For legal technology companies and innovative law firms the best way to partner with law students on their projects/causes and to hire law students part-time or as interns is to engage the students directly, not go through the law schools. It’s probably preferable to hire full-time this way.
This engagement will come just like it does in the “real world” — through networking.
Networking today though comes faster and more authentically via the Internet. The exchange of ideas, collaboration, nurturing relationships and building a name is happening all around you via blogging and social media.
The best students for legal innovation and tech companies are using the net to Internet for learning, networking and building a brand. It’s the same for law firms. The problem is there are not enough law students networking online.
Law schools are letting students down here.
No question law schools are teaching legal tech and innovation. Many schools host clinics and programs supporting such initiatives. But that’s not enough.
Law students need to let the world know who they are and what they are doing. That’s only going to happen by using the Internet — blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat – whatever works.
Failing to do so, the students knowledge, passion and drive in legal tech is living under a rock. Who sees the student, what they stand for and what they are doing unless the student is using the Internet?
Are we to wait for a law school to toute that it’s innovative and leveraging lech in its programs? Most all law schools do today. Or for the law schools to wait for employers to contact them for the names of candiates or to invite employers to interview students with resumes in hand.
Law schools mean well, but you’re letting your students down in their ability to get jobs in tech and innovation companies — and even law firms — if you don’t have social media role models as your dean, professors and career development folks. I have learned so much in this regard from law professors Dan Linna and Dan Katz as well as former Michigan State Law School Dean Joan Howarth.
I can’t tell you how many law students I have met through blogging and social media. Great young professionals who inspire me and others.
At the recent ABA TechShow we had two law students working LexBlog coverage of the show. Both were active on social media and blogging.
Also at TechShow, LexBlog promoted, for free, throughout our day one coverage, the cause of Impowerus, a legal tech startup which connects immigrant youth with pro bono lawyers.
I became familiar with Impowerus the Sunday night before TechShow when a Notre Dame law student was on Twitter discussing the subject. Immigration attorney, Greg Siskind chimed in on Twitter on the spot that their cause was a good one.
I reached out to Impowerus’s founder, a 2L student at Notre Dame, the next day to let her know that we wanted to list them as a sponsor of our coverage.
I’ve since personally met and since engaged, via email and social media, these two Notre Dame Law students. Tech entrepreneurs and law firms would be so lucky to have them work for their organizations — or for that matter, at their organizations.
Yet when I approached Notre Dame in the past to speak at the school on social media and blogging and how it can help students for learning and networking, I was turned down — twice. The reason being that their students can get good jobs in large law already — go figure.
I agree with Dan Rodriguez, the Dean of Northwestern Law School and a role model for all on networking through the Internet, that the opportunity exists to go through the schools. But law students would be best served by using the Internet.
Beg to differ with my friend @kevinokeefe. Engage directly, but also go through the law schools. We are here to help our students, and help in forging partnerships with firms and companies. Resist false dichotomies! #ABATECHSHOW https://t.co/UDJ6d8e2D8
— Daniel B. Rodriguez (@DeanDBRodriguez) March 8, 2018
Law schools are also best served by having students actively using the Internet. You are your students and grads.
Students are a law school’s evangelists in what the school is doing in legal tech and innovation without the school even asking. Students are more real and authentic than the school is when the school uses social media in the school’s brand name.
Law schools are well intentioned in helping law students. Getting students using the Internet would give them the help they need and deserve though.
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