Breaking into Labor Law

A 2L or 3L who has taken recommended labor-related electives and obtained some experience may begin seeking an entry-level position that will begin after graduation.

The first move a student should take toward this goal is to step back and reflect, a move that will involve analyzing past experiences. A student should think carefully about the positions or internships held during law school. It will be helpful to make a list of job responsibilities and skills learned during each experience, and to annotate them according to personal likes and dislikes. This process not only will help to clarify which work setting will most fully meet personal goals, but will also provide valuable insights that will aid the student in writing a resume and preparing for the first interview.


Once the analysis of past experiences has been completed, decisions involving the selection of major practice areas will have to be made. These include the type of organization (including size and setting), the specific area of labor law to be practiced, and geographic area or location.

To facilitate the process of sorting out the many choices, students may want to obtain more information about various options. Many law school placement or alumni offices have extensive alumni career counseling programs that will help a student arrange what is known as an information interview with a local labor attorney, who is a graduate of the law school. If there is no organized alumni network, these offices may still be able to help students select a receptive graduate to speak with.

An information interview provides students with the opportunity to speak directly with practitioners who can answer specific questions and explain many aspects of practice from a personal point of view while this meeting is not meant to be a job interview for a specific, available position, many alumni counselors assist students in finding jobs by helping them to clarify goals and by teaching basic job search techniques within a given area of practice.

Practitioners suggested the following organizations as potential employers for those seeking entry-level labor positions in law (listed in order of frequency of selection):
 

1. Law firms
   a. Large (over 50 attorneys)
   b. Medium (25-50 attorneys)
   c. Small (under 25 attorneys)
2. Corporate law departments
3. Large unions: in-house counsel offices
4. Government agencies
5. Arbitrators or mediators

Again, both management and union attorneys suggested that new graduates should begin labor practice with a government agency, prior to moving into a law firm or corporate in-house position. This entry-level practice pattern would, in the opinion of many practitioners, provide the best training and experience for a new attorney.

Students who choose to forego government practice and go directly into private practice will need to make an immediate choice about the specific area of labor in which to practice. Once this difficult decision is made, changing sides can be very complicated and in some cases close to impossible. Practitioners representing exclusively union and those representing exclusively management view themselves as very different in some very distinct personal, as well as professional, aspects. Additionally, training, compensation, the adversarial relationship, and the sense of commitment to a particular type of practice all combine to restrict the crossing of employee-employer representation ties. Thus, students should take time and care in making this very significant decision.

Once a type of organization is selected and an area of specialization within the field has been decided, students should begin to think about the geographic location which they wish to target for their employment search. Practitioners recommended that the students have some local ties—either through family, school attendance in the area, or past residency. Employers are leery of resumes from students who seem to have selected the employer's name and city at random from one of the directories available in the law school placement office.

Geographic choice is limited, of course, by the fact that the practice of labor law is determined by the locale of corporate, financial and manufacturing centers. Students will thus tend to find most opportunities in urban areas.