The CDO wishes you good luck on your final exams and a happy and safe winter break (if we don’t see you before then)!

WINTER BREAK HOURS

Our office will be open during much of the break to assist you with career planning.  The office itself will be closed from December 24th- January 2. However, a few of us are planning to be around on December 29th and 30th, if you need help on those days.  It is always a good idea to call or email ahead during the winter break to confirm hours when counselors will be available.Please check your email during the break for announcements of events that may be happening during break or at the very beginning of the spring semester.You can schedule appointments online (click on the Appointments link on the CDO homepage, call 642-4567, or come by our office).

PIPS DAY (Feb. 7th, 2009)

Sponsored by the eight Northern California law schools and administered by a San Francisco non-profit organization, the Public Interest Clearinghouse, this is an incredible opportunity to meet and apply for interviews with over 100 public interest and government organizations.  For a list of the employers who participated in this program last February, please visit: http://pic.org/programs/pilp/pipsday.html.

On December 15th, you will be receiving an email from pipsday@pic.org with information about how to register, including a username and password, instructions for accessing the online system, and deadlines.  Be sure your email settings and spam blockers permit email from this address/domain to get through to your inboxes. 

Students who want to interview with employers participating in PI/PS Day will be required to submit their requests and their resumes, cover letters, and other requested materials online to the Clearinghouse by noon on January 16th, 2009.  (NOTE:  The Clearinghouse will not begin accepting online requests and resumes until January 5th, 2008.) 

SPRING OCIP

The CDO is expecting 25-30 employers (both public and private sector) to participate in our Spring OCIP, which will take place at the Hotel Durant during from February 9th to the 25th.  You apply for interviews via the OCI section of the b-Line.  The application deadline is January 20th, 2009. 

Unlike our lottery-based fall OCIP, employers participating in Spring OCIP are permitted to prescreen applicants and invite only those students they are interested in interviewing.

Employers have just started to register and will continue to do so until January 8^th.  Beginning on December 19th, you can login and be able to see who has registered so far, but you should continue checking back regularly to view the most current list of participating employers.  You will be able to begin applying for interviews on January 9^th but you will need to complete your applications by the end of the day Tuesday, January 20^th. 

In order to participate in Spring OCIP, you will need to upload your resume — before you apply or sign up — into the Documents section of b-Line.  Instructions for doing so are posted on the b-Line homepage (in the Announcements section).

Have you had your resume reviewed by a CDO attorney-counselor?  If not, send it to career@law.berkeley.edu.  Please review the online Resume and Cover Letter Writing Guides and the accompanying samples before you draft your materials and send them to us.

Students:

If you are looking for a summer or permanent work outside of the Bay area – and are planning on traveling to that area over the winter break – you might want to consider taking advantage of the career services facilities at other law schools located there.  Berkeley Law has reciprocity agreements with schools across the country. Contact us (career@law.berkeley.edu)  for details. Visits need to be arranged by us in advance and we need to give adequate notice to the other school, so please let us know right away if you are interested. 

Keep in mind that many law schools may be on semester break and their business hours during this period may be limited. Call ahead to the career services office at the chosen school before using their services. Find out what services are available to reciprocity students, as not all career services may be available to reciprocity students.

Please note: Berkeley Law has a special reciprocity policy with UCLA and no prior request is required. Students need only show their current Berkeley Law ID to the UCLA staff for access to their career office resources.

Private Sector (large firm): December through March

Private Sector (small firms): January through May

Public Interest: December though May (N.B. PI/PS Day takes place in Feb.) -pslawnet.org is an excellent source for identifying public interest opportunities here in CA and around the world.  

Federal, State and Local Government: December through May

Judicial Externships: timelines vary, but most are December through March - check our Externships Guide (link on the For 1Ls page of the CDO website) for more information about timelines for specific courts.

Research Assistant positions: be proactive and contact professors whom you would like to assist over the winter break

Your focus in your first semester ought to be your studies. It is typical for students to wait until the break to send out cover letters and resumes. The vast majority of opportunities will not have been filled by this time. However, the most competitive employers (in private and non-profit sectors and some federal judges) will start to fill positions in December. If there are certain employers that you are particularly interested in and have reason to believe will be extremely popular among law students, you may want to send your materials soon after the December 1 start date.

Some students choose to do a mass mailing at the beginning of December (when the NALP guidelines permit first year students to send out job applications).  The choice whether to do a mass mailing is yours, but its our experience that the expense and effort are better spent in a smaller number of applications, tailored to a more informed job search.  A generic job application is unlikely to be noticed in the deluge of applications received by employers early in December.

Large firms hire a very small number of first year students, and some large firms do not consider first year students at all. There is no harm in contacting an employer to express your interest, particularly if you possess special qualifications making you a good “fit” with that employer. However, it is unusual to get a job with a big firm in your first summer.  A good source for identifying big firms is the NALP online directory. You can search for firms according to a number of different criteria, including whether or not they have indicated they hire 1Ls for the summer (from the search criteria page, select “1Ls” from the drop down menu next to the line that says “Organizations That Hire”).

Small firms hire on the basis of a short-term assessment of their needs, and while you may want to make an initial contact with small firms in December or January, you should be prepared to hear they have not yet decided on their needs for the summer (or to hear nothing at all). Then, you can follow up with the employers later in the spring (sometimes, the availability of your transcript will provide a good occasion for doing so).  A good source for identifying smaller firms is the Martindale law directory. 

Do not be discouraged if you find that spring has arrived and you have not yet finalized arrangements for the summer: opportunities continue to become available during the spring and even the early summer.

The CDO’s 1Ls webpage:  links to a host of information (including a comprehensive list of 1L FAQs) relating to your summer and career options.

Career Counseling: If you would like to discuss your career options and/or job search strategies, schedule an appointment with a CDO attorney-counselor online, call 642-4567, or come by our office - 290 Simon.

Resume and Cover Letter reviews: First-year students interested in receiving advice on resumes and cover letters should read our Resume and Cover Letter Writing Guides, attempt a first draft of a legal resume, and then meet with a CDO attorney-cousnelor to review it. 

NOTE: we have cleared our appointment schedules to conduct quick drop-in resume reviews on the mornings of November 14th, 17th and 18th (9 a.m. to noon) on a first-come, first-served basis.   

The b-Line: a career services application that allows you to do employer research, apply for/bid on interview slots during Spring and Fall On-Campus Interview Programs and, most importantly for this semester, search job listings from employers targeting Boalt students and, for many, submit application materials online.  A quick link to the b-Line can be found on the CDO homepage.

NOTE: The b-Line also contains a searchable database of summer employment evaluations from prior classes.  A quicklink to Summer Evaluations appears on the b-Line homepage.

Summer Public Interest Fellowships webpage:  a resources page that will help you figure out how to fund summer voluntary internship work with government or public interest employers.   

NB:  NALP guidelines indicate that first-year students and employers should not initiate contact with each other before December 1.

We had a great turnout at last week’s program with Dean Edley and Maria Echaveste on how to land a job in the next administration. 

Click here for a recent article on the transition process. 

We also wanted to provide you with links to information on both the White House Fellows Program (Feb 9th deadline for 3L students) and the White House Summer Internship Program.  (The deadline for the Summer 2009 program has not yet been established; however, the deadline for the 2008 summer internship program was Feb. 26th). 

Please feel free to contact Eric Stern in our office for questions on careers in government, public policy and advocacy organizations.

In case you weren’t able to make it to the program with Dean Edley and Maria Echaveste, a webcast is available on the CDO’s Guides and Webcasts page (click on “Other Resources” then “Guides and Webcasts” — it’s entitled, appropriately enough, “How To Get A Job in the Next Administration.”)   

The CDO adheres to the general BBB rule against posting event announcements here; instead we post announcements about our events to the Berkeley Law Events Calendar (and the CDO Calendar). 

From time to time, however, we hear about interesting career networking opportunities sponsored by groups external to the School and which take place outside Berkeley Law.  As such, they are not appropriate to include on our internal calendars.  But, we do think they are useful for you to know about, so we’ve created a separate category of BBB posts to announce them called ”Events Away from Berkeley Law.”  

Below is the first such posting for this category, which comes from an organization known as Women Defenders: 

A RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE WOMEN’S SUCCESS IN CRIMINAL DEFENSE

Thursday, September 25

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Women Defenders hosts this event annually as a way to connect law students interested in criminal defense to the local criminal defense community.  Usually nearly 100 people attend!  For practitioners, it is a fun event to catch up with colleagues and share your insights and experience with aspiring criminal defense attorneys.  Help grow the criminal defense community by supporting the next generation of criminal defenders!

WHERE:  Clarence & Dyer, LLP, 899 Ellis Street, San Francisco  (Street Parking and Garage Parking Available)

Refreshments will be served.There is no cost to attend this event.Please RSVP to: 510-525-0995 or to: WomenDefenders@aol.com

Just a reminder that all interview invitations and offers deserve and require a prompt response from you.

At this point, you should be familiar with the NALP rules governing the holding open of employment offers. Three key features:

• Offers extended by employers to students who were not previously employed by them will automatically expire 45 days after the date of the offer letter, or on December 30th, whichever comes first.

• The 45-day rule, however, does NOT apply to offers extended to students who were previously employed by the employer making the offer. Those offers, regardless of when they are extended, will remain open until November 15th. After that, they will automatically expire.

• You cannot hold open more than five offers at any one time. For each offer received that places you over the offer limit, you should, within one week of receipt of the excess offer, release an offer.

It is possible to request extensions of the 45-day rule, but employers are not required to give them. When the time comes, if you feel like you need an extension, feel free to contact a CDO attorney-counselor for advice before approaching an employer.

Remember that, while an offer will automatically expire after 45 days, as soon as you know that you would not accept it under any circumstances, you should affirmatively contact the firm and politely decline it (advice on how to decline an offer can be found here). Don’t just ignore the offer and let the clock run out on it. You may think you are sparing yourself an awkward conversation at the low expense of violating one of the basic rules of courtesy. But, it’s more than a matter of mere politeness. Doing nothing would damage your professional reputation and may prevent a fellow student from receiving an offer that he or she values more highly than you.

With the on-campus interview portion of the fall recruiting season complete, we just wanted to thank all of you who participated for the professionalism, courtesy, and understanding you demonstrated to all involved – employers, hotel (and CDO) staff, and your fellow students.

Even though the callback process is just getting underway (and more callback invitations will continue to be extended over the next couple of weeks), we have already received feedback from a number of firms that the quality and character of the students they saw on campus was as high or higher than it’s ever been. The descriptions they offered included phrases like “wonderfully talented” and “extremely well‑prepared.”

We concur and wish you all the best as you move into the next phase of the process. If questions arise at any point, please do not hesitate to contact us.

In the near future, we will be doing follow-up (surveys and/or focus groups) to solicit your feedback on how the on-campus process can be improved for next year. In the meantime, feel free to offer any comments or thoughts that are fresh in your mind with any one of us.

For those who are working on the alternative timeframe of public interest, government, or a smaller firm search, please stay connected with the CDO attorney-counselors and do not be discouraged. Lots of students find their perfect job later in the fall or spring semester. If you haven’t talked to one of us in awhile, make an appointment now to map out a strategy. Deadlines for some of the more competitive public interest and public sector positions may be coming up sooner than you think.

Some OCIP firms have already started extending callback invitations. Now would be a good time to review our online Guide on the subject, which covers callback formats, declining callback offers, thank you notes, and travel arrangements and reimbursements.

Don’t be concerned if you have not yet heard back from firms with whom you interviewed this week. Its not unusual for them to take 3-5 days — some take a week or even more — to make their callback decisions. In some instances, the new NALP rules governing offers taking effect this year (see below) may even operate to slow down callback offers to some candidates.

Feel free to make an appointment with one of the attorney-counselors or drop by the CDO for advice on whether to accept particular callbacks or on how to decline an invitation.

You may also want to take a look at Tab B of the OCIP Guide, which contains NALP’s Open Letter to Law Students, and Bay Area Law Firms Law Student Interviewing Guidelines, both of which provides an employer’s perspective on the recruiting process.

Please remember to continue supporting one another by keeping your OCIP success discussions (with other students) to a minimum.

NALP RULES GOVERNING OFFERS