Starting Your Legal Career

Whether you are a law student or just interested in working within the legal industry, breaking into the working legal world can be a daunting prospect. The hierarchical nature of the law industry and the hard work involved in becoming a qualified and certified lawyer means that entering the workforce usually means working your way from the bottom up. The experience gained from such entry level work, however, is crucial and a fundamental stepping stone in being a proactive, sharp and perceptive participant in the industry. If you're looking at jumpstarting your law career, then here are a couple of ways to get your foot in the door.

- Internship and clerkship opportunities. Most law firms offer internships - often over the summer or on a longer basis - to law students who are eager to gain experience and put their law degree into practice. As with most businesses, cost cutting can be a priority so these clerkships and internships can be either paid, or unpaid. As a law student, a part time clerkship role can be a great way to earn money while getting hands on experience while you study.

- Paralegal or admin work. If you haven't undertaken any legal studies, there are still a number of job opportunities available in law firms and other legal areas. Paralegal and office admin work are two important areas where those looking to break into the industry should start.

- Extracurricular activities. For those still studying it's easy to add weight and credentials to your CV by participating in extracurricular activities. Whether this means getting involved in mock trial competitions, your university's law society activities or writing for school related journals or newspapers, all of these supplementary activities will give you valuable experience and an impressive CV.

- Volunteer Work. Many non-profits, public interest organisations, legal clinics and legal aid offices are desperate for volunteers and will eagerly take you up on the offer of your time. Although volunteer work is unpaid, their reliance on volunteers means you are likely to be given wider responsibility and get exposure to a wider range of clients, roles and cases.

- Use your personal contacts. As true with any industry or job search, it's important to rely on, and use any personal contacts or relationships that you already have. If you're a law student, for example, maintain good relationships with your professors and lawyers who will often hear of job roles or internships first, and thus be able to pass them on to you. Whether you're working in Sydney or London, legal careers will be easier to come by when you have legal work experience behind you and on your resume. If your ultimate goal is to be a Sydney lawyer, jobs will be easier to come by when you have a work history in the law sector.

Applying To Law School

Whether or not you get into a good law school can make or break your potential career as a lawyer. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to make sure that you will get into a good school.

While good grades and a good score on the LSAT are very important, these things do not make you stand apart as an applicant. Most schools agree that the number one thing that can make you stand apart in your application is your personal essay.

In this essay, you have the opportunity to say anything about yourself, that is true, that will make the school say you are the one they want to have study at their school. As there are hundreds of applicants, it is very important that the reader does not fall asleep while reading your essay.

You need to give him or her a reason to be interested in your because your experience or factors other than grades and scores. Some of the things that can make you stand apart include a graduate degree, significant work and leadership experience, and even professionalism in another area.

One of the things that many schools look for in today's society is diversity. You do not have to be diverse in race to pass this qualification, but you do need to show what you have had a diverse array of experiences and life challenges in your essay.

Your essay should portray who you are and what you can uniquely contribute to the classroom. Of course, developed writing skills and few grammar usage mistakes are also important.

In general, you must have a decent LSAT score and academic record as well as a well honed and outstanding personal statement in order to be eligible for consideration for entrance into a school. In addition, most law schools tend to like to see significant work or internship experience.

If this is missing, they like to see that the student spent at least year in graduate school or a year pursuing some kind or research or other productive activity. The deadlines and dates of when you should hear back about your application are all different depending on which school you applied to.

You should make sure that you look up this information before you begin your application to make sure that you can meet the deadline and that all of your paperwork will arrive on time. It is also a good idea to look up the statistics concerning the school and that you find out what the strengths and weaknesses of a school are before you apply.

These things will help you know whether or not you really want to apply to that school. As you decide on which schools you want to apply to, you should make sure you have realistic expectations.

You know which schools are the best and you know how good your grades and your LSAT score are. It can be quite disappointing to set your hopes too high, apply to a whole bunch of really good schools whose applications are quite expensive, and get rejected from all of them.

Apply for some good schools, a few schools you know you can get into, and a few that are between your level and the elite schools. This will give you a good mix to choose from when you find out whether or not you are accepted into a school.

In addition, make sure that you are applying to a school for the right reasons. Some people apply to a certain school because that is what their parents expect of them, but that school does not offer the specialty that the student wants to specialize in.

There are many other similar scenarios in which a student applies to a school that is not appropriate for him or her. In addition, law school is hard so you will want to make sure that you want to be a lawyer and that you have the motivation to study as hard as you are going to need to when you go.

This is critical to do or you could spend a lot of time and money before you realize that you do not want to do it because it is not worth it. Going to law school is going to take sacrifice and you need to be willing to sacrifice what is required if you want to be a lawyer.

It can also help to have a goal in mind. You will want to decide specifically on what kind of a lawyer you want to be.