I'm curious about how others are feeling about their internships and clerkships so far this summer. I know there was substantial concern among students this past year about how law school was training us and will continue to train us to do the work of a lawyer. For what it's worth, so far, I've been pleasantly surprised. I've worked on various types of projects in various areas within a large Indy law firm, and I'm finding that there is nothing that I can't think my way through and bottom out on, by using the "tools" that we were exposed to in law school, which I don't think I would have been able to do nearly as effectively before I started law school. But I also know that it takes me substantially longer to complete a project than would be the case with someone who has more experience under her belt. I'm certainly relying on my low billing rate to offset this discrepancy. Granted, I know it's a long way from here to thinking about partnership, but at least I feel like I've got some basics down.

I'd love to hear how others' summer experiences are going -- hopefully, there are others out there who feel similarly and are looking forward to interning again next summer.

-- BarbPitman - 08 Jun 2008

I'm not doing true 'law firm' work this summer, but I have found that the first year has been very helpful with my job. The majority of work I have been doing has been reading through contracts, looking for potential problems (issue spotting anyone?). Ironically enough, I have also become the designated proof reader for any documents leaving our group, so I have Eben's voice in my head as I read, which has been very valuable.

-- AndrewWolstan - 08 Jun 2008

I'm also not doing that much true "law firm" work. But I kind of expected this as I am the only American summer intern here at my firm. Instead I have become something of the de facto translator/editor of documents in English, which has been fun, but I dont think required any special training that I got from my first year at CLS.

-- AlexLawrence - 09 Jun 2008

Alex -- which country are you in this summer? I'm kind of jealous -- several people from our class went overseas this summer. Hope you're getting some sightseeing in along with all that translation and editing experience.

-- BarbPitman - 10 Jun 2008