How to lock down a legal role in the US after the LLM year
I know that many of you would ideally love to live out the Suits dream and find a role in the US (likely in NYC) after your LLM - whether it be in a public interest fellowship, as an OPT year (as a foreign associate at a law firm), or in a more permanent capacity after being admitted to the New York (or other state) bars.Â
The question for many people (including me) at the start of this year was - how do I it? There are a million other little questions too, like:
How do I even begin to research all the firms in the US city Iâm interested in?
What states can I sit for the bar exam in? (spoiler - it will likely be NY, California, Texas, and maybe D.C. - but D.C. has trickier requirements than most)
How do I pursue OPT opportunities?
Will I be able to get a job through official LLM/Career Services Office channels, like the ISIP Job Fair, or will I need to go it alone?
I thought it might be helpful to set out what my goals were, and how I achieved them and secured a permanent role in the US.
Apologies in advance for the long post! It was a long slog, and I really want to try and be as specific as possible, because I know these posts were helpful for me.
First, I think itâs really important that I tell you a little bit about my background. I am Australian-trained, and admitted to practice in my state of NSW. I had about 18 months of full-time experience in a large law firm, and 1 year of experience clerking for a judge in Sydney at the Supreme Court in my state.Â
One thing about me that is different to most foreign LLMs is that I have dual US-Australian citizenship. Australian lawyers have an advantage in securing US roles, because they have a specific visa category in the US and can stay almost indefinitely as long as they are sponsored by a law firm. In my case, because I am a US citizen (through my mother), I could sell myself as permanently relocating to the US with no visa hurdles. While I think this definitely helped, this is by no means definitive and many firms (especially in NYC) are very familiar with and open to hiring foreign lawyers with more limited visas.Â
First, I was looking for a role in litigation. Thereâs no way around this fact - itâs much harder to find medium and long-term litigation roles than it would be for those looking for corporate or finance (transactional) roles in law firms, or short-term public interest fellowships. This is because itâs a more jurisdiction-specific area of law, and firms are often looking for key indicators that we LLMs donât really have under our belts - Law Review membership (LLMs are not eligible for this), mooting experience and accolades, and similar.Â
I also think itâs fair to say that US lawyers are a little bit US-centric in their thinking, and rightly or wrongly think that foreign lawyers will have trouble adapting to US procedure and substantive law. This just means you have to work a little bit harder to convince them that youâre a fit!
The other thing I was looking for was unusual - a job in Los Angeles, California - not New York.
This was for personal reasons - my partner is American, and his career is based in LA. It was also for professional reasons - LA and California more broadly is actually one of the busiest litigation hubs in the US, and I was interested in tackling a broad array of matters, ranging from business litigation in traditional business and tech, to media law (defamation, privacy, Section 230, First Amendment issues, and so on), to white collar defense.Â
In fact, I actually did not apply to any New York firms. This is definitely atypical, and it meant for me that I could not rely on official channels like the NYU ISIP (International Student Interview Program) job fair (no LA firms seek students through those fairs). I had to go it alone with my networking and applications.
Federal Court for the Central District of California court complex.
What role did I eventually accept?
After talking to a number of people at a range of firms in downtown and the west side of LA, and formally interviewing at two firms (a global firm and a litigation boutique), I eventually accepted the litigation boutique role as a second-year associate.Â
As a side note - American interviewing processes are long!! I had 9 interviews (9 x 30 min interviews with individual lawyers) at my new firm, and multiple days of interviews at another firm.
I am very excited about the opportunities at this firm, which has great lawyers and incredible clients, and they were very generous in their benefits offered (including bar and bar prep cost reimbursement, a study stipend while Iâm studying for the bar, relocation expenses, and so on).Â
Iâm grateful and excited to start with the firm in September after the California Bar exam in July.
How did I do it? My general approach
In short - I hustled really hard.
Before I left Australia, I made all the connections I could with people I knew, and friends of friends, who were working in the US. Not many of these connections were in LA, but they were a start.
I kept these efforts up by email, phone, and Zoom over the Fall semester, and tapped further into my network to have âinformational interviewsâ over Zoom (basically just informal introductory chats). NYU has great resources to guide this process, including this handbook and frequent talks and seminars with the Office of Career Services (OCS). You can also make individual appointments with the great team at OCS whenever you want to check your approach and practice mock interviews.
I spent Fall really just digging into the LA market, because I didnât know much about it. I researched on Benchmark, Vault, Legal 500, Law.com, and other resources, and built up a picture of the market and my goal firms. I also took note of what people I spoke to told me about firms to avoid and great firms.
When Spring came around and I had my grades, I reached back out to people I had spoken to at firms to send through my transcript and reiterated my interest in pursuing opportunities with them.Â
Crucially, I also asked professors if they would be comfortable connecting me with any of their peers or friends. A number of the most fruitful conversations I had were from these contacts, and this was ultimately how I secured my role. A prominent professor vouching for you will go MUCH further than a âcoldâ email with no introduction.
I tried to stay organized and made a big spreadsheet - with one sheet listing every person I knew or knew of in LA and New York, their roles and firms, and their contact details, and one sheet listing all the firms I was at least a little bit interested in (at one stage, it was over 40 firms!!). Every time I received a ânoâ from a firm because they didnât have the business need, or because my experience/background wasnât what they were looking for, I kept track of this and crossed out the firm. I also kept track of when I had last contacted my contact at the firm.
There were.... a few. In short, LA was a really tough market to break into. Almost every firm I spoke to told me they had never hired an LLM before. They said there was no reason why they wouldnât, but they just hadnât. This made things tricky, because I really had to convince them of my value and worth to them.
I think there were a few things that helped here: I emphasized that I (1) had no visa issues, (2) came from a common law and English speaking background, (3) had significantly more experience in litigation and in firms than the average JD, and (4) was flexible about the âlevel of designationâ I received (ie whether I would start as a first-year associate or second-year). I was willing to take the âcutâ in years because American attorneys are exponentially better paid than lawyers from most, if not all, other countries, including Australia, and I knew the work would probably be substantive and meaningful anyway.
Many firms told me they didnât have a hiring need (because of COVID, or because they had just hired people, or because they donât hire juniors at my level) or told me they were looking for something different (e.g. US judicial clerks).Â
Also - I didnât have any success with getting interviews through job postings on Linkedin or elsewhere - it was all about the networking. Professors and other contacts are absolutely worth their weight in gold here.
1. Use your network as much as possible. At least four of my NYU professors had connections in LA, and both my job offers came from this route. Specifically, my clinic professor put me in touch with a former colleague who used to be a federal prosecutor in LA, and he spoke to me and then put me in touch with partners at private firms who he used to work with at the US Attorneyâs Office. It goes without saying that you need to make an effort to connect with your professors for this to work well - speak up in class, do good work, and attend office hours to introduce yourself.
2. You need to be resilient, and keep persevering. You will probably be used to being âfront of the packâ in your home country, with no issues securing a great job. The US is a different and pretty ruthless and insular market. If you donât succeed through one route, find another door to push on and keep going. I was exhausted and a little demoralized by March in the Spring semester, but then I had my job by April because all the interviews happened quickly after making the right connections.
3. Try to be organized and systematic. Set aside a certain amount of time every weekend, or even for 15 minutes a day, to pursue different avenues or email people on your list. Keep a spreadsheet like I set out above.
4. Consider taking classes that show you are serious about staying in the US, if relevant. I took substantive classes like Evidence, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Professional Responsibility etc for the bar, but also to show that I was interested in building a US career. This helped interviewers to see that I had a decent grounding in US law. I also took classes in trial advocacy to show that I had gained an understanding of US-style court advocacy.
5. Be polite, but sell yourself. Point to impressive achievements (Research Assistantships at NYU and top grades achieved, great internships), connect your experience with what their firm excels in, and ask for a short period of their time to connect. In doing this, try to âAmericanizeâ yourself. All I mean by this is to explain your connections to the market, show your achievements in an American context (US law schools, US internships), and point out clients you serviced back home that they would recognize.
6. Polish up your resume. It must be *1 page* (this was hard for me!) and set out exactly in the format set out in the handbook I linked above. Your Office of Career Services can help with this! Try to set out items in a specific and concrete way that conveys your achievements:
e.g. âDefended X Company against shareholder claims in expedited four-week trial concerning $200M takeover. Drafted successful motion for separate preliminary hearing on proper construction of the shareholdersâ agreement; assisted in preparing Managing Director and a senior Director for trial; formulated cross-examination strategy.â
7. If you have a great writing sample after your Fall semester (drawing on US law), this might also be helpful in showing your writing competency and grasp of US principles. Check with the Office of Career Services if you arenât sure, but this helped me. I submitted a paper I wrote about constitutional law.
You will get there with time, patience, good humor, and hard work.Â
Please reach out with any questions! đ and good luck!
