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 ...