OPIA
Planning Your Public Interest Career
Many factors go into a successful public interest job search. This quick overview provides some ideas to help you analyze what you want out of your career, identify your strengths and weaknesses, get a sense of what your options are, build experience while in law school, and find a job that is a good fit for you. Figuring out what you want to do at graduation involves self-assessment, learning what the options are and trying out different kinds of practice settings/issues/types of work so that you can start to narrow what suits you and what does not.
- Self-Assessment is an important part of the job search process, enabling you to be confident about what it is you are seeking in your career and why it would be a good fit for you. Thinking about the kind of work you are interested in doing, the sort of commitment and connection you want to feel with your work, the best environments for you to feel productive and successful, and the kind of lifestyle needs and trade-offs you are willing to make will focus your search.
- Public Interest Options. Public interest work offers a great deal of variety. Public interest can be practiced in a number of different settings, can involve a wide range of types of work (e.g. trial litigation, appellate work, legislative work, etc.), and can focus on a huge array of issues. Often finding career satisfaction involves finding a mix of all three (setting, type of work and issue area), or two out of the three, that fit your personal needs and interests at the time.
- Issue Areas. Many students come in to law school with a passion for a particular issue or set of issues, such as education or civil rights. Others develop a strong interest for a substantive area during law school. Still others find a practice setting or work style that they like and the issues they work on are less important. In any event, public interest work covers a huge range of issue areas, including some that people typically think of us "corporate."
- Types of Work. The work done by public interest lawyers covers a broad range of activities. For some people, the type of work/the way they work is one of the most critical components of job satisfaction. For example, some people are born litigators while others find trial work unpleasant. Some people enjoy transactional work, which can be found in the public sector as well as the private sector. New types of advocacy are emerging, such as the use of media – including new media such as blogs that offer a whole new set of options.
- Practice Settings. Public interest lawyers work in a variety of practice settings. Understanding these different settings, and using your previous experience and self-reflection, will help you figure out which settings would be most fulfilling for you. For further materials on these practice settings, see these resources:
- Networking and Meeting with OPIA's Attorney Advisors will help you deepen your understanding of those fields that you find most interesting. Successful networking will tell you both the benefits and drawbacks of given positions, and may actually send you in new directions. At this stage, keep an open mind, but continue to ask focused questions about areas that have sparked your interest. In addition to helping you find the right fit, networking may also help you obtain a job. Because the public interest community is so small, especially within particular practice areas, many fairly connected public interest job seekers find leads or work through the "hidden market" created by an intricate network of
employers, friends, fellow alumni/ae and
professional contacts.
Talking with visiting speakers at panels and discussions hosted by the Law School can also be a good way to find out more about specific areas of public interest.
- Building Experience is an important component of your time in law school, especially if you are looking to work in public service after graduation. Law school offers an excellent opportunity for experimentation—not as easy upon graduation—while you build the demonstrated commitment to public service that so many employers seek. Summer jobs offer the largest blocks of time to explore a type of work or practice setting. But clinical, student practice organization, pro bono and volunteer placements also can give you terrific exposure to different aspects of public interest practice and allow you to develop marketable credentials. Courses and work on a journal are a way to explore your interest in a particular set of issues and to demonstrate knowledge and writing skills in the field. Students are also increasingly using winter term of their 2L and 3L years to do short term placements through the clinical program or the writing option.
- Searching for a Job is never an easy process, but after analyzing what you are interested in doing, speaking with attorneys in the fields that interest you, your job search can have more focus. You should continue to network, to learn about opportunities that fit your interests. For HLS students, guaranteed summer funding means that you will be able to land a summer public interest job, so your focus should be on which jobs both excite you and are attainable given your level of experience. Remember that postgraduate public interest jobs are competitive and hiring at many organizations can be sporadic. OPIA's attorney advisors can guide you through the job search process, helping you to identify jobs that would work well with your interests, and design a plan that will help you grow toward your career aspirations.