News and Announcements
Summer, EIW, and Fall Recruiting
SUMMER
CDO has a webpage devoted to resources (both public interest and private sector) to help you succeed in your summer job. It includes a link to a recording of the most recent “How To Succeed” program as well as links to webcasts of prior years’ How To Succeed” presentations (with different presenters). Each offers a unique and potentially useful perspective, so we suggest listening to as many as your time will allow. To access the page, click on "Career Development and Job Search Skills" on the right sidebar menu and then on "Succeeding As A summer Associate/Intern."
If you are volunteering for a public interest organization, government agency, or a judge, your approach to work should not be any different than if you were a paid employee -- work hard, be professional, and come away with a good reference. In addition to further developing your legal writing and analytical skills, starting to build your professional network and establishing productive working relationships with practicing attorneys who will be willing and able to serve as a reference for you in your next job search ought to be among your top goals for the summer. Your relationships need to be such that your references can enthusiastically attest to not only your legal research and writing abilities, but also your work ethic and attitude.
Establishing these kinds of relationships is important even if you decide that you are not a good fit with your summer employer. If you are experiencing difficulties/potential difficulties of any kind in your summer workplace, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Remember that the CDO is fully staffed and open during regular business hours throughout the summer (and we will be adding some evening and weekend hours in June and July -- stay tuned for further details), so call or send us an email if you have any questions or concerns over the course of your summer experience.
EIW
We will definitely need to be in touch with you over the summer because of early deadlines for participation. Below are two must-do action items if you are considering participating in EIW.
Members of the Class of 2013: If you are interested in working for a large law firm in the summer of 2012 (i.e., the type of firm that typically extends permanent job offers at the end of the summer), you should be planning on participating in EIW. It will be those firms’ primary (for some, the only) means by which they hire summer associates.
Members of the Class of 2012: For those of you who will be at large law firms this summer, many of you will receive offers at the very end of the summer program or a few days thereafter (and a few firms may even take a few weeks before extending offers). It is possible, therefore, that you may not know about your offer until after the EIW bidding deadline passes. While the permanent offer rates will likely be quite high this summer, the prudent course of action will be for you to submit bids for firms interviewing 3Ls in EIW. However, you should cancel your interviews as soon as you receive your offer to open up slots for your classmates. This is critical because of the relatively small number of expected EIW 3L interview slots (which was true even prior to the economic crisis).
Action items:
- Update (or confirm the accuracy of) the Employment Preferences and Personal Information (ESPECIALLY YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS) in the Profile section of b-Line.
- Make certain your @berkeley.edu address continues functioning throughout the summer and that CDO emails (including mgrenhart@law.berkeley.edu and tgalligan@law.berkeley.edu) will get through your spam filter.
Members of the Class of 2013: As we discussed in April 5th’s info session (a webcast of which is accessible via our EIW/FIP webpage), EIW and FIP are only one of many job search tools. You should also be checking the jobs tab of b-Line regularly throughout the summer for non- EIW summer 2012 opportunities. Many firms choose to post a summer associate position on b-Line in lieu of registering for our on-campus interview programs. Also -- and this is particularly true if you will be looking for out-of-state positions for next summer and you will be in that location this summer -- consider targeted emails to employers who will not be participating in EIW (CDO attorney-counselors can help you with this).
We have started work on our 2011 EIW/FIP informational webpage. So far, it consists of a series of links to webcasts of our related programs, including the April 5, 2011 EIW/FIP Info Session. We expect to finish building the rest of the content by June 1, 2011 and will email you when it's fully completed. In the meantime, you can listen to the webcasts. We have also continued to make available the fall 2010 OCIP webpage as a general reference. This page contains links to lists of employers who participated in OCIP in the fall of 2010. The 2010 webpage may help answer your general questions, but keep in mind that this year's dates and deadlines – and some procedures -- will be different as will the list of participating employers.
You might want to bookmark the Interview Programs section of the CDO website, which contains the links to both the 2010 and the 2011 OCIP webpages.
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC INTEREST JOB SEARCH
For those of you who are also interested in conducting a government or public interest job search in the next academic year, we posted a link to a recordings of our recent presentations on the subject. You can find them by clicking on the Jobs And Career Options on the right sidebar menu of the homepage and then clicking on Public Interest Careers and then on CDO PIPS Webcasts.
Members of the Class of 2013: An effective government or public interest job search will need to focus more on direct applications and FIP (with the possible exception of one or two large plaintiff’s firms that typically extend post-summer permanent offers; these firms will likely participate in EIW). Eric Stern (estern@law.berkeley.edu, Linda Maranzana (lmaranzana@law.berkeley.edu), and Alex Lee (alee@law.berkeley.edu) will be sending out emails with suggested strategies and advice over the course of the summer. Make sure to check your @berkeley email account over the summer (and make sure their emails will get through your spam filter).
Such a search requires a more customized approach, so you should check in with us over the summer and early fall to develop a strategy suited to your individual needs/interests.
5/15/2011
