Here's the deal: my girlfriend is two classes away from graduating in August with a Legal Studies degree from UH. She's looking for something to get started in the legal field, such as a legal secretary/assistant/paralegal. Obviously the job market is tough right now, but even so all of the openings seem to require experience. She has a near perfect GPA (3.98) but that means nothing without experience. She's also planning on applying to law school next year. I'm sure there are many in this field on the board, so I'm looking for some advice. Anybody know the best way to break in? Recruiters or headhunters? Any advice at all would be much appreciated. No pics, sorry
I was in a similar situation last year. I had graduated from college early in December and was working on my law school applications. I knew I was going to start law school that same year so that gave me 6 or 7 months free and I decided to try and find a legal job. Like your girlfriend, I lacked legal experience. I had an internship at the Mayor's office for 3 months and a summer internship with a lawyer for 3 months. I started my job hunt on Monster.com and Craigslist. I quickly learned that with that experience, the only legal jobs I could get were unpaid internships (basically a glorified copy-boy because they don't really give you any legal work) or a paralegal. I decided to go with the paralegal position because you actually get paid and you get some useful legal experience in client interaction, filing court documents, and deposing the client. I got a lot of interviews and they all loved the internship at the Mayor's office (which is what got me into the interviews). You are going to find out that a lot of firms want paralegals with 3-5+ years of experience. So she is going to have to try and find a small law boutique or private practice. I actually ended up not getting any legal related work because of the time constraints. Since I knew I was going to start law school in a few months, most of the places did not want to hire me, pay for my training, and only have me work 6 months for them. She is going to have a year off so hopefully she doesn't run into the same problem as me. As far as paralegal positions go, most of the places are going to give you a spelling quiz to ensure that you can spell some important legal words correctly. They also give you a filing quiz to ensure that you can file documents and cases correctly. Hope this helps and best of luck to her.
