How Networking Can Secure An Internship or Job

Starting as a 1L, it is likely that the Career Services Office began to stress the importance of law school internships and your post-graduate job search. One of the largest aspects of your search centers on networking with individuals and alumni who practice law in your area of interest, as well as your preferred geographic location following graduation. Students often find the concept of blindly reaching out to people to talk about internships and jobs to be overwhelming, especially when added to classes, extracurricular activities, and the demands of everyday life. However, it is one of the most important ways for you to begin establishing your own personal network.

Regardless of whether or not you have local ties to the area in which you are seeking employment, it is important to reach out to practitioners. Utilize your Career Service Office to find local alumni. If you want to move back home after graduation, find alumni near your hometown – invite them out to coffee or lunch when you’re home for break. You may never know who or what may be the connection that helps you land the job you desire. If you make a favorable impression, your initial contact may connect you with other local practitioners down the road.

As you start thinking about your next internship or your job prospects after law school graduation, start with building your own personal network. You can use the following tips to get started: 


Creating a solid network is one of the most important things you can do for your career. While hearing the word network itself might seem daunting, in reality networking is simply the process of creating and maintaining relationships. Below are 4 easy tips for better networking.

I am often reminded of the story of a classmate of mine during law school. That student grew up in a different state, and is an alumni of a school that was not located in our immediate geographic area. Despite this, that student began looking for ways to interact with fellow local alumni from his undergraduate institution. The student started attending local alumni chapter events and eventually met several attorneys in the group. One particular attorney later invited that student to lunch. After that first lunch, the student followed up with the attorney every few months after that throughout their first year of law school.   

This regular communication ensured that the local practitioner was kept up to date on all of news and events in the student’s law school career. Eventually, the student was asked to intern at the practitioner’s firm, and worked at the firm during his last two summers of law school. While the firm was unable to hire the student directly out of law school, the attorney that the student had initially met at the firm knew of an opening at a similar firm in town and mentioned to the student that he should apply and told the student to use the attorney as a reference. Following a series of interviews the student was offered a position with this new firm.

This story illustrates several important points of the job search process. First and foremost, you never know which connections may help you down the road. My friend had no way of knowing that going to that one event and meeting that one person would lead to an internship or job down the road.    

Second, it shows how important it is to get out there and network! It would have been very easy to ignore the practitioner’s lunch offer, or to not attend the alumni meetings at all. But he didn’t. Instead, he stepped outside of his comfort zone and started meeting new folks and in the end, he landed a job that he loves. Through that experience, he became more comfortable networking and meeting new people.

Lastly, it shows the importance of your connection’s connections. Each time you add a person to you own network it creates a ripple effect by which you are also adding that person’s connections. The more you expand your own network the more powerful this effect becomes as you come to discover new connections within your own network.