demosthenes49 and @HappyAlumnus for your replies…apparently Van Bael & Bellis has a Geneva office as well…maybe the bilingual thing would be more of a help there. I guess another part of my question is whether an internship like this would be worth it or whether I would be doing paper work the whole time (I totally understand why they would have me do that, since I have basically no formal training) in figuring out whether I like law? Or would I be better off spending the summer prepping for the lsat? (I’ll be taking a course in the Spring anyway) I definitely do not want to go law school straight out of under grad (I plan to do Teach for America first, if I get in). Another path I am considering is to do some kind of writing/journalism internship this summer (in the States) because I really enjoy writing and have experience writing for various publications (college level not like WSJ ha) during the year…And being a good writer is obviously important for law… but then I wouldn’t get any experience as to how law really works in the real world…Maybe that will just be my backup plan. Anyway, thoughts?
@aminta2013: An internship is an extremely good idea because it will show you what the practice of law is actually like. That’s critical information if you plan to pursue being a lawyer.
aminta2013, for Van Bael & Bellis in Geneva, maybe, but it’s a trans-European law firm with lawyers and clients from plenty of places (mostly non-French-speaking) so the office language is likely English in Geneva, too. In any law firm internship, you’d probably be doing a cross between paralegal work and non-legal work (such as working on firm marketing materials, etc.). I don’t think that a law firm internship would give you a true taste of what working as a lawyer is like. I think that a writing/journalism internship could be more useful on a resume and in law school applications. I frequently meet undergrads from the university where I went to law school, and they frequently ask, “will interning in a law firm help my future career in law?” and when I poll my classmates and people at the law school, the answer, surprisingly, is “NO”.
ahh so you guys are basically giving my conflicting advice yeah actually that is not surprising that that the poll of whether interning at a law firm HELPS the future career as a lawyer because you’re not really acquiring many skills BUT I still think it could help in helping me to figure out whether I want to go to law school (before I graduate and am in a ton of debt)… anyway I am not going to go to law school unless I get into a really good one because otherwise honestly it can be a waste of money … my parents don’t think I seem to have what it takes to be a lawyer because I am not "aggressive " enough so I should probably work that out as well. A lot of law is behind the scenes though like research and working on cases and meeting with clients and it doesnt seem that you need to be aggressive for that.
aminta2013, the “does it help to work in a law firm” question is in the context of “does it help me get into law school?” and “does it help me to get a job as a lawyer?” The answers to both are not really, based on what I’m told. “Does it help you figure out if you want to go to law school?” No, because you wouldn’t be working lawyers’ hours and interacting a lot with lawyers. As a college student, you’d be doing non-legal work, with either a firm’s marketing department or the like or with paralegals, or maybe helping lawyers in non-legal things. You wouldn’t be getting any type of relevant legal experience, other than seeing limited ways of how people handle life in a law firm.
@aminta2013: Working in a firm won’t help you get into law school any more than working anywhere else will. That is, no one will care except Northwestern. What working in a firm does it let you see what the practice of law is actually like, which will help you figure out if you want to go through the law school process.
As for aggression, I’m a litigator and I very rarely need to be aggressive. The most important skills are attention to detail, precision, diligence, and good writing. Happy can tell you about transactional work, but I expect aggression does not play a large role there either.
So basically if I were to work as a social media director for a new and growing nation-wide news publication that would be good…(as well as studying for lsats)?
@aminta2013: Law schools won’t care. Employers will probably ask you about it.
any advice for what to include in a cover letter for the DA’s office…??