Login
How this first-year law student landed a job in a law firm
Breaking into the legal profession can be a challenging endeavour, particularly for a law student. Here, Cassidy Pole shares her story of defining these odds and securing a position at a law firm while still in her first year of study.
Grace Robbie
Speaking on a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, Cassidy Pole, a first-year law student at the Australian National University (ANU) and a law clerk at Walker Criminal Lawyer, shared the story of how she successfully secured a position at a law firm during her first year as a law student, despite the highly competitive nature of the legal profession. She also offered valuable insights and proactive advice for law students aspiring to gain work experience and build a strong foundation for a successful career in law.
Pole shared her strong desire to gain hands-on legal experience while studying, viewing it as a crucial opportunity for personal and professional growth throughout her degree.
“I wanted to have an industry job while I was studying. I think that it’s a great place to find some more experience, and I’ve learned a lot about it. So I applied to quite a few different places,” she said.
Despite her unmistakable enthusiasm and commitment, Cassidy explained the difficulty of securing work as a first-year law student, particularly in an industry where law firms prioritise candidates in their penultimate or final year of study.
“It is very challenging in your first year to find an industry job. Most firms or barristers, or whatever it may be, will look for someone who is in their penultimate, so in their last year or final years of law school.
“So there’s a bit of competition in that, and it is easy to feel a bit disappointed when you don’t get messages back that are positive,” she said.
Despite facing rejection and moments of discouragement, Cassidy emphasised that the setbacks didn’t deter her. Instead, they motivated her to persist, applying to even more firms and reaching out to more individuals.
“But I guess I just kept trying, and I really was passionate about having that kind of job. So I just kept going, and eventually, it worked off. And I have a paralegal job currently with a barrister in Sydney,” she said.
Her persistence ultimately secured her a position as a law clerk at a barrister’s chamber in Sydney, where she has been entrusted with a wide range of responsibilities, providing her with invaluable opportunities to refine her legal skills.
“I get to sort of work a few hours a day, and I call up clients, I write legal documents, things like that, do legal research. I also, which is really fun, get to look at the social media aspect of it and do social media posts, articles, legal research, things like that,” she said.
Pole underscored that one of the most valuable lessons she has learnt in her journey to securing work in the legal industry as a first-year law student is the pivotal role networking plays in advancing a legal career.
“I think networking is a big thing in terms of projecting your career further, and it should be that you’re making these genuine connections and being really authentic with how you’re connecting rather than just as a way [that you are] climbing the industry ladder.
“But it’s essential to sort of maintain really important trust relationships so that when you authentically engage with others, you can have these connections for the rest of your career,” she said.
Cassidy’s advice for fellow law students actively seeking opportunities in the legal profession is both straightforward and impactful: “Keep pushing through you, keep applying to jobs that you’re interested in, keep talking to people, put your hand up for things.”
She added: “It’s also important to have a really strong and solid foundation of your experiences before you apply. So things like leadership, community involvement, and all of those kinds of extracurriculars look really amazing on a CV.
“If you can work towards getting some of those and building up sort of your own sense of marketing in a way that you think that employees would look at your résumé and think, ‘Wow, this person has done so much, and they’re a really great part of the team if we take them on.’”
