Law Schools, Libraries / Librarians

Is A Law Library Internship Worth Your Time?

A law library internship is definitely worth its weight in gold if you’re able to get one during law school.

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While the job market looks better than it did in the past, things still aren’t too hot for entry-level lawyers seeking employment opportunities. That’s why law students are beginning to branch out to other rewarding areas in the law, outside of practice, to enhance their career prospects.

Yesterday, I attended the 2015 American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting & Conference, where I stopped by a session entitled “Law Library Interns: How to Make Them Work for You.” Panelists included Kelly M. Leong, Reference Librarian at the UCLA School of Law, Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library; Peter Roudik, Director of Legal Research at the Law Library of Congress; R. Martin Witt, Reference Librarian & Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law; and Daniel B. Cordova, Supreme Court Law Librarian of the Colorado Supreme Court Library. Here’s a description of the panel from AALL:

What if an intern could help your library complete traditional library tasks, while your full-time staff continues to take on the ever-growing number of new projects handed to the law library? This program will present an overview of law librarianship intern programs from academic, government, and court law libraries, discuss the types of projects best suited to interns, and address some common issues that arise with interns. A well-managed intern program allows libraries to gain additional staff at a lower cost and provides library students (and future law librarians) with invaluable on-the-job training.

Important takeaways included the three most common pitfalls of internship management, appropriate intern projects within law libraries, and how to design law library internship programs. What interested me most were the potential pitfalls involved — if would-be lawyers are going to use a law library internship to jumpstart their careers as future law librarians, I wanted to be able to tell them what to look out for on the job.

It seems that law librarians often have issues when it comes to creating mutually beneficial relationships with their interns — one of the kind where there’s both adequate supervision and effective communication. While law library intern supervision can vary greatly between different institutions, if you don’t communicate properly with your interns, the internship program won’t be very valuable at all. That said, it’s a good thing that law library interns are usually very candid about what they want to be doing.

From reference work to cataloging, law library interns have a chance to see and do it all within the constraints of their job descriptions. Granted, these internships are generally unpaid, but if you’re lucky, you may be able to find some that are, albeit modestly. Wouldn’t you want to get some experience before taking your career in the law on an entirely different trajectory? If you like learning new things and helping others, a law library internship is worth its weight in gold if you’re able to get one during law school.

If you do decide to make the jump from lawyer to law librarian, there are many great organizations out there that are willing to help you along, like the the AALL’s Foreign, Comparative & International Law Special Interest Section, and many excellent dual-degree programs that’ll help you get your footing, like this one at UNC Law. There are even fellowship programs for future law librarians, like this one at Arizona Law.

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If you’re interested in catapulting your career to law librarianship now, check out the AALL’s Career Center, which has a wealth of open job opportunities for you to explore.

Earlier: Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Law Librarian

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