In 15 minutes, 1Ls across the country are allowed to start submitting applications to summer employers that are members of NALP (mostly, big private firms and some big non-profits), and employers are allowed to begin contacting 1Ls. While the current state of the economy has created some uneasiness among those people who had hoped to work for big bucks, everyone else just seems happy (and overwhelmed!) to begin to think about the exciting opportunities available to us this summer.
Personally, I hadn't really thought seriously about working for a big firm until a few weeks ago, when I realized that it couldn't hurt to apply to a handful of places that have practice areas specific to my area of interest...I could send out a few targeted applications, see who (if anybody) took the bait, and then decide whether I really want to work in "biglaw" (or in my case, "biglaw" or "midlaw") this summer, or whether I'd go ahead with my original plan to work at a non-profit or governmental agency or two.
Of course, I didn't really think about how long it'd take me to send out "a few targeted applications." First, I had to think about what cities I'd be willing to go to. Then I had to run advanced searches to find firms in those cities that have the specific practice area I want. Then I had to make a freakin' spreadsheet: firms, contact people, specific names of special practice groups. Write specific cover letters. Fix up resume. Prepare e-mails, with attachments specific to each firm.
What seemed like forever hours later, I've got a bunch of drafts in gmail ready to send tomorrow. Now it's nearly midnight, and I haven't even started my con law reading for tomorrow, and we've got a special guest speaker coming to class expecting us to be knowledgable about a recent CT Supreme Court case. I guess a working lunch isn't the end of the world, especially after a nice, long relaxing holiday weekend...
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1 comment:
Good luck.
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