Virginia law students struggling to find work

Before classes start at the University of Virginia’s School of Law, second-year students meet with law firms from all over the country in hopes of landing a paid internship. If they make it past a callback interview and are hired, their summer experience can turn into a job once they graduate.
However, the recession has affected the number of callbacks and hires at larger firms, leaving law students all over the country looking for different opportunities. At UVa, students are getting assistance and advice from alumni who once went through the process themselves.
About 90 percent of second year students at the University of Virginia School of Law have already accepted summer employment. About 10 percent are still seeking internships, which is significantly more than typical at this stage of the year.

“I think it was not just a phenomenon here, but also at schools nationwide,” said the law school’s assistant dean for career services Polly Lawson. “There were fewer callbacks given and fewer offers made. I think firms really are trying to be careful not to over-hire.”
Lawson said that most law firms like to do entry-level hiring through their summer program, so they often think ahead to how many associates they will need to hire in two years and try to get a similar number of interns. While the firm is getting to know them, Lawson said, the students are picking up valuable research and writing skills.
More than 900 law firms stop in at UVa to find summer internship candidates, a number that Lawson said hasn’t really changed despite the recession. What students are noticing is a decrease in the number of open positions and callback interviews, for which students are shuttled to larger law firms to see the practice in person.
Ryan Quillian, president of the law school’s Student Bar Association, said the law school didn’t expect the economy to impact their job search.
“This whole recession caught not only our law students and career services by surprise, but it was not foreseeable that the market would contract in the way it did,” Quillian said. “I don’t think this was something that could be foreseen in August.”
Andrew Howlett, a second-year law student who has already secured an internship, said students realized something had changed between the first round of interviews in August and the callbacks in mid-September.
“There are fewer people demanding $500 an hour legal services,” Howlett said. “For the majority of students, it has worked out OK. For other people, it hasn’t.”

UVa’s law school is the only top-ranked school that practices pre-screening, which lets law firms look at the students’ resumes to decide who they want to interview. Lawson said some interviews also are available through a lottery. Howlett said the process could be something that students affected by this year’s internship shortage would like to see reviewed, although there has been no formal movement to do so.
After learning that this year’s on-Grounds interviews didn’t go so well for everyone, the school’s Student Bar Association formed a committee to work with the administration to improve the career services process. Lawson said her office is helping students perfect their resumes and think about working for a different kind of law firm.
“A lot of the early hiring is really for the big firms and larger government agencies, so some of the smaller firms and smaller markets hire later when they know what their workload will be like,” Lawson said.

Much like workers who have been laid off during the recession, the law students are being encouraged to expand their definition of the right post-graduation job.
Rob Masri, the chief development officer for the university’s Law School Foundation, said members of the school’s alumni council have been suggesting that students look for jobs in the government and in mid-sized markets such as Nashville, Tenn., and Denver.
“I think there are a group of schools who have an elite law degree, Virginia being one [of them], that can navigate back and forth [between large and smaller law firms] without much problem,” Masri said.
Quillian said he thinks students who try a smaller law firm will reap the benefits.
“The smaller law firms provide students with more hands-on experience,” Quillian said. “They are doing similar work with fewer lawyers … you’re going to get more responsibility earlier.”

This article was edited for clarity.