Internship: Challenges & Outcomes for an Aspiring Lawyer

Suppose, you get up on stage thinking that it's a practice place, and everybody comes to watch you play. You might feel uncomfortable, forgotten or ignored.

That's what happens to people who are mistakenly assuming they're going to go to an internship to learn. Sorry, this isn't what you're going to college for. The internships are not intended for study purposes. This is a place to work out and enhance your skills and abilities.

You're going to the internship to work, support lawyers / contribute to organisations and make their lives easier, and prove how good you are that they decide to recruit you, or at least choose to refer you to someone else if they can't afford you.

Losers are going to internships hoping to find someone smart enough to teach them something. The truth is, there is something you have to teach yourself. Lawyers barely have the time to train their full-time juniors; they hardly have time to teach you. But if you're amazing and helping them so much that they didn't even expect you to, and if they're very impressed with you, they might even make an effort to teach you a few things.

You need to prepare extensively to achieve this. One needs to be well-prepared to win.

What happened to you during your last internship? Have you made any substantial gains? Are you going to practice or would you just turn up inexperienced hoping someone will show you rope?

A decade ago, it used to be enough to turn up at a law firm without any planning. In any case, just a few students from a very small number of institutions used to be interns back then. With the increase in competition, every law student is trying to secure internships, but the reality has changed.

How are you going to train yourself for your next internship? You have to give this a cold, hard thought.

It doesn't matter where you're doing your legal internship – it may be with your dad's law firm, a prestigious one with a reputation for winning cases, or an agency of public interest. The goal is to make the most of your time there and to take advantage of the intent of this opportunity: to learn how a law firm and a lawyer work.

You don't know what work your seniors do.

Most law students don't know what lawyers are doing. For example, you're in the M&A department of a major law firm. Which kind of work are they going to do? Why do you possibly help them with that? Which kind of skill is going to be useful?

So let's assume that you are assisting the counsel in the arbitration proceedings. Do you ask what the various levels of arbitration are? Are you familiar with the process for gathering evidence? Do you know how to draw up documents that are needed for arbitration?

Understanding these things can be of great help. You will make a positive contribution here. You're going to learn your way around that spot. So you're most likely to make a mark so that you're called back to another internship, or offered the chance to sit down for a PPO interview.

When you've made some meaningful contributions and your partner/boss knows that, you can ask them to advise you or guide you and even refer you to other businesses. They have contacts in other companies, which points out the top performers.

Yet, are they going to consider you the best performer? What do you have to do in order to nominate yourself as one?

Not being seriously taken

Law students hate it, but are still treated like a child in law firms and chambers. Most of them are not taken seriously and therefore do not perform any serious work. They sometimes have files to read! And asked him to join the trial just to see what was going on in the courtroom.

These are all really relevant works to do. You can learn a lot by reading the old papers, sitting down and listening to what's going on in the courtroom.But, why are you going to work for an internship?

If you are given a real job, should you be given a chance to prove yourself? Will you be able to work on something that will challenge your intellect?

Yeah, well, maybe not. Many of the interns were never taken seriously. The theory is: let them stay in the office for a month; we can't do any serious work with them. It's easier to do this on our own.It's because so many lawyers have had bad experiences with interns who have wasted their time. But they weren't ready, so they needed lawyers to direct them, keep them in hand, and pander to them.

This isn't going to happen. Lawyers are much too busy to give you more than 15 minutes of their time in one day.If you're not taken seriously, how are you going to get a job? You need to show yourself early to be cut off from another cloth.

You need to deliver performance and display eagerness to do further research that needs to be taken seriously. You ought to have some previous experience and skills that have already been built to gain the respect of lawyers. That's the only way to keep you from being slotted with the rest of incompetent crowds who show up for the internship.

Just the giving of grunt work that is of no value

All the grunt work in the workplace that nobody else wants to do, is still being shifted to the intern. So, they expect a lot of dull, repetitive, and un-intellectual jobs.

Nobody will ask you to draft agreements or conclude agreements or to write the closing arguments in your internship. You may be asked to do any due diligence work. Or you may be given proofreading work. You can be asked to index certain documents or to correct the formatting.

Many interns lose interest and do a shoddy job because of the boring and non-glamorous nature of their work. Then they are quickly slotted out as useless and avoided by all the associates.They leave the office early. The few hours they spend in the office are spent watching YouTube videos, swiping on the tinder and reading on WhatsApp. In reality, there are never any call backs or PPOs.

No clue as to how to continue with research

Okay, let's say you've been given some good work for a while, - This could be regarding investigation or you are asked to make a copy.Will you be able to do this?

Let's say that they told you to find RBI's stance on whether crypto-currency companies operating abroad can run online advertisements targeting the Indian public. Is this legal? Is that an offence?

Most people don't know how to carry out these researches and find the answers. The majority of law students are not even familiar with legal study requirements. Most people know the right way to do academic work. Worst of all, you're probably used to 'guessing' or 'faffing.'

It's a terrible thing. Successful lawyers do not have time to carry out superficial research. You need to be specific, on the spot, and you need to be accurate. There should be no confusion. There should be no question about that. All points must be fully covered.

It is necessary to have prior experience in writing or research such as this. You're unlikely to be able to do such a job one fine morning unless you've been trained for it, under the guidance of a lawyer who knows how it works.

You are likely to overestimate or underestimate your skills.

I used to majorly overestimate my abilities and value when I began my internship. It was a really big mistake! I was meant to be humbler and more ready to know. I'm expected to train myself harder.I got away with it, but I know chances have been lost. I've also walked over borders a number of times and offended people.

Likewise, underestimating one during the internship and therefore not taking the initiative is also an epidemic.You're right there, right at the gates of potential. It's not about you, your ego, or whatever college you're coming from.

Can you make some kind of contribution to the firm? What would you do to make people notice you long after you've left? Think about it, man!

Start thinking about the specialties and eliminating those that you don't like.

Although if it's too early to choose a specialty, your first legal internship is a good opportunity to start talking about the specialties you want and want to pursue. It's also a strong starting point for removing the specialties that you're sure you don't want to try. To do so, you will observe people who work for an organization with various specialties and subspecialties.

In fact, have an open mind and do all sorts of assignments in different specialties to find one you're interested in pursuing. Many legal interns who have tended to be hostile to a specific form of law have ended up loving them at the end of their internships.

You don't know how to make a network

An Internship is a perfect location for a network. Not only will you meet your mentors, but also your co-interns, who will all be attorneys with varying degrees of success in the future. Every one of them will contribute in one way or the other to your career. Are you going to be able to create actual, long-lasting, mutually beneficial, trust-based links?

Stay in touch with the people you meet during your internship. That includes both lawyers and co-interns.

Know about politics and the atmosphere of office

Remember, you are entering the real world. You have a rare opportunity to learn about the traditional workplace atmosphere of a law firm, the politics of court every day, and what makes good lawyers- good at their jobs. Use this opportunity to learn how to handle the politics of the business and the case.

Could you see yourself living your life and being happy about it?

This is probably the most important question you have to ask yourself: five years from now, do you see yourself living like the associates in the law firm and being happy? Is that what you've seen yourself doing for the rest of your life? Will your personality mesh well with your colleagues' personalities? You want their lifestyle, huh?

When you can't see yourself doing what the associates are doing, don't worry. You work in another specialty at your second legal internship.

By focusing on learning, development and practical aspects of the legal environment, your first law firm internship can be a perfect opportunity to shape your legal career. Make the most of your time and start training yourself for your life, as a good lawyer.

I hope this might be helpful to you in your life, with this I take your leave. STAY SAFE MENTALLY & PHYSICALLY.