International Summer Employment Program

Our International Summer Employment Program provides an opportunity for overseas employers to consider hiring J.D. students interested in working abroad for the summer after their first or second year of law school.  Students who have participated in the program in the past have typically performed research, drafted and edited legal documents, and assisted in other law-related tasks.  

The J.D. program is the primary law degree in the U.S. and  is a three-year study program. In the U.S., one can only enter law school after completing the first (four-year) university degree in another field. Therefore, even if a student goes directly from the his or her university degree to law school, he or she is at least 23 years old when finishing the first year of law school, although many students are older, as they may have worked for some years prior to entering law school. In addition, many of our students have specialized in international relations or specific foreign languages during their first university degrees, and many have also studied overseas prior to coming to law school.  You may also be interested in some statistics on our J.D. program. For the entering J.D. 1L class in fall 2007, Harvard Law School received 6,984 applications for a first-year entering class of 555 students.

If your firm or organization is interested in receiving resumes from J.D. students for summer positions, we ask that you complete the ISEP Employer form available in Microsoft Word by clicking here, and return it via e-mail attachment to Marni Goldstein Caputo, Esq., mcaputo@law.harvard.edu, Assistant Director for International and J.D. Advising.  Once we receive your form, it will be listed in the Harvard International Opportunities Guide, available on-line to students and alumni on a password protected website.  In addition to listing summer positions, you can also mention your interest in LL.M. students and alumni in this guide, which will allow us to collect resumes from LL.M.s for you.

 We will collect resumes (American-style curriculum vitae) from interested students during late November and forward resumes to you by December 15.  We ask that you consider the resumes no later than February 1, and if you decide to make an offer to a student, that you send Marni Goldstein Caputo a copy of the offer letter or e-mail sent to the student. If you choose not to make any offers, please also notify us of that fact.  If you have any other questions about this program, or any other international recruiting at Harvard Law School, please feel free to contact Marni Goldstein Caputo by e-mail at mcaputo@law.harvard.edu or by phone at 617-496-0071.