I’m reading through the “NEW final 2010 OCI results thread that are ACTUALLY FINAL” thread and I see a lot of people listing multiple years of work experience. Does this mean they worked for multiple years before law school and attended in their late 20s/early 30s, or are people counting undergrad part time work, or what? I’m surprised to see how many people list 2-5 years of work experience since it seems like law school mostly attracts people straight out of UG.
i think this assumption is mistaken.
http://www.law.columbia.edu/jd_applicants/admissions/classprofile
74% are 21-24, and 33% started law school straight out of college.
http://www.top-law-schools.com/michigan-law-school.html
Average age of 24.5 for Michigan in 2008. Enough time to get in a little work between UG and law school, but not much.
In any case, what sort of work are people talking about when they do list work experience? Coming from Michigan with a social sciences degree there’s really no notable work available without a master’s degree or law degree.
It means work experience between UG and LS. The majority of c/o 2013 has work experience at most if not all of the T14. Anecdotally, it is an advantage at OCI.
I had 7 years WE in a service industry.
At callback interviews, every partner wanted to talk about the fact that I spent 7 years with the same company and my career there had a very clear progression to it. My impression was that they all saw it as a positive. At the mid-size firm the partners absolutely gushed about it. I think they all saw it as a proxy for stability.
What kind of work? Something tells me they wouldn’t give a crap about whether I spent a year doing recruitment for a tech sector headhunting company, which other than graduate school would basically be my only option.
They might. It depends on how you talk about your responsibilities. If you are interacting with clients you are already a mile ahead of the kid who went straight through undergrad.
+1.
The fact that I was an engineering point of contact for customers played very well at OCI.
This. Work experience isn’t important because it makes you a better lawyer, it’s important because it makes you a better employee than someone who’s never had to work full-time in an office with other people, and answer phones, and deal with a boss, and have deadlines and angry customers, etc…
this is good to hear. are you interviewing with patent firms? i was afraid my WE would be looked down upon because it wasn’t highly technical, but i did a ton of client interaction and business development with a small engineering firm.
I’ve asked around and most people said unless it was very unique WE or unless you worked for 5+ years it didn’t really affect OCI.
Obviously having a technical background will help with patent firms, but in my experience the customer contact played well with general practice firms just as much as patent firms.