As you folks know, the summer associate market is in the toilet this year.  Again.  So far, I have gotten zero callbacks and zero real interviews.  Last summer, I ended up doing an internship at a prosecutor's office. This year, I would have liked to have gotten a firm job, but it doesn't look like there's any chance of that happening.  FWIW, I'm specializing in patent law, or at least trying to.

I'm wondering what the next best thing would be.  If I did a summer abroad at a foreign law firm, would this be viewed as any sort of decent experience?  Should I do another internship?  Just take summer classes? (At full tuition, sadly;  my scholarship doesn't cut the rates during summer.)

I wouldn't mind ending up in a prosecutor's office;  putting away drug dealers would be useful, at least.  But patents are what really interest me, and I'm even rather decent at the pros side.

Long term, I'd like to be out of the US, maybe doing a combination of immigration law and patent law overseas.  Both are federal practices, and helping USEFUL legal immigrants get through the hoops beats defending illegals against deportation here.  However, I won't have taken immigration law by the end of this year;  due to prerequisites, this year is nearly 100% IP.

Thoughts, suggestions, commiseration?

Do yall have limited practice up there? I know as a 1l clerk and even a 2l clerk, I couldn't do crap. But as a 3l the doors opened bc of our limited practice laws here. Anyways. The market sucks for everyone right now. There are rumors of layoffs here, and I don't think we are getting any summer associates this year. I can't imagine that going overseas to practice would be a bad thing, just don't know
how much it would help you unless you wanted to live there.  Good luck in your quest.

State Department internship?

We get limited practice ("711 license" in Illinois;  would you like a Slurpee with that?) at the end of 2L.

I could try for some of the federal internships, but my course mix isn't going to make me attractive for non-IP positions.

ETA: gotta run, time to head back.  With any luck I'll check in over the weekend.  Thanks!

Just a thought, but if you are interested in patent law and cannot get an internship at a law firm, how about trying for an internship with a potential future client company.  That is, if they have in-house counsel, perhaps they could use a hand, if not, maybe just something that gives you some exposure to the actual technology/stuff that would be informative when you actually are practicing.

The only experience I had with this is a lawyer who used to work in my old office (commercial litigation) ended up going in-house with one of the biotech clients we had after he passed the patent bar.

Personally, in this economy I'd go back to your prosecutor's office and build a relationship.  These days the name of the game is getting a job, any job.  Barring that, I worked for a professor one year helping with research.  Pretty chill summer.

Regarding going in-house, from what I'm hearing, corporations only want to hire people who already have solid legal experience.  It's cheaper to let a law firm train 'em and then pull the person in-house.  Also, in the present market, there are plenty of experienced patent attorneys looking for anything they can get.


No chance of being hired permanently;  they were laying off people (only reason I got to go –– they'd discontinued their paid internship program, and I was free), and will probably have to cut back further.  Finances are bad even in government.

Oh well.  Going to try a resume bomb pretty soon.