The Career Closet offers gently used professional attire for the students on the Sacramento campus. It gives our students the opportunity to better prepare for the transition into their chosen profession. Whether it be for an interview or your first day on the job, stop by to assemble the perfect outfit that you can keep!

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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a radical shift in the expectations held by workers regarding the offerings from their employers. Where employees were once resigned to following orders blindly and accepting that what the employer wants is set in stone, there is now a sense that workers can enact change

The Career Development Office (CDO) at McGeorge provides students with tools and resources for lifelong professional development in the legal community. Whether you are a 1L still trying to figure things out or a recent graduate, the CDO is here to help you be your best when looking for a job. Join us at one (or several!) of our many career-oriented events throughout the year, take advantage of our networking resources, or make an appointment to review your application materials and discuss your career goals and the best path to achieve them. With an experienced team leading the way, the CDO gives students at McGeorge a leg up on the competition.

Dean Molly Stafford is the Assistant Dean of the Career Development Office & External Relations and is a 2002 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law. She came to McGeorge from California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA), where she was a staff attorney and manager of the CRLA Rural Fair Housing Center (RFHC). During her 4 years at CRLA, she practiced civil litigation in many areas of law — wage/hour, landlord/tenant, real property, unlawful termination and special education — and provided state-wide fair housing litigation support to CRLA’s 21 offices.
Continue Reading The CDO Welcomes You to a New School Year!

What is a Judicial Clerkship?

A judicial clerkship is a full-time position working for a federal or state judge that often (but not always) starts right after you finish law school. Clerkships may be with any level of court (supreme, appellate or trial court). In addition to the traditional courts, consider special federal courts such as the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, U.S. Court of International Trade, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, U.S. Tax Court, U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s EOIR Immigration Courts.

Law clerks research and draft opinions and orders for the court. They also participate in many phases of the court’s decision-making process. There are “fixed-term” clerkships, which generally last one or two years, and there are “permanent” law clerks, also called “staff attorneys” or “research attorneys”, whose terms are indefinite. Most of the opportunities we are discussing here are fixed-term, though our graduates have been hired directly from law school into permanent Appellate Court Attorney positions with the California Court of Appeal recently.Continue Reading 6 Common Questions About Post-Graduate Judicial Clerkships

As part of your experiential learning requirement at McGeorge, you may be confused by one term in particular: “externships”. Externships are one of the options available to McGeorge students to fulfill their experiential learning requirement if they are not able or not interested in joining one of the clinics. But what exactly are they, and are they the same as an internship?

Externships, to be clear, are nearly synonymous with internships. Externs perform similar, if not identical, work as their intern counterparts. The biggest difference is that you will receive academic credit for an externship, whereas an internship is typically done outside the scope of any academic curriculum and may or may not involve financial compensation. McGeorge’s Externship Program has 100+ pre-approved externships available to law students spanning several practice areas with a plethora of government agencies, chambers, non-profits, and select private firms. Externs learn how to apply their legal knowledge to real cases, consult with actual clients, collaborate with active attorneys, improve their research and writing skills, and in some cases, even represent clients in court. It’s a great way to gain real-world experience under the guidance of practicing attorneys. Most externs will reaffirm their passion for their career goals through this hands-on program, while some students realize that their image of a particular career path doesn’t fit with reality, allowing them to easily alter their focus before they’ve committed too much time to a career they ultimately wouldn’t have been satisfied with.Continue Reading Externship vs. Internship: Which Is It?

Losing your summer associate job may feel like the world is crashing down around you, but it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. Alternatives to summer associate positions are out there, it’s up to you to take advantage of them. Future employers will want to see that you used your time wisely after losing a summer associate position, and there are many ways for you to show them that your work ethic and enthusiasm for the law didn’t dry up with the job market.

McGeorgeCareersOnline

If your summer associate job offer has been rescinded, one of the first places you should look to replace it is right under your nose: McGeorge. Not only are many alumni asking us to post open positions in their offices on McGeorgeCareersOnline (MCO), but professors at McGeorge are now hiring more Research Assistants than in previous years in an effort to aid our students. The increase in these positions means there are many opportunities available for those looking to get some practical experience on their resume. Not only are RA positions paid jobs, but they typically involve working just a few hours each night, allowing them to be combined with other full- or part-time positions if you’re able to line up something else, as well. Additionally, the CDO will continue to send out our “Hot Jobs” emails throughout the summer, which highlights various open positions found on MCO.Continue Reading Alternatives to Summer Associate Positions