Internships for Law students – Why, When and How ?
One of the most talked about and challenging struggle that students across most professional courses like engineering, architecture, law, medicine, management etc experience during the period of their course is the hunt towards a great internship. Though it is hard to define what makes an internship great, as it varies from individual preferences and career objectives, most students vie for the biggest name in the industry so as to add some brand value to their CV. Legal education being a practise-oriented profession, good law schools throughout the country lay huge emphasis on the industry exposure for their students with professional organisations and integrate the internship break with the academic calendar. Organisations and lawyers too have found internships to be a useful mode to screen prospective employees to develop their teams. Many of them have well laid out internship programs and recruit only from the pool of students who have interned with them. The foreign law firms, generally have a well-organised and structured traineeship programs, a few Indian firms like J.Sagar & Associates are following suit and have devoted human-resource teams to manage intern selections. Though internships are essential both for litigation and corporate-law related careers, this article shall limit its scope to the guided pathway for the latter option.
Importance of internships for law students can hardly be overemphasised. A large number of students find internships to be useful owing to the following reasons:.
· Getting an insight into the professional life which they shall be living after they graduate from law school.
· Learning common office management systems, operating photocopying machines, handling correspondence, filing and organising documents, office etiquettes.
· Discovering newer areas of law and understanding how their law school gained text-book knowledge is practically applied in real situations.
· Understanding organisational structures, the role of different teams and departments- legal as well as non-legal in the overall working of the organisation.
· Developing contacts with professionals as well as fellow interns from other law schools.
· Personal development ; since for most students, internship also involves staying in a new city and managing their stay, travel and finances, it contributes to the personal maturity, besides enjoying personal freedom.
How to plan your internships?
As mentioned above, there is always a lot of competition among law students to compete for the best law firms or lawyers or companies for the few slots that they offer. Generally the biggest names in the industry are sought after the most; with little importance given to the student’s own interest and awareness. A lot of students apply to big commercial firms in the first year itself, with no knowledge or understanding of the work these firms do. Even if they do end up earning an internship in such firms, they find themselves misplaced, thus wasting their internship opportunity. It is like sending a kindergarten kid to high-school. Thus, it is important for law students to plan an internship, that is in tune with their knowledge, understanding and interests as also beneficial for furthering their employment prospects, and helps make informed decisions when it is time to graduate out of the law school.
The study of law is vast and it is understandable that a student may not be interested in all the areas being par with each other, or be willing to further his/her career in that direction. It is therefore, prudent to align the internship with the courses studied in the previous semester so as to be able to give a meaningful learning experience that practically reinforces, what he has learnt at law school.
The following year wise categorisation (five year law course) might be helpful:
End of 1st Year
The subjects taught in most law schools in the first year include a blend of law and social sciences. The course is designed to make you appreciate the importance of rule of law, social institutions, historical developments and their impact on society and such like topics apart from relatively soft law subjects like torts and contracts.
Since the internship at the end of this course is the first experience for a law student, you should ideally expose yourself to organisations working with social issues at the grass-roots having a fair share of dealing with law enforcement agencies as part of their work. Social organisations working on issues like prostitution, child adoption, women help-lines and welfare homes are good places to begin one’s internship experience.
End of 2nd Year
With two years of law school experience behind you already, you would start gaining grips with the legal language and some subject knowledge. Second year exposes the student to some more law subjects like family law, consumer law, constitution and legal theory. This is the time to expose oneself to litigation at the trial court level. Remember, whether you eventually end up in a corporate, law firm or private practise, knowledge of the litigation system is something which will always come handy. Practising young advocates with a fair degree of work (the senior one’s generally have large offices and staff and are thus unapproachable) are a good option to expose one to court working.
Though the un-sanitised and chaotic state of trial courts in our country often deflates the excitement of most young law students on their first visit itself, remember that it is a boot-camp with lots to learning and exposure. It is recommended that the intern involves himself/herself in cases involving simple tortuous liabilities or laws taught to him in law school; besides learning the manner of filing plaints, applying for orders, arranging briefs, researching through AIRs and legal search engines. The paralegal or the munshi at the advocate’s office can be a good help to learn many of the above things.
End of 3rd Year
This is the time when one should expose oneself to the appellate side of litigation, i.e. the High Courts and other appellate tribunals. Your previous internship at the trial court will hold you in good stead as you would understand the process in its entirety now. Whether to intern with an Advocate on the Civil side or Criminal side is entirely a matter of the intern’s choice and interest. However, it is beneficial if you can join an Advocate who has a fair dealing on both the Civil and Criminal side, so as to get maximum exposure. It is understandable that not having studied the Civil Procedure Code and the Criminal Procedure Code in law-school might cause confusion, but note that the intention at this point of time is to understand the process from close quarters and witness the environment in which lawyers work. You may also join an Advocate who is on the panel of a bank, insurance or other company if you are too eager to work on the business-side of the work.
4th Year
By the time you reach the fourth year you would have a good understanding of the working of courts and by your readings and other researching would be somewhat aware of the major avenues open for you to pursue. For those who would like to work on the commercial or corporate aspects of law, this is the time for you to eye the law firms and corporate. Since you will get about two internships in your fourth year, try to make the most of it by working in either kind of set-ups so that you are aware how the legal teams of companies and those at law firms work. Again, the area of law that you work on may not be of much concern (you may not have an option either since you might be allocated a certain practise area arbitrarily), but what is important for you is to see if you like working in that set-up. This does not mean liking ‘that’ particular law firm/company or not, but judging whether you prefer to work in a company based fixed structure with work evolving around the company’s business or a more flexible law firm culture with a diversity of work ranging across clients from diverse fields of business. It is advisable to work with law firms having work in large and multiple practise areas or companies having sizable legal departments.
Fifth Year
This is the time when you need to vie for the biggest name in the industry. You may also wish to intern again with an organisation where you have previously interned so as to fortify your employment prospects. But nevertheless, fifth year internships should be a focussed and well thought strategy since this would be your last opportunity to work closely with an external organisation. Remember, being a final year student you stand a good chance of being offered a placement so your work and conduct should testify the quality which may be expected of associates working with the firm/company. It is useful to know who handles recruitment and taking contact details of the person for future times (infact this is true for wherever you intern throughout your law course). Even if the organisation does not offer you a job, your having interned with them would carry a lot of weight in your applications to other places during campus interviews or otherwise.
Expectations from interns
While most students strive hard to earn the best of internships at their dream firms/companies, many fail to see things from an external perspective as to how are they being viewed by the employees/associates/partners etc. An intern is many at times considered as an irritant by junior associates or managers as they are generally supposed to be their mentors, thus also meaning that they need to take out time for the intern’s learning and problem solving out of their already hectic schedule. But not as disappointing as it sounds, young junior associates can also be great friends for an intern as they are themselves only recently out of college and understand an intern’s need and can be a big support and confidence booster for the young intern.
However, managers, partners and associates are often disappointed with intern’s behaviour which often leads to bad impression of not just the student and his law school but often also forming adverse opinions about the whole policy of the firm/company to have interns over. This, thus results in the intern failing to cut ice for a potential pre-placement offer. Some of the irritants are:
· Reaching office late.
· Using office resources recklessly for personal purposes. e.g. - Telephone calls to friends, using office computers to chat, orkut, facebook etc, downloading songs and movies.
· Long mobile phone use during office hours.
· Stealing office stationary, library books.
· Long and frequent lunch or smoking breaks.
· Getting too cheesy or informal with fellow interns or associates.
· Gossiping, eavesdropping or participating in office politics is a strict no.
It is important for the intern to realise that he/she is a temporary guest in the organisation/firm and is under a constant observation, actively and passively, at all times. An opportunity to work in a professional environment and among seniors also demands maturity from the intern himself.
An internship is thus a very integral part of law school education and contributes to both the professional and personal side of a student’s upbringing. Taken in the right perspective, free from pre-conceived prejudices about any field of the legal profession and exposing oneself to whatever opportunity is the best way to gain from the internships you undertake. Good experience or bad, you will always make an informed and concerted decision.
