I spent my next two years at Harvard trying to figure out the steps I needed to take to become a civil rights attorney after graduation. But even with our Office of Public Interest Advising – separate from the “Career Office” whose only goal seemed to be shuffling students off to BigLaw law firms – there seemed to be no hard and fast answers to my questions.
Here’s what I could glean: if I wanted a job lined up before graduation, the easiest route was BigLaw. They hired out essentially after your first year of law school (so long as there wasn’t a huge market crash and you didn’t completely mess up your summer placement, you were officially offered a job at the end of your second summer) and they would keep your spot open while you clerked. Not only that, they’d pay you a hefty clerkship bonus. That’s right, free money just for clerking. No wonder everyone wanted my dream job.
The next easy (ish) route was government, and specifically the federal government. A few decades ago, the federal government realized it could create its own pathway for law students if it created what it dubbed “The Honors Program.” It’s essentially a fancy name for a hiring process that provides jobs starting in September each year, right after students finish up the bar exam and have a few weeks to take a bar trip before moving. Again, a pathway to a career upon graduation.
The third not-so-easy-but-at-least-spelled-out route is fellowships. These are few and far between, but if you are committed to becoming a fellow, there are clear steps to take on concrete timelines. And (shocker), if you get a fellowship it almost certainly will begin in September or October, just after you graduate, take the bar, take your bar trip, and move. Yet another pathway.
Meanwhile, there are no clear pathways to civil rights jobs in the private sector. In fact, we are warned throughout law school that thinking you can land a private-sector civil rights job after graduating is like believing in unicorns. (A completely bogus notion as I learned much later.) And yet, that’s what I was scared into believing.
So for me, I did what any good student does: I took the fear-based BigLaw law firm job my second summer and delayed figuring out how to land my civil rights job while I scoured for clerkships. Who would have known the delay would have actually been my saving grace.
Click here to read Part 3 of My Path to Becoming a Civil Rights Attorney.