00:00 The most traditional place to start your legal career after graduation is at a
law firm.
And the most traditional way to get one of those law firm jobs is through a recruiting
process that starts at the beginning of your 2L year.
But what happens if you don't have the 1L grades to be competitive for those positions,
or what if you just don't want to work in a law firm when you graduate.
What other opportunities are there out there?
Well, you guys have come to the right place because this video is all about giving you
exactly what you need to know to make yourself competitive for positions other than traditional
law firm roles upon graduation, to make yourselves one at the 78% law school graduates on average
that have full time JD jobs within 10 months of graduation.
So if you guys are excited to find out more, keep watching and be sure to hit that subscribe
button to see videos just like this every single Tuesday.
00:49 Let's get started.
Number one, grow your resume with practical experience.
And this means that you're going to be pulling double duty because you're going to need to
continue to do as well as you can academic-wise because if you're able to get into those upper
echelons of class ranking by the end of your 2L year or by the end of your 3L year, you'll
still make yourself competitive for law firm jobs, but at the same time you're going to
have to focus your time on extracurricular activities and this includes things like specialized
courses, taking clinics where you're a student attorney representing real people, real individuals,
getting leadership or active roles in student government organizations, getting an externship
or an internship, getting a research assistant position with a professor, anything and everything
that will add substance to your resume.
Number two, use the hell out of your law school's career services department.
01:41 It is part of your tuition.
You are paying for it.
Use them as a resource and I know that not all career services departments are incredibly
helpful.
There is definitely a varying level of aid and resourcefulness in these departments,
but at the very least they're going to have a list of the organizations and the law firms
and the agencies that are coming to campus to interview students in the traditional process,
which of course is incredibly valuable information, but they're also going to be the point of
contact for smaller organizations, smaller agencies, smaller law firms that don't have
the resources or the manpower to be able to send someone to campus, but nevertheless might
be looking to hire.
Any other thing career services has is a list of alumni, so people who graduated from your
law school and are working in the area, and this can be amazingly helpful information
because you can reach out to them, you can ask them to coffee or for a short phone call
as to pick their brain about where you should focus your job search, what you're interested
in, and how to find out who might be interested in hiring because they might not have a position
available or their organization might not be hiring, but they can keep you in mind for
something that may come across their desk later on.
02:48 And so making that first initial contact or making that first initial step can be very
important, and career services is how you get that information.
One important caveat to this is that career services is a resource, and you should use
them as that, but don't fall into the trap of using them as a crutch.
They are not going to do the leg work for you.
They're not going to send out your resume.
They're not going to contact all these people on your behalf.
There are too many law students.
It would take too long.
It's not possible.
So whatever information you get from them, you're going to have to take the next step.
You're going to have to take your career and your future into your own hands because you
are the only one that's going to care enough about it and the most about it to really make
it what you want to be, which takes us to point number three.
03:27 Connects with everyone.
When you are operating outside of a tailor-made recruiting process, connections are King.
This means if you haven't had anyone in your family who is a lawyer or works with a lawyer,
hit them up, send them an email, give them a call, meet with them in person.
Let them know that you are graduated or recently graduating.
You're in the market looking for a job.
Hopefully you can name a couple of practice areas that you think you would be interested
in and just ask them if they have any advice or to let you know if they know of anyone
who's looking to hire.
Another place to look for connections is what we already talked about.
Getting those alumni contacts from career services because people are so much more willing
to give a helping hand or to give advice to somebody who went to their same law school
or even their same undergrad.
04:11 So if you have any connections of people in the business world, in lawyering, working
for lawyers, working with lawyers, ask them for advice, ask them to keep you in mind.
Same sort of spiel list a couple of practice groups do you think you might be interested
in so that they can refer your name around if something were to come up.
And the third place you can go to start looking for and making these connections is going
to be a little bit more of a fishing expedition, but it's going to include being physically
present at local legal community events.
So alumni events, local bar association events, student groups, things like that that might
have you possibly meet someone who knows someone who can help you out looking for a job or
who can keep you in mind.
And like I said, this is going to be a little bit more of a long shot, but career services
can help point you in the direction of what organizations or what associations may be
worth your time more than others.
05:00 And remember the point of going to these associations, to these events, to these professional
groups is not to ask for a job.
You are looking to make connections, so don't right off the bat, throw out there the question
of whether they're looking to hire, get to know them, engage in small talk.
Let them know that, again, you're recently graduated or about to graduate.
You're looking for a job in the year.
You're interested in XYZ practice group.
You've done X, Y, Z thing.
If it comes up, ask them what they do.
Ask them the kind of clients that they work with.
And you should have an air of interest and excitement and curiosity and terms of learning
more about what they do or, or what clients are out there to serve and where you can have
value.
Then instead going right for the heart of the matter, asking for a job without even
knowing them or without even introducing yourself.
05:44 Number four, have an online presence in the local legal community.
As important as it is to show up in person and to meet people face to face.
Nowadays, having an online presence is just as important.
And so what is this logistically mean for you?
Number one, make a LinkedIn profile you haven't made one on already.
And if you have one, update your profile so that it includes everything that you've ever
done that is relevant to your job search.
Include certifications, trainings, courses, nominations, awards, publications, clinics,
academic achievements, anything you can possibly think of that makes you look amazing.
Because people start running searches.
And if you saw that one of their searches, you want to be sure that you look like a viable
and attractive candidate.
Number two, you also want to be a part of groups online.
So Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups are the two biggest ones.
06:39 And I can't tell you how many times people in the groups that I'm a part of have
posted looking for people to hire.
And they're looking, asking people in the group, for recommendations because people
would much prefer to interview somebody on the recommendation of someone who's even in
a Facebook group rather than somebody who is an unknown.
And same thing with LinkedIn groups.
Very, very important to be present and a part of those groups.
And number three is engaging in content.
And this can be ask answering questions posted in the groups.
This can be giving your opinion.
This can also be, and should be following the law firms, the agencies, the organizations
that you want to work for because those organizations are also trying to have and promote their
online presence.
And so they tend to post things like reason publications or recent wins, or acquisitions,
things like that.
07:27 And that gives you an opportunity to read the content, to be able to leave a thoughtful
comment, a substantive comment about what you thought about the article or a congratulations
about the acquisition, um, or any, anything that you are able to add to the conversation.
And if you do that and you do that often enough, they're going to start noticing that you are
engaging with their content and not that many people do honestly.
So they're going to eventually click on your profile, see who this person is who's engaging
with their content so much.
And who knows?
It could absolutely happen that you have the profile of exactly what they're looking to
hire or they know someone who's looking to hire.
And so having an online presence is incredibly, incredibly important and a really, really
critical way that you can fall into those types of job opportunities.
08:14 And number five, broaden the scope of your career search.
Because in law school, basically the only information you're fed is sort of a law firm
or bust mentality.
They do a terrible job in general about really showing you what types of jobs are out there.
What the opportunities are, what the different sectors are.
And so because there's all these different jobs out there, you're doing yourself a disservice,
especially if you're in the market for a job if you don't at least consider them.
And so the best way to find out what is in your area geographically or maybe what is
in your area of interest is to go into LinkedIn and go into Indeed and set up automatic email
blasts, email alerts to let you know when something in the area you're looking for is
available.
And when you do that you can put in various keywords and follow some rabbit holes.
09:01 You're going to find a ton of legal jobs out there that you didn't even know existed.
And jobs that are absolutely employable by lawyers that they really don't tell you about
are things like jury consultants, legal marketing specialists, legal recruiting agencies, alternative
legal service providers, international student services at law schools, all these different
things that could be a perfect fit for you or a perfect fit for your career path that
you had just never been told about before.
So I definitely wouldn't say settle for a job you don't want, but definitely take into
consideration a broader search of what might be out there.
Cause it absolutely could be a perfect fit for you that you hadn't even considered or
didn't even know existed.
And if you guys have had success finding jobs outside of the traditional law firm recruiting
process, leave them in the comment section below, let us know what works for you, what
other avenues you use to find those jobs.
09:50 Cause I know that there are so many different word-of-mouth and happenstance,
things that happen when you're in that job search.
And so don't lose faith.
Don't be discouraged.
There are absolutely jobs out there and if you are working hard and you are pounding
the pavement, you are going to find one, and it is probably going to be something very
unexpected.
I hope that this video was helpful.
I wish you guys the best of luck in your job searches.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions below and I will see you guys next
week.
Bye.