By Gwyneth K. Shaw
With an accelerated hiring timeline for Big Law firms apparently here to stay, Berkeley Law’s Career Development Office (CDO) has built out a robust slate of programming for 1Ls that begins even before they arrive on campus.
First-year law students used to have a full academic year to learn about career options and the professional skills they’ll need to succeed. But many firms have begun interviewing for 2L summer positions as early as November of a student’s 1L year, and recruiting events are ongoing in September and October — even as students are trying to find their academic footing.
To help them navigate these trends, the CDO has overhauled its 1L programming over the past three years. The focus of the 1L Launch program is on making sure students are “practice ready” by helping them identify their existing skills while learning how to effectively research career paths and potential employers to understand both what they’re most interested in and what a job in that sector would be like.
The program is also pushing students to build a strong foundation for communication, initially for cover letters and interviews, by building on the framework established in Berkeley Law’s legal writing and research curriculum.
“It used to be that we’d talk to 1Ls throughout their first year,” CDO Director of Private Sector Programs Leslie Hauser says. “Now that Big Law firms are starting interviews as early as November of their 1L year, we had to really think about what we want them to know.
“We’ve switched from just delivering them information to really thinking about building their skills, and that works for every law student, whether they are interested in working at a law firm, clerking for a judge, or serving public interest clients in nonprofits or government positions,” she says.
Early efforts
That starts with what the office calls the “0L” period — after a student has been admitted but before orientation begins. The CDO’s 0L task force worked with Berkeley Law’s Admissions Office to integrate career information with the academic messaging sent to incoming students.
The Class of 2029’s first email from the CDO arrived the first week of June. It featured a preview of orientation and early fall programming, alerting students to their ability to make appointments with career counselors in late August, and inviting them to visit a class-specific website with vital information, including a glossary of legal career terms.
That June email also gave incoming 1Ls some homework: to review social media accounts, particularly LinkedIn; prepare a professional resume; and begin talking to lawyers and law students about their career choices. New students have access to an in-house “Who Worked Where” list with contacts for Berkeley Law 2Ls and 3Ls willing to connect with other students to talk about their summer jobs, and the school’s alumni chapters also host events in cities around the country to kick off the networking season.
The CDO sent additional emails at the beginning of July and August with more information for students, including the full schedule of 1L Launch events. Those included a career-focused breakout session at orientation, weekly coffee chats with legal employers — including law firms, judges and their clerks, and a variety of public interest and public sector (PIPS) employers to demystify legal careers — a panel about judicial clerkships, and a road map for Big Law recruiting.
Because of that extensive outreach, CDO staff had reviewed resumes from more than 75% of 1L students before orientation.
1L Emi Horii says the CDO’s programming has been “immensely helpful” in learning about summer jobs in a low-pressure environment. She’s also enjoyed meeting friendly and helpful 2L and 3L students, associates, and law partners through the events.
“From the first week of school, we hit the ground running,” she says. “On the second day of class, the CDO hosted a Coffee Chat 101 session, followed by an event with several employers the next morning. Since then, the CDO has regularly brought in many of the firms that recruit from Berkeley Law for casual conversations with students.
“It has been a great way to learn more about different firms and their cultures while also building my networking skills before recruiting officially begins.”
A scaffolded approach
CDO Associate Director for Private Sector Counseling and Programs Kate Ortbahn, a veteran of the Teach for America program, was influential in bringing the idea of scaffolding — an instructional strategy providing students with temporary support to help them grasp new skills — to the 1L Launch programs. That challenged the CDO staff to determine what skills students needed to be “practice ready,” then work backwards to understand when and how to impart those lessons.
“We’ve always helped students identify their transferable skills, but we usually did it at the end of the 1L fall semester,” Hauser says. “Instead, we’ve switched the order and started telling them as early as orientation, ‘You have these skills that are useful, you didn’t get to Berkeley Law without them.’
“I’ve seen a real change from that — I think students are having much better conversations at the coffee chats and are really starting to see that different types of attorneys do different things.”
Having a strong plan, and being able to point to the CDO schedule and tell students what’s coming, has helped calm the anxiety of students trying to tackle law school and career planning at the same time, CDO Director of Judicial Clerkships Jonathan Mireles says.
“We’re not just giving them the information but giving it to them when we think it’s the most helpful and efficient,” he explains.
CDO staff connected with colleagues across the law school to ensure the 1L Launch ideas are incorporated everywhere. They worked particularly closely with faculty in the Legal Research, Analysis, and Writing Program (LRAW), since students are required to take their courses in both semesters of their 1L year. LRAW professors are also incorporating resources for students about understanding and using AI in legal practice as the technology becomes prevalent at law firms.
Professor of Legal Writing Linda Tam says the curriculum emphasizes developing fundamental lawyering skills that will serve students in the diverse range of places they will work — an approach that this year’s 1Ls appreciate.
“It is most important for 1Ls to learn the fundamentals of lawyering before they engage with any AI tools,” she says. “Writing is thinking. Conducting research is thinking. These are iterative processes that are how lawyers develop and refine their ideas. Our 1Ls must learn to think like lawyers before they will be able to evaluate, verify, and use AI tools.”
Professor and Associate Dean for J.D. Curriculum and Teaching Jonathan D. Glater says the “hyperaggressive hiring schedule” that many Big Law firms are using doesn’t serve first-year students well.
“But our job is to prepare our students for the profession as it is in hopes that once out there, they can make it better,” he says. “Berkeley Law has always done an exceptional job preparing students for practice at the highest level, and the specific courses we offer to prepare students to enter the law firm world give them a firm grasp of fundamental concepts in law and business that will serve them well for years to come — and will help in their other classes, too.”
Navigating a new norm
While much of the curriculum is timed to prepare students for Big Law recruiting, CDO staff emphasize that everything they’re doing is relevant and useful to students who are pursuing judicial clerkships or public interest careers.
Recruiting for PIPS jobs hasn’t accelerated, CDO Associate Director for Public Interest and Public Sector Programs Ja’Nai Aubry says. But last year, a handful of PIPS-focused students who participated in the early fall programming were among the first students to get jobs because they were ready when the application period opened.
Students who aren’t yet sure which career track they want can feel extra stress with the faster Big Law recruitment timeline, she says. But the CDO emphasizes that the 1L Launch program, and early support from the office’s career counselors with experience in both the public and private sectors, is designed to educate, prepare, and empower students on every path.
One of the law school’s largest annual events is the October Career, Internship, & Pro Bono Fair, where 100 employers are available to meet with students during lunch.
“We’ve gotten feedback from initial meetings with students saying, ‘I feel so supported here,’” Aubry says. “Their friends at other schools aren’t getting this level of assistance.”
1L Linda Meyerson came to Berkeley Law with a background in education and international law and is committed to working in public interest law. Because she’s not focused on Big Law recruiting, she’s had a bit more breathing room to acclimate to law school.
“The main messaging being directed towards public interest/public sector students at this time of year is to stay calm and keep trying to get clearer on what exactly it is we want to do while we wait for applications to open up,” she says. “The CDO, through one-on-one advising appointments, has been helpful in pointing me towards resources customized to my professional interests.”
She worries that the new timeline means Big Law recruiting dominates career planning for new students, even as the CDO has bolstered its offerings for public interest-oriented students in recent years.
“Sometimes, I also wonder how 1Ls set on going straight into Big Law are learning about themselves and developing a sense of their long-term professional goals given that they don’t have the same luxury of time,” Meyerson says.
Horii, who is from Hawai‘i, has tapped into the 1L Launch curriculum in multiple ways. After being admitted, she was excited to learn that Hawaiʻi Chief Justice Vladimir Devens ’87 was an alum. She then used the “Who Worked Where” list to connect with 2L Wyatt McHale about his summer externship with Devens — and met him at a recent event of the school’s annual Judges-in-Residence Program.
“The CDO has done an amazing job of providing students opportunities to meet, learn from, and get to know such an inspiring array of legal professionals,” Horii says. “Getting to speak with Chief Justice Devens has been one of the highlights of my semester so far. Coming from Hawai‘i, it was truly inspiring to hear his story and learn about his ethos as a judge.”
CDO Deputy Director Liz Klein says that while last year’s timeline rejiggering was stressful because it was happening so quickly, students who engaged with the “practice ready” elements, particularly in highlighting their transferable skills, were highly successful in their job searches. This inspired confidence in the task force to push forward with additional support.
“We all feel like anything can happen and we’ll be ready to help the students through it because we’re not afraid of change,” she says.