CBA Record May-June 2022

YOUNG L AWYERS S EC T I ON : COME TOGE THER

Landing a Job in 2022: 3 Tips for Law Students By Alex Kontopoulos & Ted Kontopoulos

A s law students get further in law school, their thoughts turn to job prospects. Although their career aspirations vary, most find it challenging to navigate the legal job market. How do law students land a job in 2022? Tip #1: Build Relationships Practicing law is a service-based business. While lawyers need intelligence to perform their job competently, intelligent lawyers are a dime a dozen. Often, a tiebreaker for hiring is relationships. Law students look ing to stand out should consider building authentic relationships through regular engagement in events held by their law school, the CBA, the CBA Young Lawyers Section, and other local bar associations. When building these relationships, be proactive, positive, and intentional. If an area of law intrigues you, then join a CBA YLS committee that covers that area, befriend the chair or vice chair at a committee event, and ask how you can become involved. Committee chairs and vice chairs are not only passionate about their areas of law but are also eager to help law students interested in that area.

Likewise, if YLS social or volunteering events are available, sign up for as many as you can reasonably commit to, participate actively, and follow up with attorneys you met from those events for coffee or lunch. Authentic relationships provide immense value. Use your follow-up opportunities to learn more about prac ticing as an attorney. People like to talk about themselves; attorneys are no differ ent. Finding a mutual area of interest and learning about an attorney’s experiences provides a great learning opportunity and helps build connections. Once you make

age authentic relationships in the legal community. Since practicing law is a services-based business, your relation ships and reputation will have an outsized impact on your career, from initial hiring to business development and onward. Tip #2: Hone Your Skills Landing a job depends not only on a law student’s relationships, but also on skills specifically sought by employers. Broadly speaking, employers look to hire employ ees who research, write, and communi cate well.

attorney friends through positive, proactive, and inten tional engagement at events, you can ask them for warm introductions to others, and those introductions will be much more effective. After being introduced, kindly ask those attorneys to a coffee or lunch and use those skills to build additional friend ships, mentorships, or both. The point of tip #1 is to build, maintain, and lever

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