Online Legal Internships
So, I want to acknowledge that yes, I graduated law school when the internet was like just invented. But I like the internet and the internet is my friend (most of the time, except when said internet does not work, and then we have to have a talk). As more and more businesses decide to go online, so do many internships. And even though we imagine the law school internship as our typical brick-and-mortar experience, remote legal internships are the way of the world right now. And that is okay. You get to write a legal memo with no pants!
Can you still gain valuable experience with an online legal internship? Absolutely. My firm has had to go through a bit of a hiring spree lately, and I have not even met my newest lawyers in person (Zoom, yes). But I can still assess their communication, writing and legal skills, while they get to enjoy the flexibility and freedom (See No Pants, Supra).
In my day (here we go), I would literally walk into firms and other legal-type-places and just be like “Hi I want a job”. That was a lot of walking. Also, a lot of embarrassment and rejections. Do not get me wrong, a little embarrassment and rejection did not hurt anyone, but it was also a lot of wasting time. And that is another thing, online legal internship searching and online legal internship doing are both huge time savers.
One of my all-time anxiety-producing memories about choosing an internship had to do with geography. I was a Cali girl with Summer offers in Boston and Cali, and I had no idea what to do. Guess what, you can have an internship on Mars (yes, I believe there is Alien Legal Life), and it will not matter (just have good internet). You can have more than one internship in more than one place. That is so incredible and I really wish I had had the option to do that, because having to make that decision has haunted me to this day (I am not telling you what decision I made, because this is about you, not me (okay a little bit about me)).
The legal world is at your service!
Tania