10.2 Career Planning
The Office of Career Planning offers a range of services and resources to help you identify goals and search for employment, internships, and funding for summer, school year, or post-graduation positions. Please note that in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the National Association for Law Placement, Career Planning will begin meeting with students in individual consultations in late October to give students time to get used to the study of law without the distraction of looking for an internship. Employers must also refrain from taking applications until December as well so first year students are not disadvantaged.
Our resources include employment and internship listings, employer directories, a library of career materials, and hundreds of employer resumes and recruiting materials. This includes the following:
CUNY Law Symplicity - which provides secure access to listings of jobs, internships, and employers, as well as networking contacts in various fields of law;
Weekly job “blasts” - summaries of available internship and funding opportunities;
PSJD - a comprehensive listing of public sector and public interest employers and career opportunities throughout the country;
Law Job Web/Law Match - particularly good listings for private law firm positions;
Intercollegiate Job Bank - a pool of internships and job listings from more than 300 law schools;
Government Honors database - incudes summer and post-graduate positions;
Vermont State Clerkship Guide: a guide to state clerkship hiring guidelines and timelines in all 50 states.
The University of Arizona Honors Program and Public Policy Guide: students are able to access this subscription- based newsletter that lists legal and law-related opportunities in public policy and Capitol Hill-related internships, jobs, and fellowships as well as on federal and state government honors programs.
Equal Justice Works resources - CUNY Law is a member, and this entitles students to free access to webinars on managing law school debt, post-graduate, public interest fellowships, summer corps fellowships, etc.;
Peggy Browning Fund - CUNY Law School is a participant in this labor/employment law side-foundation, which provides funded internships with employee-side labor/employment law firms, organizations, and unions. CUNY students may also participate in the annual Peggy Browning Fund conference that is held annually in the Washington,
D.C. area in October; and access to career-related events, such as:
CUNY Law Court Orientation CUNY Law Career Exploration Fair
CUNY Law Speed Mock Interview Program
The Equal Justice Works Career Fair in Washington, D.C. Public Interest Legal Career Fair at New York University Lavender Law Job Fair
Northeast Black Law Students Association Job Fair
The Office also coordinates and presents workshops and panels and provides information on fellowships and judicial clerkships.
The Office offers a range of services that effectively help you identify your goals and then search for employment, internships, and funding for summer, school year, or post-graduation work to fit your experiences and preferences.
Special note for the 2020-21: Note that because of the Covid-19 epidemic, we anticipate that most if not all of our events and individual consultations will take place on the phone or on the internet. We anticipate many of the external Job Fairs such as the Public Interest Legal Career Fair at NYU and Equal Justice Works Career Fair will be held virtually. We are equipped to conduct our programming such as the Career Exploration Fair, Speed Mock Interviewing, Ace the Interview, etc. Of course, we will start to move to in-person events and consultations as soon as public health officials allow for them.
Here’s a summary of Career Planning’s Services:
Individual Career Counseling - Career Planning provides confidential, one-on-one counseling sessions to students and alumni of the Law School, and counselors are available throughout the year. In compliance with National Association for Law Placement guidelines, counseling for first-year students begins at the end of October. The purpose of the rule is to give first-year students an opportunity to focus on the study of the law in the first two (2) months of law school and not look for employment.
Resume and Cover Letter Review - Counselors will review your draft cover letters and resumes and provide you with feedback on how to improve them.
Mock Interviews with Career Counselors can be arranged on an as-needed basis. It’s best to schedule three (3) days or more in advance of the interview, if possible.
Alumni Network Referrals - From time to time, you may find a need to speak to a CUNY Law graduate. Maybe you need to speak to someone about a particular law office or you may like to know more about a particular practice of law that you are exploring. By request, we can refer you to a graduate. We encourage you to participate in networking events, as well as join CUNY Law LinkedIn, where you can meet many alumni on your own.
Reciprocity Requests - If you are looking for a career opportunity outside the New York City metropolitan area, you may desire to use the resources of another law school’s career center. The Career Planning Office will make these “reciprocity requests” to another law school.
Business Cards - Personal business cards can be useful at networking events. You may order cards in the Reprographics office, room 1-105. You will be charged for the cost.
Fax and Scanning - We provide these services to facilitate your search or application for a job opportunity.
Please email us at careerplanningoffice@law.cuny.edu or call us at (718) 340-4230 about accessing these services.
On-Campus Recruitment - The Office also maintains an on-campus employment recruitment program in which employers collect resumes from interested students and/or interview applicants at the Law School. These are typically available to second- and third-year students. These opportunities are listed in CUNY Law Symplicity.
Facebook and Twitter - You can stay in touch with career updates by becoming a fan of the CUNY Law Career Planning Office’s Facebook page and by following us (CUNYLawCareers) on Twitter. We urge you to do this, in order that you not miss out on events or opportunities of interest to you.
To assist with preparation of career plans, first-year students receive a copy of CUNY Law’s Career Planning Guide, as well as access to the CUNY Law Symplicity, which is the career management, web-based system used by the country’s leading law schools.
CUNY School of Law and the Career Planning Office are committed to a policy that opposes discrimination in employment, based on age, sex, sexual orientation, religion, race, color, national or ethnic origin, disability, or veteran or marital status, and only those employers who agree to follow this policy against non-discrimination are permitted to participate in our recruitment programs.
Career Planning does not and will not screen or rank applicants for jobs; screening and selection are entirely the employer’s responsibility. When an employer asks the Office to collect and forward resumes, the Office distributes the employer’s information and criteria and forwards all resumes received in the Office by the employer’s deadline on an equal basis.
CUNY School of Law abides by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). First-year students should be aware of the NALP rule that dictates that “law school should not begin offering one-to-one career counseling or application document reviews to first-year students before October 15... and employers and first-year law students should not contact one another, and employers should not interview or make offers to first-year students before December 1.” Students should be aware of the NALP rules regarding the acceptances of offers of employment and other rules of conduct found at https://www.nalp.org/principles.
Finally, the Law School community should be aware of the following principle: “Students’ freedom of choice should be protected from undue influences. In counseling students, career services officers and others within the Law School community should avoid interposing either their own values or institutional interests.”
We look forward to working with you throughout your legal career and invite you to visit Career Planning on a regular basis.