INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES IN THE LAW FIELD

By Priyanka Lath

WHAT IS LAW INTERNSHIP?

Internship simply means getting first-hand real experience of your chosen career subject. A law student or an undergraduate of law gain the real knowledge of the day to day legal practices in law internship. Basically, an internship is a practical experience of what you have read in theory. An internship is quite fundamental to whatever field you are but is a necessity for law students, so as to gain experience. Thus, an internship should be taken very seriously rather than deeming it as a vacation. Take an internship that can be easily understood, assimilated, and which are backed by your academic syllabus. You should never opt for an internship just to brag around and that could become complicated for you.

There are thousands of law students graduating every year dreaming to land in a successful career in law, such dreams are fulfilled with a good internship done at right time.

Per experts, a law student should aim to pursue 10 internships in a 5-year law course. However, it is completely a student’s discretion how many and what to opt for. The internship in very first-year can be a puzzling and crazy idea but the earlier you start, the better it is.

IMPORTANCE OF LAW INTERNSHIP

An internship comes with multiple advantages for interns. Thus, is very important to structure the career of the prospects. A law internship is essential for law students and they should make all efforts to grab as many internship opportunities as possible. Let’s learn the multitude of reasons as to why a law internship is so important:

• It provides a big exposure to multi-talented individuals of the law fields, all experts in their respective areas and surely contributing to your knowledge.
• The internship allows you to gain real knowledge of the legal happenings.
• The internship gives you an opportunity to apply your academics and theory in the real field.
• Just like software updates, its necessary to imbibe latest knowledge of the legal world and what could be a better way than a law internship.
• Build your personality and envisage confidence.
• It helps you understand your area of interest and thus chose the best among the plethora of opportunities
• Sharpens your communication, administrative, legal, and research skills that are imperative to the law industry.
• Last but not the least, it adds feather to your cap. Every internship adds sparkle to your resume and makes you more approachable for future job opportunities.

TYPES OF LAW INTERNSHIP

Depending upon where and what you want to learn in the law internship, it could be of following types.

1. RESEARCH INTERNSHIP

Research is the foundation of an internship. As the name suggests, a research internship will brush your research skill in a particular case, its backlinks, future prospects, etc. It will also sharpen your hand in using legal research tools like Manupatra, Lexis, Westlaw, Nexis. You can also be asked to propose a future course of action on the basis of your research.

2. COURT / INDEPENDENT LAWYER

The interns can go for internships under independent lawyers in District Court, High Court or Supreme court. These internships are recommended in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year. Students wishing to pursue Judiciary and Litigation as a career should go for these internships.

3. LAW FIRM

Taking an internship at various law firms and companies is termed as a law firm internship. A law student wishing to land in a corporate law career should do such internships. The law firm will envisage you in a day to day legal proceedings of the firm.

4. GOVERNMENT INTERNSHIP

Ministry of Finance, Competition Commission of India and Ministry of Corporate Affairs provides legal internships and that too with stipends.  Such law internships are very difficult to grab. A student with zeal to learn the working of governmental legal affairs should try and grab such golden opportunities.

5. NGO

If you want to take the very first-hand experience of law internship and understand how it actually works then you are at the right place. Many NGO’s provide law internship opportunities and provide detailed work-study of the respective legal happenings. It’s recommended to pursue an internship with an NGO during the first year of your course.

6. LEGAL CORPORATE / LPO

There are giant corporate companies which give good opportunities to the interns to peep into the real corporate legal happenings. An intern at legal corporation learns reviewing corporate legal matters, benchmarking, legal research, and assistance in corporate legal matters. Also, get familiarized with corporate issues which are very important in the corporate world.

7. SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT/TEACHER/TRAINERS INTERNSHIP

Not everyone would be interested in pursuing a corporate career. There are students who wish to do research and become subject experts or trainers or teachers. Such interns will go for internships at famous law schools or institutions. Here they are trained to be experts so as to teach other students. The students are the future foundation of law education.

DURATION OF LAW INTERNSHIP

Ranging anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks, the duration can vary. There is no hard and fast rule as far as the duration is concerned. It is subjective to the firm providing the internship and depends upon the type of internship. But a week internship program is deemed to be a befitting one.

HOW TO APPLY FOR A LAW INTERNSHIP

If you are looking for an internship, then you have to be proactive. You should apply for 2 or 3 months beforehand. There are multiple ways of applying.

• You can directly approach the law firm or company through call or email and enquire and show your interest in an internship.
• You can surf the internet, skim the internship program about to happen provided on blogs and websites
• You can also apply for various online or remote internship programs. The online program is quite a buzz these days.
• Approach with an impressive resume and a cover letter to create that first impression.
• There are 500 legal websites that will provide you information regarding the governmental internship.

CONTENT OF RESUME AND COVER LETTER

A good resume should delineate relevant information about your academics, previous internship, type of internship, grades, extracurricular activities (likes debates), case study reports, etc.

Make your resume precise, clear, and simple providing appropriate details to the employer.

The employers are flooded with thousands of applications every single day. Thus, an impressive cover letter is a must. A good eye-catching cover letter is like half the battle won. A good cover letter should have the following information:

• Name of the applicant
• Name of the institution
• Year of study
• Time preferred for internship
• Purpose of the internship

REMUNERATION OF LAW INTERNSHIP

It is advisable not to worry or think about the pay for the internship. It’s learning that matters, not the money. Interns should always be interested in gaining knowledge than acquiring money. Internships are generally not paid but it’s a firm’s discretion if they wish to pay an hourly wage. The wage can range between $14 and $17 per hour. Usually, government internships are paid.

CONCLUSION

No matter how well you are versed with theory, the internship experience adds that spark to your career and growth. It gives you real first-hand experience which makes you more approachable to future job prospects. It increases your market value to say. Just like food and air, an internship is also very necessary which provides you with that extra edge to face the real world and career competitions. In addition to brushing your skills, it helps to identify your area of interest and most importantly create a roadmap to success.