Find A Law Job: First Entry

Greetings!




As this is my first entry in a blog that will help you find a law job anywhere, I think it’s best that I tell you where I come from, where I’m at, and how I got there.



I come from a good college and a not-so-good law school. The law school is a T1 and regionally strong. But, I think employment rate hovers around 67% upon graduation… and that was in 2004! Plus, I graduated over a year ago. Although I have a job, my school has yet to survey me. I think “graduation” has already happened, so what’s the big deal? Anyways, law school reporting (read: misreporting) is another issue we’ll delve into later.



I had a difficult time finding employment after college, so when it came time for law school I hit the ground running. I did great my first year and landed more OCI interviews than I had deodorant for. I received two callbacks and zero associateships. Here is the deal with OCI: many law firms use it as a marketing tool to build “referral reputation” in the community – i.e., if your firm comes to OCI, you’re doing well and deserve business.



OCI stung a bit. I lost faith in the system and let my grades plummet. I mean, I didn’t come to class for half a semester. Literally. I worked out constantly and lost 20 pounds of study fat. When I did come back to the classroom, I came back with a different perspective. I came back with a perspective that landed me the job I have now. The perspective that will get you a law job. I could call it hustling, but that would be an over-generalization and misrepresent the true nature of what I discovered. Instead, I will craft the principle I found through examples of which methods worked and which did NOT.



Cut to the chase. Where I am now. Currently, I work as in-house counsel in the legal department of a multi-national T&D corporation. T&D means oil, gas, and electric to those not in the trade. I love my job and the work I get to do and the hours I keep. I also love managing outside counsel 5-10 years older than me and hearing about their job applications flooding into my department.  I am also on my way to starting my own firm.



All because OCI sucked. All because of my perspective. All because of my mediocre GPA (well…).



Please come back to read weekly installments of how to find a law job anywhere.