Networking with Fellow Law Students

Networking with Fellow Law StudentsNetworking with Fellow Law StudentsEarlier this week, I listened to an interesting podcast on networking by Law School Podcaster (see my blog post on the podcast here), and Ive had networking on the brain ever since. Of all of the career advice Ive received, Id rank networking as the most important for developing my legal career. But as a law student, it was one of the career-development tools that I most neglected. With the Socratic method, outlining, finals, blue-booking, and journal writing hanging over my head, I didnt make networking a top priority like I should have.I think that the biggest networking resources that I overlooked were my fellow law students. Sure, advice and mentoring from experienced legal professionals is important. But one day, the people sitting next to you in Torts and Contracts will be those experienced attorneys. Your classmates are the future of the legal industry future colleagues, clients, business partners, CEOs, ad versaries, legal experts, judges, policy-makers, politicians, scholars, and professors. Even though its hard to imagine the rolle in the next study carrel having a profound effect on your yet-to-be-defined legal career, the truth is that you never know how important one connection can be.Networking with fellow law students isnt only important for your future career, however. Its also valuable in your development as a lawyer. You can get all of the guidance you want from your mentors, but no one understands how youre feeling as you trudge through documents at 2 am like those in your same class year. Nobody appreciates your professional anxieties and insecurities like those who are on the same career timeline as you. Discussing, comparing, commiserating, and offering each other advice is a different way to grow as attorneys, one based on learning from each others experiences.