Legal Networking During and After Your Summer

Networking is an invaluable tool in building your legal career, and it is never too early or too late to start. If you're participating in a summer program now, that's the most immediate and most obvious place to focus, but if you have any time left in law school, connections there are important as well. Below are some legal networking tips focused on this summer, your return to law school (or the start of your firm career) in the fall, and finally some general tips you should always be utilizing.

Attend your summer events.

This one may seem obvious, but it bears mentioning just the same. Firms aren't just spinning their wheels when they invest their resources into budgets into putting on great events for their summer associates. While part of it is definitely to entice you to join the firm full-time, years of our survey data confirm over and over again that the relationships formed between summers at these events will last your entire career. These are not only the people you're coming up with who can be good friends based on shared experiences; they're also the people you'll be in the trenches with when the deadlines are tight and the nights get long. The stronger your bonds with those people, the easier those inevitable times will be. Take the time to invest in your relationships with your fellow summers; it's an investment that will pay a variety of dividends for the rest of your career.

Attend office hours.

If you are interested in a particular area of the law, you should make a point of getting to know the professor(s) who teaches that class, and invest in maintaining that connection throughout your career once you graduate. Visit the professor during office hours, try to spend time as their research assistant, and take as many of their classes as you can. Above all else, be genuine. When the time is appropriate, don’t be afraid to ask for career help, including the types of employers to consider and whether the professor knows anyone with whom you can speak for an informational interview. Don’t enter the conversation expecting the professor to hand you a job; that is very unlikely to happen. Remember, networking is about making genuine connections so that, when you need it, people will want to help you (and may rely on you for help as well, which you should provide whenever you're able!).

Connect with your classmates.

If you have any time left in law school, your peers remain both among your most valuable possible connections and the easiest you can cultivate. Attend social events at the school, and talk to the people you meet there. Talk to the person in the next seat during your classes. We know it can be difficult for introverts to put themselves out there and start a conversation. This is one of the easiest and best places to practice, as your classmates are essentially on equal footing as you and you have some of the most significant current life experiences in common with each other. The ease with which empathetic relationships can be formed in school is not really replicated again later in your career, so take advantage of this opportunity, particularly if you're naturally less outgoing.

Get involved with the local bar association.

Speaking from personal experience, bar associations are excellent ways to not only network and access CLE programs, but to make genuine lifelong friends. Associations exist for cities, counties, states, particular practice areas, and young lawyers, among others. All are worth joining, and most law firms will cover your membership in at least one (and many offer free or heavily discounted memberships for law students). Although this is a very good way to build your network, and you should absolutely focus on obtaining contact information (and giving yours) to anyone you speak with at these events, it will help not to view this as a professional obligation. The attendees at these events know what being a lawyer is like, and this shared experience is fertile ground to make lifelong personal connections. We highly recommend joining at least one association and making a habit of attending its events.

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Networking is emphasized so often and is so genuinely important that it can seem like a daunting task. Once you relax into the idea that talking to your peers (or future peers) isn't that difficult, you will find yourself forming the sorts of genuine connections that will motivate you to want to help people and will motivate them to reciprocate, not in a transactional way but out of genuine care. That said, we hope the above tips narrow down the process in a way that makes it less overwhelming and more approachable. As long as you maintain professional decorum, you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so our advice is to get out there and use the opportunities that exist to make as many connections as you can.