A Day in the Life

Skadden Fellowships Awarded to Two U of C Students!

As you may already know if you have been following our blog, we often discuss the broad range of career resources, services, and opportunities available to our students as they pursue summer and long-term legal employment.  On that note, I am writing today with some very exciting news to share with you.  We are happy to announce that two of our third-year law students have been awarded two-year public interest fellowships from the Skadden Fellowship Foundation, recently described by Lois Casaleggi, our Senior Director of Career Services, as “one of the premier post-graduate public interest fellowship programs”.

Kristen Greer Love will be working at a center for migrant rights in Mexico, where she will focus on transnational workers’ rights law and protecting the rights of guest workers who come to the United States.  Kent Qian will be working in Northern California with the National Housing Law Project assisting tenants in foreclosed properties.  Please read the press release to learn more about the inspiring projects that Kristen and Kent will be pursuing, the Skadden Fellowship, and to read Dean Saul Levmore's thoughts.

The public interest job search for law students is a very individualized process (particularly in comparison to the private sector job search) and requires applications, essays, and other targeted efforts. The Office of Career Services provides comprehensive assistance and support to students pursuing careers in public interest law, including work with domestic and international nonprofit organizations and government agencies.  Please review our recent blog post about funding for students who work in public interest positions following their first year of law school (approximately one third of our students work in the public sector during their first-year summer) and look for an upcoming discussion about our Hormel Public Interest Program on this blog.

On-Campus Interviewing at U of C

Fall at U of C is an exciting time of the year for a number of reasons.  In addition to the arrival of a new group of enthusiastic first-year students, it is an important time for our returning 2Ls and 3Ls because of our On-Campus Interviewing ("OCI") program, which is administered by our Office of Career Services. Every September, hundreds of employers come to campus to interview U of C law students for summer and post-graduate employment opportunities. Lois Casaleggi, our Senior Director of Career Services, has briefly summarized the 2008 OCI program below:

We’ve recently completed our whirlwind on-campus interview season.  By the numbers, we held 11 days of interviews over three weeks, hosting nearly 600 legal employer offices, and arranging more than 5,250 interviews for our students!  Our students are very fortunate to have so many employers coming to them to interview for summer and post-graduation positions and have made the most of this opportunity. Our office continues to work closely with students as they are in the midst of the post-OCI stage of this process.  This includes focusing their career goals as they proceed with the search, going on call-backs for further interviews with the employers at their offices, and evaluating offers and opportunities. 

Prior to beginning the OCI program, our career counselors reviewed students’ resumes and provided one-on-one coached interview sessions to prepare students for their interviews. Our small student body allows the Office of Career Services to give individualized attention to our students and their career searches. 

U of C students typically work in legal positions over their 1L and 2L summers during law school. The Office of Career Services assists students with locating summer legal internships in both the public and private sectors and in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to administering the OCI program, the Office of Career Services also provides support and assistance to students pursuing careers in legal academia, public interest, and judicial clerkships. Please check out some of our previous posts on the Office of Career Services and check back throughout the academic year as we will continue to highlight some of the extensive career-related programming and opportunities available to U of C students.

Finally, on a different note, good luck to those of you taking the LSAT this Saturday!

Where Are They Now?: The Class of 2007

In the last of our series of post on our most recent classes employment situations, we bring you the class of 2007. They've just graduated, so these are their first post-law-school jobs. Lois Casaleggi will tell you more:

"As our recent graduates are still basking in the glow of graduation, but also hitting the books again in preparation for the bar exam, let me tell you a bit about the exciting things they will be doing as they embark on their legal careers.

"We have a number of students who will be clerking with judges starting in the fall, despite the national trend of applicants waiting until they have some work experience before entering the clerkship market (more on this trend in an upcoming blog post).  Graduates will be clerking at six different U.S. Courts of Appeals (the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits) and five U.S. District Courts.  We also have students clerking at the highest courts in three states and at the Supreme Court of Israel.

"Most of our graduates begin their careers in the private sector.  This fall we will have graduates working in law firms and businesses in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, and London.

"Some of our graduates will be pursuing additional degrees, and several are pursuing work in the public sector.  We are very excited that three of our graduates this year received fellowships to pursue public interest work.  One of our graduates received the Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellowship with Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, another graduate will be serving as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at The Legal Aid Society in Washington, D.C., and a third graduate will be a fellow with the International Justice Mission in Kenya.  Two graduates will be serving in the federal government: one in the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division and one at the Department of the Treasury in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.  Finally, we are continuing our recent trend of graduates who are pursuing careers as public defenders with our recent grad who will be working for the Defender Association in Seattle."

Where Are They Now?: The Class of 2008

In the second of three posts on what our current/recently-graduated classes are up to career-wise, Lois Casaleggi fills you in on the Class of 2008:

"For the summer after their second year of law school the vast majority of our students work in the private sector.  This summer our second years in the private sector will be working in 18 states, the District of Columbia, and Japan.

"Every year we have a group of students dedicated to public service, who do fascinating work during their summer.  This year we have students doing criminal work in U.S. Attorney’s Offices, Public Defender Offices, and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and a student providing direct legal services through the Legal Assistance Foundation.  Several students will be working for the federal government, including at the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and at the Centers for Disease Control."

We'll finish up next time with the class of 2007 - our most recent grads!

Where are they Now?: The Class of 2009

As much as we believe that law school is an intellectual haven for thinking seriously about Big Issues, we also know that it is a training ground for a future career. As we've told you before, our dedicated staff members in the Office of Career Services devote their entire working life (and many supposed non-working hours as well!) to assisting students in securing summer and permanent employment. We are quite proud of what our students end up doing, and we know they are as well, so we thought we'd provide you a series of posts telling you what the classes of 2007, 2008, and 2009 are up to career-wise. Lois Casaleggi, Director of Career Services, starts with this update on the class of 2009.

"Our first year students are taking advantage of the wide array of available opportunities for their first law school summer experience and are working in a variety of settings and locations.  Every year we have significant percentages of our class working in the public sector, the private sector, and here at the law school, and this year is no exception.  Our students working in the public sector are doing such a wide variety of work that we could spend an entire blog post on that topic, but I’ll give you a few illustrative examples.  On the government side of the public sector world, we have students at all levels of government.  Within the federal government, we have many students working at U.S. Attorney’s Offices and within other divisions of the Department of Justice.  At the state and local government level, we have students working in prosecutor’s offices, the office of the Texas Solicitor General, and the City of Chicago Department of Law.  Public interest positions range from the Public Citizen Litigation Group to Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts to the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

"Another popular option with our students is to work for a Judge during their first summer.  The Office of Career Services organizes a Summer Judicial Internship Program to help facilitate these opportunities.  This summer students will be working for federal judges at the appellate and trial court level, as well as the state supreme court level.

"About one-third of the first-year class will be working in the private sector this summer for law firms or businesses.

"Finally, we are always glad to have many of our first year students with us at the law school during the summer, working in one of our many clinics or serving as a research assistant to a professor.

"Our first year class will be working domestically and abroad in 19 states, the District of Columbia, and several foreign countries, including Chile, Israel, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and Tanzania."

Next time, the class of 2008.

1L Job Search

Our 1L students are deep into their job search process, seeking legal experience in any number of fields for the summer after their 1L year, so we asked 1L Jason Lawrence to write about his job search experience to date. Here's what Jason had to say:

"I’ve been asked to write this blog post to let you know about the great career opportunities available to you, even as a first-year law student, here at the U of C. But as one of my favorite professors once told me - show, don’t tell. So I’m going to do my best to describe the opportunities that have been available to me and let you decide.

The Career Services office has given us first year students the opportunity to interview with summer employers including law firms, corporations like Microsoft, and government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service. This "on-campus" interviewing is generally available only to second year students at most law schools.

I recently interviewed with a large international firm for a summer associate position in their Chicago office. In preparation for the interview, our Career Services office helped me learn how to effectively research the firm and their practice areas, so I was prepared to ask informed questions and speak to my interests in the areas of law that they practiced. In addition, the office conducted a mock interview with me to give me practice, advice and confidence in my interviewing skills.

The interview itself was, if nothing else, a very educational experience. Our interviewer was a 2006 law school graduate, who had only been with the firm for four months. As a result, the interview was less formal than I had expected. I felt that it was a good experience because the reality is that not every interview you will have with prospective employers will be with established associates or partners, or even the attorney that you expected to interview with. Regardless of whether I ultimately get the job, I felt that this process has prepared me well and given me what I hope will be an advantage over other students as I look ahead to the more traditional interviewing process for a job after the second year.

In addition, our career services office recently arranged a lunch with employers from the Minneapolis/St. Paul (Twin Cities) area. I honestly had not given a thought to working in the Twin Cities prior to the lunch. Now, I am thinking about seeking employment there this summer and beyond. While there are plenty of opportunities to find employment in a big legal market like Chicago, New York or Los Angeles, our career services office has made several opportunities in other markets available as well. If you’re from a somewhat smaller city than Chicago like the Twin Cities or Pittsburgh or St. Louis - or like me and from Eastern Iowa where Chicago is the closest city - and want to work in a smaller market, you’ll have plenty of opportunities and support in finding quality (and still well-paying) employment in those markets here at the U of C."

Meet the Office of Career Services

Law school is a thrilling intellectual experience, to be sure, but it is also a training ground for a career. We talk to prospective students a great deal about what they think they might want to do with their legal training, and how Chicago can help meet those goals. With that in mind, we are delighted to introduce you to the amazing people who staff our Office of Career Services. They have helped generations of Chicago students and graduates with their career planning , and Lois Casaleggi, Director of Career Services, has written this introduction to "OCS" for you:

"I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the Office of Career Services at the Law School. 

"OCS works with students and alumni to help them identify and pursue satisfying careers within (and sometimes outside of) the law.  We work with students in big and small ways, from large-scale interview opportunities like our on-campus interview program and the Midwest Public Interest Law Career Conference to one-on-one meetings that serve to answer specific questions and to develop individualized job search plans.

"The OCS team brings many years of law school career services experience (more than we’d like to admit!) to work for our students and alumni.  Four of our counselors have headed a career services office during their careers, and we also bring experience from the practice of law and in higher education to our work.  What does this mean for you?!  It means that our students benefit from our years of experience and relationships with others in the industry.  It also means that you will be working with a group of people who are committed to law students’ job searches, keeping up with the latest trends and developments in the field and working toward helping students identify their individual goals in the search not just for a job but for satisfaction in their career.

"The leader of our team is Associate Dean Abbie Willard, who brings her gracious Southern charm and immense creativity to bear on all aspects of the work that we do.  She is a former President of the National Association of Legal Professionals; has served as a member of the executive coordinating committee for After the JD, an unprecedented national longitudinal study of lawyer careers; and is a true legend in the law school career services community, having received the NALP Mark of Distinction Award for lifetime service to the profession.

"The Office has three Directors – Lisa Abrams, Paul Woo, and me, Lois Casaleggi – and Susan Staab serves as our Assistant Director.  Lisa Abrams has literally “written the book” on legal careers, The Official Guide to Legal Specialties: An Insider’s Guide to Every Major Practice Area, and is often sought after for speaking engagements at law schools, law firms, and bar associations throughout the country who seek her guidance on finding the right fit in a legal job.  Our students are fortunate to have her in-demand expertise at their disposal through the programming and advising she does in the Office.  Paul Woo, among many other things, is our resident technological guru.  He has been instrumental in the development and refinement of a national web-based resource for interview programs, job postings, and employer information.  As a student here you will find Paul to be your go-to-guy for many things from alumni contacts and interview assistance to aesthetically pleasing resume formats.  I came to the University of Chicago Law School after serving as the Assistant Dean for Career Services at the University of Illinois College of Law and spending several years as a litigator.  I enjoy using my litigation and advocacy skills to help our students reach their own career goals, and I work with many of our students who are pursuing careers in public service and those seeking fellowships or judicial clerkships.  The newest member of our team is Susan Staab.  Susan’s organizational skills make our programs run smoothly and her interest in each student’s individual job search makes her a valuable advisor to all.  She knows our print and electronic resources extraordinarily well and is answers every student question with a smile. 

"We truly take pride in the 'services' component of our name and in providing our students and alumni with exceptional advice and assistance to help them achieve their individual career goals.  We hope to have the opportunity to do the same for you in the years to come!"

OCI from the Student Perspective

More on the on-campus interviewing experience, from students going through it!

Rising 2L Sara Feinstein:

"As members of the University of Chicago Law Class of 2008, we were told repeatedly that the odds are in our favor with 290 firms, give or take, and over 500 offices represented, things look pretty good. That tidbit of information theoretically should have removed most of the anxiety from the process. However, being the Type A law student, anxiety is still quite prevalent, though generated solely from the inherent uncertainty of the process. Most students seem to stick to the advice given by Dean Levmore, who strongly encouraged us to keep all firm news to ourselves. This has produced a more friendly and collegial atmosphere than I had anticipated. Walking down the main hallway, where students are camped out with laptops, NALP books, and coffee, it is likely to overhear students exchanging helpful interview tips ('he's an IP litigator, make sure to ask about his last case' or 'this one firm grilled me for 15 minutes about the brief we wrote for our writing seminar last April, you might want to review some copyright law'), demonstrating a true esprit de corps. Compliments on suits and shoe/tie choices abound. In a class of our size, such friendliness and support has come to be the norm. And ultimately, regardless of firm alliance, none of us will ever need to buy another pen, mint, or keychain flash drive."

2L transfer student Meghan Dawson:

"Coming into OCI as a transfer I thought it would be like having a scarlet letter on my suit - 'second-hand goods'. Nothing could have been further from the truth and by the end I realized that transfers actually had an advantage! During my interviews being a transfer was a good story to tell the interviewer and actually made things flow well. All you have to do is give them a good reason for why you wanted to transfer - but inevitably you give them personal insights and I think they like to hear that. No one asked questions that were rude and I actually went thru my entire OCI (@ 22 interviews) without my interviewers taking a single cell phone call. Out of those 22 interviews I received a good number of callbacks -- more than enough to find a place that I will enjoy working. You get more callback offers than you know what to do with, especially if you're personable in the interviews and can really show the firm that they have what you want - whatever it is. Bottom line - OCI at U Chicago is great because it's more flattering that nerve wracking. Everyone will get a job so most people are relaxed. And, as transfers, its a great time to meet all the other 2L students. All those little 5 minute talks in the hallway really introduced me to many of my soon to be class mates."

On Campus Interviewing

This is my first post, so I'll start with a little bit about me. I'm Mary Beth Wynn, the Student Services Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. I'm an '02 grad who practiced law in Chicago before returning to the Law School in January of this year. As the Student Services Fellow, I work with Admissions, Career Services and the Dean of Students. Right now, I am devoting most of my time to Career Services, because we are right in the middle of OCI (on campus interviewing). The vast majority of our rising 2L class find their summer jobs through this process -- not surprising given the fact that our 2L class is roughly 200 people, and roughly 300 employers participate in OCI. I've been spending the majority of my days over at the GSB (graduate school of business) where we run the OCI program, and it's a blast. Our students look so great dressed up in suits, their enthusiasm is running high, and as the employers check out with us each day, they tell us what a great crop of students they had the chance to meet with. It's an exciting thing to be a part of. I've asked some students to tell you (through me) a bit about their OCI experience -- look for their perspectives to be posted here in the next week.