Hi, my name's Harrison Barnes, I'm the founder and CEO of LawCrossing, Attorney Resume, Legal Authority, Law Firm Staff, and numerous other companies in the legal industry that do nothing but get law students and attorneys jobs. And what I'd like to talk to you about today is how to get a job as a law student. This topic, I believe, is one of the most important topics that you can listen to if you've taken the time to go to law shcool and you've taken the time to try to learn about this industry and you're going to look for a job. This topic is really going to make a difference because how you go about searching for a job and the actions you take and the things you do are really going to make a huge difference in the quality of the job that you ultimately get.
You know, there's a couple things that I want to tell you about first, and I think you really need to understand these because it's important. One of the things that you need to know is that in many cases your actually really very much on your own when you start searching for a job as a law student. You know your school is there, and they will give you certain advice, but the work that you're doing has really got to come from you. And it has to be things that you do, and there are things that you can do that I'm going to tell you about right now that a lot of people aren't going to tell you to do. What I'm going to tell you is some of the most important things in terms of how you're going to get your job — very, very important things that you need to understand.
So the first thing is, is when you're searching for the job, whether it's your first year of law school, or your second year of law school, or even your first job for after graduating, what you need to understand and a lot of people really don't understand is that the most important thing for you to get yourself out there to as many potential employers as possible, you know, at no time in your career are you really going to have the luxury of applying to hundreds, or in some cases thousands of potential places to work. Whether it's law firms you're interested in or government offices, you need to really get yourself out there. Law schools typically won't tell you this because they don't want everybody, say you're in Charlotte, North Carolina, and there's thousands of law firms in North Carolina — you apply to every one of those law firms, all of the law schools in North Carolina aren't going to tell you to do that because if every student did that, every employer would get flooded and no one would be able to stand out. Law schools typically want to feed certain attorneys or law students to certain employers. So the first thing is, you really, really, need to get yourself out there, and getting yourself out there to as many employers as possible is something that works.
You know, I went to University of Virginia Law School, and the jobs that I got I got through mass mailing. We had a great on-campus interviewing program, but I mass-mailed my resume, and it worked — okay, I got a great job in Los Angeles, I got great jobs all over the country using mass mailing. And that's something that's against a lot of the law schools' advice to do — that mass-mailing — but I know it works because I've done it.
And, you know, mass-mailing — it's not exactly mass-mailing I'm talking about — it's targeted mailing, but when you use targeted mailing to apply for a job you're really giving yourself a major kind of advantage in tons of respects. I've seen students from Thomas Cooley Law School, I've seen a lot of students from there do mass-mailings and move to Los Angeles. I've seen students from schools in Florida do mass-mailings and move to Denver and Oregon and all these different places where small schools or law schools are able to do these things and get great jobs, and it works if you're going to a #1 type law school, too, a top ten law school. It's just something that actually works, and when you get out of the market, a lot of people seem to be skittish about doing mass-mailings because they don't want all the employers to know that they're looking, or they may be employed while looking for a job, but this is a great opportunity as a law student to do it. And it's something that you really need to do.
Now how do you go about doing it? You can do it yourself if you're looking at law firms. Typically, what you would do is you have to look at — Martindale is a good source, but there's also firms that aren't Martindale because it costs money — basically every firm in a geographic location that you want to work at that matches your practice area and that's a certain size that you want to work at, and it's better to be over-inclusive rather than under-inclusive. There's some firms that are 10 people that pay more than AM Law 100 law firms, so you really need to make sure that you're being inclusive in your search. Another service that I recommend, or way of doing it that I believe is most effective, is called Legal Authority.com. That's a company that I started, but it also grew out of a need that kind of happened where I used to be a law professor where I helped a student use the service or do that type of work to get a job because that was how I got a job, and he was the number one or two law student at the school I taught at and had a hard time finding a job. So, the point I'm trying to make to you is when you start doing a, when you do a targeted mailing, it's really something that's really going to work and it does work. A good service for that is Legal Authority.
Just a couple things: I recommend when you do your search that you look around where you are, but I also recommend that you look in other areas geographically and outside your state, because there's lots of places that you have the opportunity to work if you're not totally committed to where you're from.
One story I want to tell you about is law schools typically do not like the mass-mailing thing, and I told you why they don't want all the students flooding the market: because it makes it more difficult for the ones that they're trying to feed. I remember a story where I sent a letter about LegalAuthority to all the law schools in the country, and I got a call from someone from Hastings Law School recruit services, and they said something like, "This is horrible, I think students should be networking. They shouldn't be using your service." What literally happened within 15 minutes of this woman, she was upset, like hanging up the phone, was we got an email testimonial from a student at Hastings that — Hastings is a great law school, it's a top law school, I mean, students are working at the top law firms in the country from that law school — hadn't been able to find a job, and had been out of work for six months out of graduating, and had used the service and within a week had seven or eight job offers and was saying, "This is the most incredible thing I've ever done."
So I'm telling you, the service works, you know. In terms of my credibility, I went to great law schools and colleges, I've been a law professor, a clerk for a federal judge, I worked for two top law firms — I'm telling you, the service works because you're targeting every single employer at one time and getting yourself out there, and other students are doing this and it really helps you, so I think Legal Authority is a great idea.
A couple other things, too. I want to make a couple points, because if you're watching this, chances are you're from a little bit different generation than I am, and there was a story on 60 Minutes recently, it was talking about people from your generation as opposed to different generations. When you're going out and interviewing for a job, you just need to remember that these law firms are businesses and government offices are businesses — well actually, they're not, but corporations are business, but the way a government office tends to conduct itself is somewhat business-like — and in the business world — and I'm not trying to be condescending — I just want you to understand that the people who get hired are the people who show up, and they want to work hard, and they're dedicated, and they don't need a lot of praise, they just want to be committed to the job, and they want to show that they want to do this for a career. And people that are going to be hiring you inside law firms and organizations as a law student are going to want you to come in and be like them, and they want to think that you really, really want to do this as your long-term career, and this is who you want to be, and this is the best kind of job for you. And I firmly believe that when you apply to places, you need to really make sure that you're conveying that kind of attitude to people and making sure that they believe how committed you are to it.
A couple things — I just want to tell you a little bit about how Legal Authority works. We're a research company, and we're one of the largest research companies in the world. What we do is we go out and we look at every law firm in the country and every government office, and we look at who the contact information is inside those law firms and organizations, and then we, in terms of who's in charge in hiring, we take all that information, we organize it by practice area, and we find basically every source we can and we put it in a database and we help you apply to those places and we print resumes and cover letters for you and we send them. Now, a question a lot of students have asked me before is, "Why can't I just email a resume?" and, a couple things: The first thing is, is when you send a letter to a law firm, it's much different than sending an email. Anybody can go to the nap directory and download contacts and blast their resume out. Paper is typically treated a lot differently inside law firms because, you know, if a lawsuit's filed or a certain paper is done in a law firm, it's sent in a letter format, it's not sent as an email. And so when paper comes into law firms and hiring organizations in the legal community, they typically treat it a lot differently than a normal company would. It's stamped, it's filed a certain way, it makes someone's desk, someone reviews it, someone writes on it, someone puts it in, you know, and so it just is a much better way to send a resume — it's a ton times more effective in my opinion. So that's why Legal Authority sends letters because it actually is a better way of finding a job.
And, the next thing they help you do is redo your resume and cover letter. No matter how smart you think you are — I mean, I'm talking about partners who make a million dollars plus a year who use the service and they want us to review their resume — we catch typos and we catch all types of stuff and make sure it's formatted in a proper way, and there are certain ways to write a resume, so that's another reason that Legal Authority is very, very helpful.
A couple other things that I would recommend in terms of your search as a law student is you want to act fast. You want to generally be the first out the door in terms of your applications. The sooner you apply to places, generally, the better. I don't recommend doing anything in terms of your first semester of law school or during your first year, but, you know, when you're going into the summer and you're going to be starting your second year of law school, you want to go all out, you want to do the biggest push you've ever done with anything. And in addition, I recommend doing the same thing but even greater if you're trying to find a job in your third year of law school. And it is important to find a job in your third year of law school because it is much easier in most cases to find a job during your third year than it is after you've taken the bar. But taking the bar and having passed it obviously gives you a different kind of entree into law firms, it makes a big difference.
A couple other sources that I recommend are LawCrossing. Most of the jobs that you're going to see advertised on most websites are for people who have been practicing for one or two years, but lawcrossing.com goes out and consolidates every job it can find — every law office, every government organization, it takes all the information it can find and it organizes it onto its website so you're going to find lots and lots of jobs there.
Lots of law firms will say on their hiring page that they are looking for people to just start as first years and summer associates, so that's a very good source. I'm going to tell you something that's going to go against the advice law schools will tell you, but I really, you know, if you're watching this video, I don't look at people as — I look at law students as someone I can advise and help, and whatever you do, I want you to succeed, and I can help you succeed, but one thing I recommend is applying to be a summer associate or a first year attorney. The employer doesn't' necessarily say, "We have an opening for a summer associate," but if you see a place you like, I think it makes sense to go and apply. Explain to them you're interested because law firms are businesses, and if they can feel that they can integrate you into their environment, they will. Every time you do that it's like an advertisement. And the more advertisements you have, the more opportunity for someone to buy your service. I just think that's a really, really smart thing is applying to lots of places.
So final words, I guess, in terms of applying as a law student is, you need to think that its just as important as your studies in a lot of respects because the quality of the job will have a huge bearing, I mean, getting a job that's paying in the mid-six figures, some people can do that, and most law students get one job like that, so you need to fight and get out there and work yourself really, really hard to make sure you get the best jobs. Don't be stingy with your applications. Send them as many places as you can. Check out Legal Authority. Legal Authority also offers financing. I think it's free while you're in school, so that's another idea, but you have to ask about that, I think, and I hope that helps. Go to lawcrossing.com, there's lots of good articles on there that can help you with your search, and I hope my advice has been helpful, and good luck, thank you. I'm Harrison Barnes. Bye.
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