Jobs

I know several people who have become frantic about the summer job situation already. No matter how much the career counselors try to explain how meager (to put it kindly) the job market is for 1L's, many students have absurd expectations. While it would be a tremendous asset to gain experience working in the legal field during the summer after the first year, it is by no means as important as first year grades. I have heard stories already this semester of people staying up until 4 o'clock in the morning on school nights writing out 10 cover letters (for positions they have no chance of getting). I think they would be much better served studying criminal law until 12 o'clock and then going to bed. As someone who has gone through the horrific process of trying to find a job after college, I have come to recognize several traps. The most important is that in desperation, it is very easy to become painfully inefficient and waste tons of time. Logging into your school's jobs database and spending 4 hours emailing your resume and personalizing cover letters to 50 jobs that you barely bothered to read the job descriptions for may make you feel a little better inside (because you are "doing something"), but it is a complete waste of time. At this point, I am not positive of the best way to go about finding a summer job, but I know for sure that is not it. John is probably correct in this regard. Most students best chance at getting meaningful employment is through a pre-existing connection or contact. 

I hope to educate myself about the process more in the next few weeks and come up with my own plan for how to tackle the issue (but never at the expense of time needed to study). While it seems to be common sense that it should not be hard to find  a job when you are willing to work for free (as all first year law students SHOULD), in this hyper-competitive job market, who the hell knows. The fact that NYLS does not rank until after second semester in mid May, makes it considerably harder to distinguish yourself from the pack in February, March, and April. What can you put in your cover letter? "I know I am at the top of my class, trust me!"  

This process troubles and stresses me more than any looming 5 hour comprehensive exams.