What happens if I don’t get a summer clerkship or internship?
As summer clerkship applications loom in New South Wales, thousands of penultimate year and final year law students across the state are in the process of updating their resumes, preparing their cover letters and attending informative student law society and law firm events.
Given the limited amount of law firms and seasonal clerkship positions at each firm, the reality is that (for many of you) you will, unfortunately, receive no clerkship offers or miss out on offers from your preferred firm(s). Every year, the competition for summer clerkship positions becomes increasingly fierce.
For those who do end up getting an offer or even multiple offers, many congratulations. The rest of this written piece will be irrelevant to you.
For those who end up with no offers, it will probably suck (especially if you are genuinely interested in a career in commercial law). As someone who ended up with no clerkship offers back then, I have first-hand experience with that feeling of rejection.
I find that many people who give advice along the lines of "clerkships aren't the be-all and end-all" are people that actually received clerkship offer(s) and did a summer clerkship themselves (so your natural response would probably be "what do you know about not getting a clerkship?").
However, having personally missed out on a clerkship and subsequently worked at mid-tier and top-tier commercial law firms, I can assure you that clerkships are indeed not the "be-all and end-all". (In fact, a few years after graduation, I ended up working at one of the firms which I applied for, did interviews for and did not ultimately get a clerkship offer from.)
Assuming you still wanted to end up at a big commercial law firm, I offer the following options for your consideration.
Second shot at clerkships
You may wish to extend your degree and apply in the following year as a "penultimate year" student again. Alternatively, there are top-tier firms that will consider applications from final year students. In either case, you would have the benefit of valuable experience from applying for clerkships the first time.
Law graduate programs
Many mid-tier and boutique firms (and on rare occasions, certain top-tier firms) will open up applications to final year students for their graduate programs. Some mid-tier firms also offer graduate positions to their paralegals (noting that top-tier firms tend to source their paralegals from former seasonal clerks who would be incoming graduates).
Based on my own experience and the experience of others I have seen, it is very common for lawyers at mid-tier firms to move to top-tier firms after they have got a few years of experience under their belt. It is a well-known trend that a significant portion of junior lawyers in top-tier firms will leave their firms within their first few years of practice. Accordingly, junior to mid-level positions in top-tier firms will inevitably open up for experienced lawyers from mid-tier and boutique firms. It is fair to say that, if you were initially trained at a mid-tier firm, don’t be too surprised when you start receiving a hoard of messages or emails in a few years from recruiters on LinkedIn about whether you are interested in joining a top-tier firm!
So instead of feeling sorry for yourself, use those clerkship rejections as a learning experience and motivation to put your best foot forward when applying for graduate programs.
Alternative vacationer/graduate roles - Tax services, in-house legal and government legal
A popular alternative pathway is to complete a vacationer/graduate program in the tax division of an accounting firm (especially the Big 4 professional services firms) and then leverage that experience for law firm applications. If one has done a vacationer program in Big 4 tax, they can "sell" that experience in their applications for law graduate programs. If one has spent a few years in Big 4 tax (including as a graduate), they can "sell" that experience in applying for tax lawyer positions at big law firms.
Further, it is not uncommon for lawyers who started their career in-house (whether at a public company, private company, regulator or government department) to transition to private practice within their first few years of practice.
Reassess
Sometimes rejection will enable you to realise that you were truly meant for something else. You might decide to apply for internships and graduate programs in a field that is related to your other non-law degree.
If you decide to apply for law graduate programs in your final year of study, having a formal internship in any other field on your resume will make you a more competitive applicant.
Final words
Always remember that the lack of a clerkship will not dictate the rest of your legal career. There are lawyers out there who have achieved amazing things without ever having done a clerkship. Some people decided to go down a different path outside of the law and made clerkship rejections the best thing to ever happen to them.
I don’t want to sugarcoat the negative feelings that one might endure when they receive rejection email after rejection email after rejection email. It will probably suck.
However, quoting Angela Blount, "Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn't mean to make”. Speaking from my own experience, not getting a clerkship has led to a scenic route for my professional journey. One which I wouldn't want to change.
With that in mind, good luck and have fun with the clerkship application process! Know that, regardless of the outcome, your legal career is a marathon, not a sprint.