Will no firm experience hold me back in articling recruit

[BillyButcher]

Hey everyone, I'm a 2L who's currently doing a for-credit semester at one of my school's legal clinics (doing landlord/tenant work). I'm enjoying it and my supervisor has invited me to apply to stay on for the summer. I don't yet have a job lined up for the summer, but my concern is that doing so will mean that I haven't worked at a law firm in either my 1L or 2L summer, as I took a non-legal job last summer. While I know employers tend to look favourably at clinic work, I am worried that no firm experience will be a large gap in my resume when it comes to getting an articling job. 

I am mainly interested in doing labour/employee side employment law for either a 2L summer job with a firm and articling. However, so far I haven't had much success with my cold emails. I'm reasonably optimistic I can find something before May (even if I have to stray a bit from my desired practice area), but will have to decide whether to apply to stay on at the clinic in the next 1-2 weeks.

A secondary question I have is how important would getting some labour/employment law experience this summer be in terms of getting an employee/union side employment law articling position?

Any general thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

[Darth Vader]

The labour firms and unions care more about whether you can show a strong social justice/labour law profile than they do about whether you worked at a law firm. Keep in mind that many of the hiring employers in the articling recruit are labour unions and not law firms. You also get transferable oral advocacy skills and experience working with disadvantaged groups in landlord and tenant law.

If you want to do management-side employment, then working at a firm doing this kind of work would be better. But plenty of people that work in workers' rights clinics in law school get hired at management-side firms as it shows you are serious about practicing in labour and employment law in general. 

If you have no employee/union side experience from even before going to law school, then you are at a slight disadvantage in the hiring process. Nearly everyone I know that landed at the top firms and unions were actively involved in student unions and labour causes even before law school. 

Most labour unions and employee-side firms do not hire summer students anyways, so this is not a big disadvantage. The clinic experience will look good to them. But not having any labour/union experience is an issue because they may wonder why you are interested in this area. 

Edited March 4, 2022 by Darth Vader

[BillyButcher]

Thank you for your response! Makes me feel better about taking the clinic opportunity. I will see if there are any opportunities to gain some volunteer labour/union experience this summer then

[SpecialK]

I participate in student selection at a union and perhaps I could provide some perspective on your questions (although I think Darth Vader's response is spot on).

We don't expect students to have had any prior practical experience in labour law, as this experience is generally difficult to obtain. What we primarily look for is demonstrated interest in labour law through course work/course selection. Taking labour law, employment law, and any related courses (e.g. admin law, health & safety courses, arbitration, labour moot, etc.) is certainly helpful in demonstrating this interest. 

We also look for candidates with social justice backgrounds that are interested in helping vulnerable people/workers' rights. 

Finally, with respect to your question about firm experience, I would say that very few of the students we've selected have had prior firm experience. I think that's partly because union side labour law summer opportunities are few and far between and partly because students that summer at union side firms generally article at those same firms.  However, I can say that we look favorably on any sort of clinic work and particularly those clinical experiences that may involve Tribunal work.  

Happy to answer any other questions you may have. 

 

[JimmyMcGill]

I can say that I interviewed with several union side labour firms during OCI and they really emphasized the value of clinic work. It's more valuable than working at a firm, if that is where you want to be, imo. The union side opportunities open up a lot during articles compared to 2L summer.

[QueensDenning]

On 3/22/2022 at 12:06 AM, JimmyMcGill said:

I can say that I interviewed with several union side labour firms during OCI and they really emphasized the value of clinic work. It's more valuable than working at a firm, if that is where you want to be, imo. The union side opportunities open up a lot during articles compared to 2L summer.

a few hours a week of clinic work is more valuable than 3-4 months of 40+ hour weeks? Also considering there are people who've done both? I can't see how. 

[Snax]

47 minutes ago, QueensDenning said:

a few hours a week of clinic work is more valuable than 3-4 months of 40+ hour weeks? Also considering there are people who've done both? I can't see how. 

Is summer clinic work only a couple of hours a week?  I didn’t do it while in law school, but I doubt the commitment is that little.  
 

I also doubt it’s as much as a full time job, but I imagine the commitment is much closer to a full time job than 30-45 mins a day. 

[QueensDenning]

1 hour ago, Snax said:

Is summer clinic work only a couple of hours a week?  I didn’t do it while in law school, but I doubt the commitment is that little.  
 

I also doubt it’s as much as a full time job, but I imagine the commitment is much closer to a full time job than 30-45 mins a day. 

didn't see summer clinic oops