In this article, I will share tips to help you get your first physical and remote internship placement.
Having successfully landed both virtual and physical internship roles during my pupilage, I'd like to share with you the same procedure I used so you can be successful at it. Get the most value and gain experience.
Let's get started!
An internship is a job taken by a student to learn a profession.
As a law student, an internship is one of the vital aspects you must experience while building your legal career. It helps give you an insight into the actual working experience you are heading to. You face various tasks, roles and responsibilities you have to handle, which are all very vital to your experience growth. For some law schools, it is a pre-requisite and marked as part of your scores while it is not the case for some.
My internships were personal and I completely took them for personal benefit.
As a legal intern, you can apply to law firms, organizations, or courts to have your pupilage performing tasks such as research, drafting documents like plaints, affidavits, memos, performing assistant roles, e.t.c.
What is the right time to apply for an Internship?
Realistically speaking, there is no right time to apply for an internship throughout your study tenure.
Although most law schools discharge their students for internship roles after reaching their three years, there is no barrier to starting as early as Year 1.
The only limitation with starting an internship that early is that by that time, your coverage is low, and you might not be e effective at your placement. But still, you can do some light roles as you get familiar.
Most people prefer taking on internships when they reach their 2nd or 3rd years. It is also a great choice since you have covered most of the areas by then.
Things to keep in mind before you start your Internship
Some of the things you should take note of before you start your training is that
- Internships are real work experience. Physical internships it is a simulation of a typical working environment. You are given work to do and expect to get exhausted and tired.
- Expect no pay. Most law firms, and courts, do not offer payment to interns. This is where some people get demotivated. Remember, you are looking to gain something valuable to add to your experience, and you are not paying a thing for that. Although some workplaces may provide pay and allowances to student interns, do not go expecting to be given payment. Look at the value you are going to attain.
- Exhibiting good attributes is essential. Showcase hard work, discipline and diligence. Be innovative and add value to your workplace. Respect your workmates, superiors and inferiors. If you exhibit great attributes, you will have a high chance of being retained as an employee.
How to get a Remote/Virtual Internship Placement
As earlier noted, virtual internships are those where an intern performs roles and executes tasks entirely online.
Various firms offer individual virtual/online internship programs while others host them on other platforms with task modules to handle and submit for review.
From the research I made, I came up with a list of the following platforms that host virtual internship opportunities from top multinational law firms and companies. These platforms also contain non-law-related internship opportunities in other fields like Information Technology.
Forage
Simply sign up with either your Google account or email. You will be asked to answer a few questions as you sign up, like which university you study from and your country, among others, to get to know about your studentship profile. Answer them accordingly, and you will see a success message showing that you have been accepted into the program. Do not fret; no science here, and they won't get you disqualified.
There are various task modules available which take anywhere between 30 minutes – 5 hours to attempt. Most of all, they are self-paced.
The task modules cover areas such as intellectual property, commercial, family, or employment law e.t.c., which you have to attempt and upload for review. The programs are self-paced and you can always perform them at your convenience.
To make things easier, you are provided with both textual and video versions of people explaining the task and how you are to attempt it.
Once you are done attempting a task, you are required to submit your document. The following modules are always locked and only open after you have submitted the attempt to a previous task.
After successful submission, you are provided with a document on how you were expected to have attempted the task so you can rate yourself and review it.
After completing all tasks in a module, you are provided with a certificate showing the various areas that you handled and attempted. You can always accredit this certificate on your achievements section on your CV, or on LinkedIn to boost your experience and credibility.
Note: Be careful while you accredit these experiences on your CV or social platforms. You are required to place them in the achievements section and not experiences.
Participation in these virtual internships increases your chances of working with top law firms. Once your application details contain a certification of your internship participation, you will have a higher chance of getting considered for a role.
Personally, I participated in internship programmes of firms like Latham & Watkins LLP, Bowmans Law Firm, Corrs and Chambers Westgarth. All these had me learning new areas like Intellectual Property Law and Commercial Law. The certifications also made my CV look heavier.
In fact, this helped me easily land my first physical internship at Justice Centres Uganda, Mmengo, a government organization offering free legal aid and representation to marginalized and vulnerable persons of the community.
How to get a Physical Internship Placement
Kicking off, the bad news, your application might not get accepted at the very first attempt you make. Expect rejection, failure or no replies.
Welcome to the real world!
The good news is that this should not scare, discourage or make you give up. Instead, grow your faith and thick skin. The more the rejections, the more resilient you should grow. It would help if you did not get discouraged because you did not manage to get into that firm you wished to be part of. To do so, you must minimize the failure or rejection rate by pooling a lot of applications to various firms.
In fact, I did not get through in all the first 7 firms I applied to for my internship placement. Now, I am not saying that is the exact number of rejections you must get before you get successful with getting an internship placement.
No!
The number might be low or even higher for you, who knows?
That aside, I will show you how to increase your chances of landing a physical internship easily.
Apply to many firms
Since your application might or might not be accepted in all the places you apply to, to reduce the failure rate, you should apply to a variety of law firms. Identify various firms that operate in your areas of interest and curate a list.
The next thing is writing applications, cover letters and CVs for each of those firms.
Look out on the firm websites for addresses, and recruiting managers' E-mails and deliver your documents electronically via mail.
I however advise printing your documents and hand delivering them to each of the firms of your choice and handing them to human resource managers or receptionists. Pick the number of the person you leave your documents with. Wait for 2-3 days and make a follow-up on whether your application documents were delivered to the correct office.
Suppose you have no idea how to write a winning application, cover letter or CV, no worries. I have linked a full guide from Oxford on the best examples of how to write applications and cover letters for various professions. For law students, scroll down to page 21 to find the guide related to law students.
Optimize your socials
Before you resolve to apply for a legal internship, your socials must reflect that you are a professional. If you haven't, I urge you to establish your presence on social media platforms like Twitter, and LinkedIn among others. Optimize your LinkedIn with a professional picture highlighting your top skills, areas of interest, and certifications. As you are applying, firms may make analyses and investigations, which will include checking out your social profiles. Be sure to keep them professional and formal.
Networking is key
I don't know how well I can stress this but NETWORKING IS KEY. This will not only help you with landing your first internship but also a job. Networking will not only help you make lots of friends but also help you when you fall into trouble.
Make friends both online and offline. Network and establish real and genuine relationships with others. It is through these connections that you will get referred for an opportunity, get a friend to bail you out and most of all help you get an internship.
Identify partners, recruiting officers, and human resource managers and establish genuine relationships with them.
However, do not be so devious as to only initiate connections when it seems beneficial to you. Start early so it doesn't look to be a move to sweet talk your way in for an opportunity. Even when you do not make it with their firms, keep the relationship. You never know, in future they might be of help.
Maintain good academic scores
Internship roles can be competitive and all applicants can possess great credibility. Recruiters then look at the aspect of high current academic scores. Be sure to maintain great scores throughout law school in the course units you are covering.
Altogether, apply to a number of firms, optimize your socials, maintain good academic scores, network and establish good relationships with senior lawyers and those already in practice.
Also check out: How to Check for UNEB Results Online or via SMS
Conclusion
Summing up, I have discussed various tips on how to get your first internship as a law student in law firms, organizations, and courts. I hope you found this guide helpful.