One article makes the case that you should seriously reconsider your motives if you are planning to attend law school: Applying to Law School? Please Reconsider! The article notes that the cost of law school is rising and law firm jobs are increasingly difficult to get, making it difficult for law school graduates to get jobs that pay their six-figure student loan debt.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure, grades are important. But students with high grades still need a good resume. Law students with medium or low grades are especially position to benefit from building other areas of their resume.

The video is encouraging for students who don’t have good grades. There are many things that law students can do to have their CV represent their strengths.

In this video, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor David Steinberg gives advice to law students on building the law school resume and networking for jobs after law school.

The video then suggests that you get your resume/CV out to as many law firms as possible. While I agree with this advice, I think students who have a lot of connections in the legal industry would be better served by first focusing time on those connections before mass-mailing law firms. For law students without connections, it is simple math: the more firms that received your resume, the more chances you have of finding an employer who likes your unique qualifications.

Frankly, I think the presenter comes across as pushing mass mailings, which is probably a service offered by his company. However, I still think the advice is good for students with no connections. Of couse, if you have time, start building connections in the legal community by volunteering, getting to know your professors, and find other ways to build a few deep relationships (which are better than many shallow relationships).

Click here to view the embedded video.

As competition increases due to the increasing number of law students entering the job market, having a plan for a job hunt becomes more important.

What do you think? What are good ways to look for jobs as a law student?

“Poor lawyers” seems like an oxymoron, but many new attorneys will admit they are worried about their high student loan debt and struggling to find attorney jobs to repay it.

In The New Math of Legal Education, University of Illinois College of Law Professor Andrew P. Morriss and Indiana University School of Law Professor Bill Henderson note that there are more law schools that are graduating an increasing number of law students today:

The Council and the Accreditation Committee of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar have accredited 20 additional law schools since 1990.

Law school tuition is increasing:

Since 1987, law school tuition rose 448 percent for in-state residents at public institutions and 224 percent at private institutions. Law school tuition increases far outpaced inflation generally, as the overall cost of living increased only 77 percent in that same period.

Law student debt is increasing:

The average amount of law school debt owed at graduation soared 431 percent between 1987 and 2005, from $16,000 to $85,000.

But most attorneys jobs pay less than law students realize:

With starting salaries at $160,000 and above at large New York City firms, even students who borrow $100,000 or more to attend law school reap substantial economic rewards. But most lawyers do not start at $160,000; the median starting salary at a two- to 10-lawyer firm is a whopping $110,000 less than at a Wall Street powerhouse. Moreover, on average, this gap between large and small firm pay tends to widen during the first eight years of legal practice.

These authors recommend a couple types of reforms and then conclude by expressing concern for law students:

In the short term, these trends are leaving more and more law school graduates worse off economically than if they had never attended law school. If law is truly a profession deserving of the privilege of self-regulation, lawyers and law schools need to take steps to address these problems themselves before legislatures, regulators, and courts decide to do it for us.

Professor Henderson has continued to ring the alarm. He was quoted in a recent article, New lawyers’ salaries clump at high, low ends, discussing how many attorneys have salaries of “$60,000, or even $40,000 – assuming they’re not toiling as ‘contract’ attorneys doing document review for $30 an hour and no benefits.”

Professor Henderson has raised this message in other articles, including being quoted in “‘Cravath model’ that created have and have-not law grads could implode,” ABA Journal; “Law school: A ticket to massive debt?” The AM Law Daily; “Analysis: Law schools growing, but jobs aren’t,” The New York Times; and “A deluge of law schools,” The National Law Journal.”

The point of this article is not to worry law students. Rather, it is to help perspective law students, who are contemplating whether law school is the correct option for them, to understand and factor into their decisions the economic realities of law school debt and the job market for recent law school graduates. (Read more at
Most Law Graduates Disappointed: Few Jobs, Low Salaries, High Stress.)

Even if the job market for recent law graduates is slow and does not pay as well as the legal industry did for previous generations, other industries and business in general continue to value those with law degrees, so new attorneys will find jobs somewhere.

A law degree continues to be a valuable investment in oneself, but the payoff may not be as high, as quick, or in the type of job law that students originally expected.

But maybe you want to work in a big firm. Want to make a ton of money as an attorney? Then understand where the money is, and more importantly, where the money isn’t.

Frankly, money should be only one factor when choosing an occupation. Unfortunately, many people go to law school thinking they will make the “big bucks” only to find out that only certain law jobs pay six digit incomes, at least in the beginning.

A well written article at Law.com, and cited in What Law School Rankings Don’t Say, explains why law students may not make as much money as they expected when they graduated from law school.

The article also explains where the money is. That is, certain areas of law pay extremely well. These areas get a lot of attention from the media. You may have read new coverage of the top law firms increasing starting salary rates.

But what most law students don’t hear in those news stories is that most law students will not become rich upon graduation. Rather, like any occupation, wealth is accumulated over time by those who become experts in their field, provide quality client service, and manage their practice well.

The number of law school graduates continues to increase must faster than the number of law jobs available. The supply of law graduates is high, but the demand has not kept pace.

As a result, law school graduates who did not graduate in the top 10% of a Tier 1 law school are having great difficulty getting a job in law that pays enough to pay off their law school loans.

Further, even those law graduates who find jobs are often unhappy with the practice of law and the high number of hours they must spend at the firm. (See the Dec. 1, 2007 Update below for links to empiracal data and more discussion on lawyer misery.)

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article discussing how law school graduates are having great difficulty finding law jobs.

For anecdotal evidence of these problems, see the comments from lawyers and law school graduates here.

Having more educated individuals in the United States is generally good. However, prospective law students should realize the challenges ahead before entering law school.

A law school education is still very valuable to students, even if they don’t practice law. But I wrote this article to offset the “rich, happy, powerful lawyer” image suggested by television, so a person can decide about law school with a better understanding of how their future might actually look after law school.

This is an update to these previous posts:

• Why Most Law School Graduates Earn Less Money Than They Expect
• How Much are New Lawyers’ Salaries?
• Is Law School a Good Investment?

December 1, 2007 Update: The preceding did not give enough attention to one of the greatest problems for law school graduates—dissatisfaction with their lawyer careers. Fortunately, I came across an article that explains the problem far better than I could, and this author has better credentials than me. Read Why you shouldn’t go to law school; See also Law School by Default: Want to keep your options open? Don’t train to be a lawyer.

Finally, consider reading a report on empirical evidence suggesting that success within the elite law firm environment often entails a difficult array of personal and professional trade-offs. The evidence is humanized in the story of two young associates who work long hours in large, elite law firms and find that their lives are substantively unhappy and morally unfulfilling. The report is available here: Young Associates in Trouble.

For more help finding a job as a law student or lawyer, visit the Law Student Jobs section of this site.

This includes public defenders, city prosecutors, federal government lawyers, attorneys at non-profit and charity organizations, and a variety of similarly situated law school graduates.

In short, this new law will provide law school loan repayment assistance to students taking public interest jobs.

The following was provided by Philip G. Schrag of the Georgetown University Law Center:

This morning, President Bush signed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (H.R. 2669), which includes two provisions that will make it much easier for law students who graduate with high educational debt to have long-term public service careers. The bill includes a section creating an income-based repayment (IBR) plan that enables graduates to make much smaller monthly payments when their incomes are low: the IBR formula caps repayment at 15% of (AGI minus 150% of the federal poverty level). Interest not paid because of the IBR limit is capitalized for later payment, but if any funds are still owing at the end of 25 years, that amount is forgiven by the federal government.

Even more important, if the borrower spends ten years in full-time public service while paying through IBR, the remaining debt is forgiven at the end of those 10 years rather than 25 years. The new law defines public service in terms of a long list of types of jobs, plus a catch-alls that include all government jobs and all employment by all 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. Loans that qualify for IBR payment and forgiveness include nearly all the loans that most law students use: Stafford loans and Grad PLUS loans, whether they are government-guaranteed or government-extended. If the borrower has government-guaranteed (FFEL) loans, they must be consolidated into a federal direct consolidation loan before a repayment counts toward the ten years of IBR repayment before forgiveness occurs. For federal direct loan recipients or those who have consolidated into federal direct consolidation loans, the ten years can start on Oct. 1, 2007, but the IBR formula doesn’t start until July 1, 2009. Meanwhile, graduates may use income-contingent repayment (ICR), which also qualify for forgiveness. ICR payments are higher than IBR payments but much lower than standard ten-year repayment requires.

I have written an article for the Hofstra Law Review explaining this new law in depth and criticizing two of its features. It is posted on Georgetown’s website and also on SSRN.

Students and graduates may compute exactly how the law will affect them by consulting the calculators at IBR and ICR.

Philip G. Schrag
Georgetown University Law Center

The numbers are interesting. In 2006, the average starting salary for an attorney at a small firm (2-10 attorneys) was $50,000. The average starting salary for an attorney at a large firm (over 500 attorneys) was $135,000.

It is worth noting that the survey covers a large geographic area, so some adjustment is necessary for your local region. If you are in a small city, rural area, or city overpopulated by law schools, the average salary for your area may be less than the survey average. If you are starting in New York, or some other top paid city, the average salary for your area may be more than the survey average.

I suppose the results could be further criticized for being unscientific in one way or another. However, as a general guide to new associate salaries, the survey results are enlightening.

To see the survey results, visit NALP’s What Do New Lawyers Earn?

11-23-07 Update: This article has been updated. Please read Many Law Graduates Disappointed: Few Jobs, Low Salaries, High Stress. For help finding the law job that is right for you, visit our law jobs section.

A note from a reader:

Law graduates always prefer to attend the traditional educational institutes in a hope to get high salaries in the market than are offered to the graduates holding online degrees. Although a traditional academic experience is matchless but, online learning resources such as 000-253 are a valuable means to enhance one’s skills. Online certifications in a technical area, such as 000-415, not only grant the educational qualifications but also shape one’s career. Some of these certifications like 000-664 even enable the students to work at top notch laboratories to have an on hand experience of the technical details. Once at a competent level, professional can keep up with the latest tools and techniques (000-730) to aid in their progression.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is Some Dishonesty Okay?

The video questions the value of OCI to employers. For example, the video shows the interviewee (law student) giving the answers that she assumes the interviewer (law firm partner) wants to hear.

While that seems dishonest at first glance, is it unrealistic? In today’s job market, it seems like over 90% of law students that attend a law school below Tier 1 cannot get a job at a large firm, so they will probably earn $40,000 to $70,000 their first year.

(As a side note, that may seem like a lot until you consider that many of these law students 1) have over $100,000 in loans and 2) may have other expenses like homes and children. It’s especially tough for a single-income household to pay the bills and school loans when earning $45,000 a year.)

Many law students won’t find a law job at all. This could be because of their grades, their personality, or merely the fact that there are far more graduating law students than law job openings. Law schools continue to graduate more law students than can be absorbed by law firms.

In short, competition for good paying legal jobs is high, and a law student needs to find a job that will pay the bills upon graduation. Thus, law students are very motivated to find a job that will pay the bills, even if it’s not the exact type of legal work the law students wanted to do. Law students will compromise and take a job that moderately interests them rather than have no job at all.

So a law student might easily tell a job interviewer, “yes, real estate litigation is one of my greatest interests” to obtain a real estate litigation job, when in actuality, the student is only moderately interested in real estate litigation, but would take the job if no other offers come her way.

Are Partners Dishonest?

I realize law firms would prefer a candidate who is most passionate about the area of law for which they are hiring, but maybe that is an unrealistic desire. Similarly, a partner doing the interviewing is going to put on a good front for the law student, emphasizing the firm’s “work-life balance,” great work environment, etc., even though the partner knows that associates in her firm work 14 hours a day, the firm’s staff is frustrated, and the firm has other problems.

Bad Interview Questions

I especially hate when an OCI interviewer asks law students to name their weaknesses. Nobody in their right mind is going to start listing off their weaknesses: “I am sometimes late, not very organized, gossip about my coworkers, get annoyed easily, don’t like to be told what to do, like to surf the web at work” etc. No, instead we are forced to pick one of the many “correct” answers:

• I am a perfectionist and worry about every little detail.
• I work too much and it frustrates my family and friends.
• When I get started on a project I get fixated on it and don’t want to give it up.
• My friends say I am way too organized, but I guess I feel it helps me stay on top of multiple responsibilities.

Conclusion

I’m not suggesting all law students are dishonest in the interview process. Rather, the point is that CALI’s Pre-Law Blog has raised some important questions about the OCI interview process—and law hiring in general—in an era where there are far more law students than there are law jobs, and only the largest firms pay enough for law students to easily cover their bills.

As a result, many law students take jobs that they dislike, merely because that is the only job they could find. That new associate is likely to leave the firm as soon as a better job comes around.

Is there anything that can be done about this problem? Law firms have an interest in answering this question so they can discontinue the routine of hiring new associates, training them in, and then having to look for a replacement after 1-3 years when the associate moves on to the position she really wanted in the beginning.

First, I suggest ordering what I believe is the absolute best law job hunt book available, Guerrilla Tactics For Getting The Legal Job Of Your Dreams: Regardless of Your Grades, Your School, or Your Work Experience!

Second, visit our new Law Jobs page with links to many websites that will help the hunt for your law job.

Here at Law Student, I’ve sorted through countless career websites to find the best for your job search. To learn more about legal job types and jobs available now, visit the law jobs section.

Using Upscoop.com, you just enter the e-mail and password to your Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, or Hotmail account. Upscoop compares your contacts and displays to you anyone with a page at these websites. It’s very easy and works great!

The process only takes about 30 seconds. If you have a lot of e-mail addresses, the service will e-mail you the results after it looks them up (which could take hours, or even days, if you have many addresses).

Upscoop will search Aim.com, Bebo.com, Classmates.com, Facebook.com, Flickr.com, Flixter.com, Friendster.com, Hi5.com, LinkedIn.com, MySpace.com, Ringo.com, and Tickle.com.

Read a related article on Digg | Digg this story

You can learn more about public service legal work and available jobs at Public Interest Law Jobs.

• A podcast about interview tips and traps (Lewis & Clark Law School Podcasts)
• Tips for students taking law school exams (Vikram David Amar on Findlaw)
• A podcast with tips for multiple-choice exams (CALI Radio)
• A short list of law school exam tips (Eric Goldman)
• Ten tips to survive law school (Kathleen Notestine)
• Four tips to do great in your first year of law school (LawVibe)
• Foolish ways to become a lawyer without going to law school (Michael P. Ehline)

This amounts to an annual base salary of about $46,000 for many students, but the exact rate depends on your locality. Also, a law clerk who has been licensed to practice law for more than a year qualifies for at least one step increase. For more information about judicial clerk salaries, visit the section titled “Qualifications, Salary and Benefits” at the bottom of this page: Federal Law Clerk Employment Information.

You can learn more about judicial clerkships at our Judicial Clerkship Sites section.

Your First Years as a Lawyer: An Owner’s Manual

1. Introduction – Your First Years as a Lawyer “Why is satisfaction such an issue with lawyers?. Do accountants or physicians or goat-herders also worry about their vocations and their places in them?”
2. The Search for Satisfaction – “New lawyers should not be concerned with job satisfaction. OK … Got your attention?!”
3. Firms? Public-interest? Government? In-house? Where to Practice? – “Law firms are the norm. That’s where the clients are, that’s where the salaries are, and that’s where the prestige still is. Is that where job satisfaction is?
4. Planting Yourself in the Right (but not necessarily Firm) Soil – “Finding the right place…for you. Many lawyers find themselves doing work that does not take advantage of their talents.The first decision you must make — in an affirmative way — is to decide whether litigation or a transactional practice is more appropriate for you. This is a basic question, but it’s amazing how little thought goes into it for many.”
5. Balancing your Office Life…with your Personal One – A new lawyer must be careful to channel stresses and frustrations away from clients and seniors. … Exercise and hobbies are useful options.

Fifteen Rules for Winning as a Junior Associate – “This article is intended to pass along some real-world advice about how you can win as a junior associate. It is the sort of advice that I wish I had had when I began my legal career.”

Findlaw has a number of other good articles for all attorneys.

If you are still searching for that first job to launch your legal career, check out our law jobs section.

• Law School Advice from a graduate (Jeremy Blachman)
• A funny lesson about why you should proofread your resume (Who Owns the Fox?)
• Law school exam advice (CALI Pre-Law Blog)
• A podcast about what they didn’t tell you in law school (ABA)
• Free law school MP3’s (Frugal Law Student)
• How to make money with Lexis and WestLaw (Legal Andrew)
• One law student’s weekly list of links related to law school and other interests (divine angst)

The legal profession has traditionally had a reputation for poor marketing. The primary reason seems to be that the legal profession maintained its traditional professional role, refusing a business approach, because a business approach appeared to be focused too much on the bottom line: money. Over the past decade or two, firms have started to innovate and adopt an organization model similar to business.

Legal Marketing is Growing
Today it is not uncommon to see commercials for law firms on television. The newest type of marketing is online. Law firms, like these Lawyers in Philadelphia, are using cutting edge techniques.

Who Are These Lawyers in Philadelphia?
Master & Weinstein, P.C. is a team of 7 attorneys and 12 support staff representing personal injury clients throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York from their offices in Philadelphia. Their website lists a number of their victories and the methods they use to effectively serve their clients.

Internet Marketing Used by These Lawyers in Philadelphia
What are these Lawyers in Philadelphia doing that is so impressive? First, these Lawyers in Philadelphia learned how people find attorneys online. Most people use a search engine like Google. Then they do a search for certain terms. These Lawyers in Philadelphia figured out what terms people use most to find Lawyers in Philadelphia by using a service like Overture, which shows how many times a term was searched last month on Yahoo. They probably identified the term “Lawyers in Philadelphia” is the most common way for people to search for attorneys in their target market. In other words, the term “Lawyers in Philadelphia” was more commonly used by potential clients than “Attorneys in Philadelphia,” “Philadelphia Personal Injury,” “Car Accident Lawyer,” etc.

Next, these Lawyers in Philadelphia used search engine marketing (SEM) methods to improve their rank in Google. That is, they identified paid methods that would make them one of the top ten websites listed when someone searched for “Lawyers in Philadelphia” on Google.

While there are many free search engine optimization (SEO) methods, one of the best methods is to have your website linked from other websites using the search term you are targeting (e.g. “Lawyers in Philadelphia” links to www.mwsdlegal.com). By having many sites like to your website using that term, it sends the message to Google that 1) your website represents that term and 2) your website is a credible authority because many pages link to it.

How to Get Links to Your Website
So how do you get websites to link to you? The cheapest method is to get links from your affiliates: the Chamber of Commerce, online business directories in your city, your friends’ or clients’ website, etc.

A quicker option is to pay for them. There are ineffective ways to buy links to your website, such as paying someone to add a bunch of spam links to you around the web, and effective ways to buy links to your website, such as paying a site like reviewme.com to have legitimate websites (such as a blog) review you or your website. Here, these Lawyers in Philadelphia paid reviewme.com to offer money to legitimate websites (like blogs) to review their website and services and link to them. LawStudent.tv, a blog for Law School Students, is one of these websites. TopLawStudent is paid $30 to write this review. In return, these Lawyers in Philadelphia get weblinks from a number of websites specifically selected by them. In other words, these Lawyers in Philadelphia paid to quickly get a lot of links and boost their website to the top of Google searches for “Lawyers in Philadelphia.”

Other Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Methods
The number of links to your website using key words you are targeting is just one way to increase your rank on search engines. Other factors include the terms you use in your title, meta-tags, headings, and text on your website — and the frequency of those terms. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit this simple SEO guide. (Note: SEM is usually paid marketing, and SEO is marketing without compensation). As you can see, web marketing can be costly in terms of time and money, but the benefit is becoming the most popular law firm that potential clients contact when they search for a specific term.

Law firms like these Lawyers in Philadelphia are ahead of the curve. It’s good to see law firms are starting to become more business savvy by utilizing state of the art technology like search engine marketing. While legal services marketing may be a step beyond most law students’ interests — most law students need to focus first on marketing themselves — it won’t be long before their marketing skills will be important for client acquisition.

DISCLOSURE: For reviewing these Lawyers in Philadelphia, this article qualified for a $30 payment, which is used to cover LawStudent.tv’s internet fees. The content of the article was not dictated by the funding source. See ReviewMe.com for more information.

UPDATE: For a good article on lawyer marketing visit What Does Marketing Have to Do with Practicing Law?

For general advice on resumes, cover letters, and interviews, the University of Georgia School of Law has a good list of tips. Also, I found these instructions for writing a legal cover letter useful. Finally, here are some sample cover letters.

You may also enjoy Georgetown’s Graduate Professional Development FAQs and LLM Resource Manual.  Although they are for LLM students, most of the advice is equally applicable to law students. For international LLM students, the University of Virginia Law School has a shorter handbook with tips and advice.

Additionally, most law schools have a career services office with many resources — so visit them if you haven’t already.

As law students start the new year, many are using the break from school to find a law job for after they graduate. Networking plays an important role in helping law students obtain jobs. Skills in networking also help after being hired as new attorneys seek to acquire clients for their firm, something they will do for the remainder of their careers.

How do you start? Networking involves three steps:

1. learning where to network
2. learning how to do it the right way
3. going out and doing it

This article focuses on the first step with a few ideas to get you going. The second step is the most important. That is, networking is about having a genuine interest in people, focusing on their needs, and staying focused on how you can give rather than what you can get. This point is discussed more fully in some of the additional resources listed at the end of this article. The third step — go do it — is obviously up to you.

II. Where to Network

Whether you are a law school student or attorney, preparation for networking requires asking yourself three questions:

1. Who do you want to meet?
2. How could you possibly meet them?
3. Of those ways to meet them, which would cast you in the best light?

For example, start by listing all the people you want to meet. If you are a law student looking for a job, write down the names of the firms you want to work at along with any people you know at those firms.

Next, brainstorm ways you could meet them. Do your professors, family members, or friends know people at those firms? Do those firms host any events that you could attend? Do those firms have attorneys who are members of organizations you could participate in, such as the local Bar chapter, legal aid, or a special interest group? Build a list of ideas using part III (for law students) and IV (for new attorneys) of this article.
Finally, prioritize the ways you could meet these people in a way that would cast you in the best light. Often this will be the circumstances in which you would feel most comfortable meeting them. For example, if you attend an event, you should attend one that interests you, so you can discuss your common interests when you talk with people there.

III. Ideas for Law School Students

Here are a few ways to meet attorneys in firms where you would like to work.

Ask people you know for referrals:

• Law school professors you know well
• Friends who have graduated and now work in the law firms that interest you
• Relatives
• Your parents’ friends
• Former associates, coworkers, and bosses
• Other friends from high school, college, your neighborhood, church, or community involvements
• Your friends’ parents

Attend an event or join a group:

• Legal groups: Local Bar chapters, legal aid efforts, special interest groups, law school student groups, etc.
• Community groups: Chamber of Commerce, Jaycees, etc.
• Attorney groups: Issue oriented groups, local campaigns, etc.

Get published:

• With a law review article
• In your local Bar publication

Volunteer. Often volunteer opportunities in the field that interests you will provide time to meet other attorneys in that field.

IV. Ideas for New Attorneys

Once you are hired, you will seek ways to acquire new clients for the firm. Here are a few ideas to meet potential clients.

Join a group:

• Legal groups: Local Bar chapters, legal aid efforts, special interest groups, etc.
• Community groups: Chamber of Commerce, Jaycees, etc.
• Political groups: Political party, issue oriented groups, local campaigns, etc.
• Groups where your potential clients might gather: Small business groups, local groups on www.meetup.com, etc.

Teach a class about your area of law to educate and meet potential clients:

• In a community education group
• At a local community college or college
• A local high school for a civics class or career day

Speak at events your potential clients attend:

• Professional associations’ annual events
• Community groups
• Educational seminars
• Training required to obtain continuing education credits

Market yourself online:

• Get a website
• Create a profile on LinkedIn.com (this is like MySpace, but for professionals)
• Create a profile on MySpace.com (many people search MySpace for old friends)
• Start a blog on a topic of interest to potential clients (like “Small Business Blog” or “Car Accident Injuries Advice Blog”)
• Start a podcast on a topic of interest to potential clients

Get published:

• With a law review article
• In your local Bar publication
• In local newspapers

Stay in touch with old friends:

• Send them Christmas cards
• Coordinate your school reunions
• Attend alumni games, weddings, funerals, and other important events

Finally, earn referrals from current clients by doing good work.

V. Other Resources

These resources relate specifically to attorneys:

• Fearless Networking (American Bar Association) (online)
  
• Q & A on lawyer networking (American Bar Association) (online)
• Networking Tips and Advice
• A Lawyer’s Guide to Networking (Paperback)
• Lawyers Guide to Strategic Marketing (Paperback)

These resources relate to professionals in general:

• The Best of Effective Networking for Professional Success (online)
• Wall Street Journal – Networking Articles (online)
• Savvy Professional Women Promote Themselves Well (online)
• The Networking Survival Guide: Get the Success You Want By Tapping Into the People You Know (Paperback)

UPDATE: For a good article on lawyer marketing visit What Does Marketing Have to Do with Practicing Law?

This article is part of the Networking Carnival series hosted by Legal Andrew.

You can order free business cards at VistaPrint for the price of shipping, if you don’t mind the VistaPrint logo/message on the back.

• Top 11: Ways to Be Productive in Class During Your Third Year of Law School
• Goal Setting in Law School
• Properly Capitalize Excel Text With “Proper”
• Using Outlook Tasks for “Getting Things Done” (GTD)
• How to Catch Up When You’re Behind
• Rename Westlaw Windows in Firefox to Provide Quicker Access
• Harness the Power of Word Cross-References for Mammoth Documents
• Digital File Management for Lawyers and Individuals

For the job hunt, Legal Andrew has these good career advice articles:

• Don’t Make These Mistakes While Job Hunting
• Utilize Law School Library for Career Search
• Business Cards for (Law) Students
• Tips for Writing the Best Legal Resume
• 52 Resume Writing Tips
• Make Money With These Small Law Firm Job Search Tips
• LinkedIn Can Network Lawyers to Each Other and to Clients
• Lawyer Marketing Via MySpace

Judicial Clerkships Ranked by Prestige

1. U.S. Supreme Court
2. Circuit Court of Appeals
3. Federal District Court — tied with — State Supreme Court
5. Federal Magistrate Court — tied with — State Court of Appeals
7. Federal Bankruptcy Court
8. State District Court

Please note, some clarifications are required. First, not everyone will agree with this list. In particular, people have different opinions about whether one tied item is actually higher than the other.

Second, the list doesn’t take into consideration an individual student’s plans. For example, a student seeking a career in bankruptcy or state court practice would probably prefer Federal Bankruptcy Court or a state court, respectively, over a Federal District Court.

Third, any ranking of these opportunities may be unfair. Clerkships at any type of court have great educational value. I understand that clerking for a trial court is extremely valuable because trial court clerks experience the mechanics of court, motions, evidence, and the excitement of litigation at its most fundamental level.

Finally, I talked to under ten people, so these could be wrong. If you have a different opinion, please leave a comment here so other law students can benefit from your advice.

Federal court clerkships continue to be posted as courts announce their openings. State court clerkships vary state-to-state.
For more information and links to judicial clerkship websites, visit this article:

Why Law School Students Seek Judicial Clerkships

Your school may participate in the PMF program by nominating a student to be considered for selection as a salaried PMF Fellow. PMF fellows are placed within a variety of federal agencies, paid at the GS-9, GS-11, or GS-12 level, and serve for two years.

The PMF program was established to attract highly qualified students receiving advanced degrees to federal service, and has served as a stepping stone to highly visible and responsible positions in federal service. The PMF program materials state that the rigorous, paid program involves 80 hours of classroom instruction each year, challenging assignments, accelerated promotions, and the chance to network with other agencies. Fellows are hired by agencies and given exposure to domestic and international issues such as public administration, technology, science, criminal justice, health, and financial management.

Students who will graduate in the upcoming winter or spring are eligible. To be considered, visit How To Apply or the program’s main page.

Graduating Students. These lessons may be useful for new attorneys working under partners.

1Ls. If you will be a summer associate at a firm next summer, knowing this advice ahead of time will be especially valuable.

Lexis Nexis posted a “best of” list of lessons learned by summer associates here: What We’ve Learned From Our Summer Experiences.

Unlike businesses that post job openings, law firms operate under different rules in the hiring process. One difference is in the counteroffer.

In business, a job candidate offered a low salary can normally counteroffer by modifying the terms. However, as this Lexis Nexis article illustrates, whether to counteroffer at a law firm is a delicate matter. A proper approach in business may not be appropriate in the practice of law.

You can read about one student’s mistake making a counteroffer and what he wishes he had done here: The Counteroffer, By Pete Meyers.

For more information about law job salaries and finding the best legal job for you, visit the law jobs section here at Law Student.

If you have a MySpace page, there are some very important questions you should consider to protect your career and privacy. 

Employers May See Your MySpace Page. More and more employers are doing internet searches or hiring search firms to do background checks on employees. This probably includes law firms.

MySpace Pages May Be Embarrassing. I’ve seen law students with MySpace.com pages showing drunk pictures or sexually suggestive photos. These student may not realize that by listing their law school, using their full name, or using their e-mail address, anyone can search MySpace and find their page.

Your MySpace Page May Be Archived. The fact that the web page is archived on the WayBackMachine for all eternity means that deleting the MySpace page may not delete all copies of it. The WayBackMachine seeks to make copies of all web pages so people can see what was posted on a web page at a certain point in time. Fortunately, the WayBackMachine does not archive MySpace. But other services, such as Google’s cache, may maintain a copy of your MySpace page even after you change the content.

Because of the importance of reputation in the legal field, law students must be especially careful. Normally information posted on a MySpace page is personal, and not intended for a professional audience. If this includes you, here are a few suggestions.

Action Steps:

1. Delete your MySpace page

If you must have a MySpace page, then do this:

1. Delete your current MySpace page
2. Open a new MySpace account under a new e-mail address that you use only for MySpace, so that no one can use your current e-mail address to look you up.
3. Do not put your full name on your MySpace page.
4. Do not put on your MySpace page what schools you have attended.
5. Do not put on your MySpace page any photos or words you wouldn’t want an employer to see.

You could also consider setting your MySpace page to “private.”

Conclusion. Many students don’t realize their MySpace page could come back to haunt them. It may be unfortunate, but this is the reality in our new Internet era. If your MySpace page has photos or comments you wouldn’t want a potential employer or potential client to see, take the action listed above.

This is part of a series of articles highlighting Web 2.0 websites for law students.