Andrew Ardinger was one of many law school Class-of-2009 grads whose career path took an interesting turn when the law firm he was bound for – in his case, Orrick – deferred his start date.  Ardinger made great use of his time, spending the past 12 months with the Public Interest Law Project in Oakland.  Periodically during this past year, Ardinger contributed short update pieces to the American Lawyer, offering  a check-in about his public-service experience.  As he is preparing to return to BigLaw world, Ardinger penned a final piece looking back upon his time with PILP. 

 Now that I’m in the waning days of this fellowship, and I start to reflect on it, I keep coming back to the same thought: It’s been a great experience for me on a number of levels.

…

On a professional development level…this experience has been outstanding. As I have noted before, there are only six attorneys in the office, and one legal assistant. It was a very warm, genial work environment, and the two attorneys with whom I worked most closely were, from the first day, obviously committed to mentoring me and helping me develop as an attorney.

The PSLawNet Blog has been closely following the phenomenon of deferred associates taking temporary, public-service placements.  It’s a classic “on one hand, on the other” scenario.  So…on one hand, the public interest lawyer who lives inside of us finds these developments to be very beneficial, for at least a couple of reasons:

1. The main reason is this: the concern ultimately has to be for the clients.  Nonprofit law offices were hit hard by the recession.  This caused tremendous difficulties for the staff, and for law students who were seeking to begin their career in this arena (we’ll get back to this in a moment).  But it’s the low- and middle-income client communities that were hit hardest.  And the reduced service capacity which the recession caused in many public interest shops meant that fewer clients could be served even as their numbers were increasing.  Deferred associates were able to shore up – and in some cases, expand – service capacity.  That’ s huge, and it came at a critical moment.
2. Also, the public interest community benefits by forging strong relationships with the private bar.  Quite aside from pro bono work, money flows from the private bar to the public interest bar.  And in myriad other ways, law firms leverage their resources to support public interest work.  So if dozens, or maybe even hundreds, of today’s deferred associates have positive experiences during their public service placements,  they may become tomorrow’s pro bono advocates, board members, and financial supporters.  That’s a win-win.

But there is “on the other hand,” too.  PSLawNet’s mission is to support public-service minded law students and attorneys in achieving their professionals goals.  And it has been undoubtedly frustrating for many students and grads who want to commit their careers to public interest work to see the desks at public interest offices temporarily occupied by deferred associates who were there until business picked up at the firm.  To boot, many of the associates were living on firm-provided stipends which comfortably outpaced public interest salaries.  It is very difficult to measure how much of a “displacement effect” was caused by the deferred associate phenomenon, because frankly very few public interest organizations were in strong enough financial positions to hire new attorneys anyway (at least back in the throes of the recession).  Nevertheless, it was a daunting obstacle for those students who wanted to earn to a low salary in order to fight for those on society’s margins.

We suspect that as the legal economy emerges from the recession, it’ll make something of a return to the pre-recession “normal.”  Law firms will adjust staffing models to match business needs.  Public interest funding will stabilize gradually.  Now, there is discussion these days about whether a longer-term service model might emerge from the deferral model – something akin to the “loaned associate” programs that presently exist between law firms and public interest organizations.  Nevertheless, the prospects of those on public interest career paths feeling crowded out by their law-firm bound peers are diminishing.

We know that many public-interest minded law students and attorneys are interested in opportunities in international human rights work.  So we figured we’d pass along word that a recently announced gift from George Soros will lead to Human Rights Watch considerably expanding its staff – “adding more than 120 employees to a an organization of 300.”

The gift, according to the Washington Post, is also expected to begin a change in the way that HRW builds support – financial and otherwise – for its activities throughout the global community.  Rather than leaning so heavily on donations from U.S. and European sources, HRW wishes to expand its support base:

The Human Rights Watch gift will consist of $10 million annual grants over the next decade. Human Rights Watch is expected to find funding to match that grant. It is also seeking to cultivate a new generation of foreign donors to fund the group’s activities. Today, Human Rights Watch receives 30 percent of its funding from abroad, mostly from Europe and some from Japan. It has a target of raising 40 percent of its funding from abroad within five years and 50 percent within a decade.

On a related note, here are two PSLawNet resources for law students and lawyers searching for international public-interest jobs:

1.  Finding Jobs with the UN and other International Organizations
2. Finding and Funding International Public Service Opportunities

Please participate in NALP’s brief, anonymous survey about recent trends in the public interest hiring market.  NALP is a national member association of career services and human resources professionals from law schools and legal employers throughout the U.S.  (NALP also administers the PSLawNet website and the PSLawNet Blog.)  We are conducting a survey of nonprofit and government law offices about 1) recent law student and law graduate hiring and 2) hiring expectations in the immediate future.  In late October we will produce a report based on survey responses.  The report will be made freely available on our PSLawNet website: www.pslawnet.org.  We will NOT identify any participating organizations by name. We hope the report, which will provide a snapshot about the current employment market, will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public service career paths.

Who Should Participate: nonprofit and government (local/state/federal) legal organizations in the U.S.  There is a place in the survey to indicate whether it is being submitted on behalf of an entire organization, a branch office of a larger organization, or a practice unit within a larger organization.  We encourage respondents to coordinate with others in your organizations in order to avoid duplicating responses. 

Survey Completion Deadline: Wednesday, September 22, 2010.

Link to Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DJW9WNL  

Questions/Concerns: Please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, at sgrumm@nalp.org or directly at 202.296.0057.

Searching for the ideal summer or postgraduate public-interest job?  The annual Equal Justice Works Conference & Career Fair is taking place just outside DC on October 22-23.  Job-seeker registration has just opened.  Learn more details and register on the Equal Justice Works website.  The career fair is a terrific and unique event, and we encourage law students and grads to look into attending.

Thinking about pursuing a career in federal government?  If so, the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work rankings are an excellent resource to learn about employees’ perceptions of overall employee satisfaction, agency leadership, opportunities for performance based rewards and advancement, diversity, work/life balance, and more throughout the federal government.

The Partnership for Public Service’s  2010 Best Places to Work were just released.  The rankings are “based on the responses of more than 263,000 employees” at “290 federal organizations (32 large agencies, 34 small agencies and 224 subcomponents).”  The rankings also provide a demographic breakdown of responses from each agency or subcomponent.

Of the large agencies, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Government Accountability Office, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Smithsonian Institution, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were ranked as the top five “best places to work.”  At the other end of the spectrum, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Archives and Records Administration, Department of Education, Small Business Administration, and Department of Homeland Security received the lowest rankings.

Access the complete rankings:  http://www.bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings

Check out The Wastington Post’s article for responses to the rankings from the SEC, OMB, and the Smithsonian.

Your summer job experience is complete and you are back in the classroom . . .  What steps can you take now to help you land your next summer position or post-graduate employment?

Today’s Expert Opinion column comes to us from Sharon Booth, Director of Public Interest Programs at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad Law Center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  Sharon is a former Legal Aid attorney who has been with NSU for approximately 10 years.  Her column addresses the key steps you should be taking now to ensure you are maximizing the potential of this summer’s experience to further explore your career path and find your next job.

1.) Continue to cultivate your relationship with your summer employer(s).

• Keep in touch with your summer employer(s) by periodically emailing or calling them after you return to school.  If your employer has an email distribution list for announcements ask to be added to the listserv.
• Be assertive in expressing your interest in a future position with their organization (if applicable).  If not, keep them apprised of your future plans and career goals.
• Participate in networking opportunities with your summer employer(s) by attending office events, community service activities or local bar association meetings during the academic year.
• Maintaining this relationship could lead to anything from a great recommendation to a full time job after graduation!

2.) Utilize your summer contacts to set up informational interviews.

• Create a list of the contacts you made over the summer, including geographic and practice areas.
• As you begin to plan for your second summer or post-graduate employment, set up informational interviews with several of these individuals.  Although you are not seeking employment directly from them, always take an updated copy of your resume in case they offer to pass it along.
• This type of research and preparation is an invaluable tool for learning more about the opportunities, personalities and legal culture in a particular city, practice area or organization.
• For more information on informational interviews, including sample letters and questions, you can check out this publication from Harvard Law School:  http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/careers/opia/landing-your-job/networking/index.html

Keep reading . . .

Do you have interest in pursuing a career in the federal government?  The Office of General Counsel at DHS has extended the deadline to apply for their 2011 Summer Intern Program and Honors Program to October 15.

To learn more about both programs check out our earlier post on these opportunities at DHS.

Also of interest, Craig Raynsford, who serves in the Office of the General Counsel at DHS, spoke to us earlier this year about the advantages of a career in federal government and the application process.

Legal careers in the federal government are growing in popularity.  The 2010-2011 Federal Legal Employment Guide is now available and can be downloaded for free.  The Guide is an excellent tool to help you learn about legal careers in the federal government and conduct a successful job search.

Download the Guide and access organized, easy-to-read information concerning:

• the benefits of a federal legal career;
• how to find legal positions in the federal government;
• strategies for conducting your job search to find the ideal positions; and
• how to design successful application materials.

Want to learn even more about federal legal careers?  Visit PSLawNet’s Federal Government Resources page.

The New York Law Journal is running a piece today titled, “Law Schools See Signs of Better Job Opportunities for Students.”  It notes that in the New York market, law school on-campus interviewing (OCI) programs are likely to be a bit more robust than they were last year.  The piece focuses mainly on Biglaw’s hiring plans, though, where one hiring partner offered that, “It’s not full speed ahead, but it’s cautiously optimistic half speed ahead.”

What about the public interest hiring market, though?  We realize that the “public interest market” is quite diffuse and as a result it’s hard to discern hiring trends.  Here at NALP/PSLawNet we’ll be doing some more formal environmental scanning in the coming weeks – reaching out mainly to nonprofit and some government law offices to get a sense of whether the economic winds are little more favorable these days.

But we’re curious about the buzz – about what law students are hearing as you folks are wrapping up summer internships.  What are your employers and friends saying about the hiring prospects for Class of 2011 grads?  Please share in the comments section.  (And career services folks should feel free to chime in as well.)

International public interest jobs are often prestigious and highly sought after.  But it’s a big, big world out there, and there is much opportunity to do good.  Aspiring international public interest lawyers should do as much research as possible to find out where the opportunities are, and how to strengthen their resumes and skill sets to make themselves the strongest candidates.

Hot off the e-presses is the 2010-11 version of Finding and Funding International Public Service Opportunities, a terrific resource edited annually by three fine folks at law schools of the University of Arizona, University of Georgia, and the College of William and Mary.

Don’t forget to view other international public interest career resources on PSLawNet, and also recall this information-packed blog post from NYU’s Sara Rakita bout legal career pathways into the U.N. and other intergovernmental agencies.