Internship Advice for a Law Student

Internships play a significant role throughout the five-year law course. The curriculum of law is such that it allows the students to not only understand and learn through various laws but also gain experience by understanding their actual implementation through internships. However, irrespective of where a law student gets an internship, it is pertinent for him/her to understand the work ethics and work culture, which stands mandatory for them. It is never easy for a law student to get internship through a top tier law firm or company, especially for the majority of law students that belong to the non-NLU cadre. But as they say, use all the sources and the contacts to get your internship at the place you can. Nonetheless, the real fight commences with the internship.

Regardless of where you have bragged your internship, a code of conduct is mandatory to be followed by all the interns. From the very first day, the intern must have the objective of impressing the people at work. Impression is set not only by delivering timely and high quality work but the personality & etiquettes one showcases throughout the internship. No act of the intern goes unnoticed during the entire period of internship.

Most importantly, an intern should be extremely careful about time and dressing style. Make sure to reach office five minutes early and take an exit ten minutes late. These extra fifteen minutes, might not be productive but are highly required. At the same time, interns must complete the entire work given within the deadline even for which long stay backs are required. Further, intern must consider them to be as an active part of the office and thus dressing style is vital. Dress how the office dresses, formal or informal but it should be clean, tidy & professional. From top to bottom, everything in your personality should showcase a professional selection.

Greetings involve great value. An intern must always greet the people at office in the morning, or when they give them work. Also, greeting good bye to your associate at the end of day add to the flavours of internship. These little greetings are no harm for an intern but helps in pacifying their image and making them look modest, calm and professional.

Another advice for an intern is to not say ‘no’ rather ask ‘how’. Whatever tasks are given to an intern, even if are critical in nature, the intern should never say ‘no’ directly or indirectly. Questions are always welcomed by most associates, but imperative is how you are framing the question, thereby ensuring that it sounds intelligible and not senseless. There should be a greed in an intern to work throughout the internship rather than sitting idle or passing time. This greed should be well showcased by constantly asking for more work after the current work allocated to the intern finishes. For this, an intern must not ponder over work for long time durations rather should finish at the earliest with high efficacy. The terms efficiency and effectiveness are not only subject to management principles but also to the work of interns. These terms must be integrated in the personality of an intern for the life.

An intern should never get demotivated for any wrong work submitted. Interns must show their eagerness to learn from every wrong act. While being students, interns are not always expected to know everything and thereby fulfil every task correctly. Thus, they must use this little freedom to ask more and learn more.  Further, for every submitted work, interns must ask for feedback from the senior. Even when the work was not acceptable prima facie, with the valuable feedback, intern must ensure improvement and show growth in the period of internship.

Internships are to make contacts and to pursue them throughout your law career. For these contacts help you getting the taste of business and corporate world and alongside enhance your image. An intern, must remind the contact of their existence. Such reminders may be sent through wishes on the auspicious festival occasions celebrated in our country. However, an intern should never act too friendly and bug the contact by continuous reminders. It is pertinent to maintain the dignity of the relationship that lies between the intern and a contact. These contacts can be highly relied on getting future internships.

The small actions and responses of an intern are noticed throughout their internship period. Thus, every intern must make sure to be alert all the time and be engrossed totally in the office work while showing sincerity and willingness to work. Also, an intern should try to get a recommendation letter from the senior associate. These letter are not granted to any intern but only to those who work with great sincerity and enthusiasm. It is not granted on the basis of work done but the improvement and dedication shown towards working. Recommendation letters are highly valuable for scoring better internships in future and add a star to the CV/Resume of the intern.

 

– Authored By:

Stuti Rathi