Help: Unemployed and Not Sure What to Do--Aiming for HYS

popcorn11201

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aszane21

It depends on how you look at it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a bartender before 2018. A lawyer I know works pizza delivery shifts. The economy is in the trash and will remain that way for the next two year - at least - so I wouldn't be surprised if the HYS applicant pool have plenty of people who took service jobs. What kind of law do you want to do? If its employment law, legal aide or even business law, you might be able to leverage a service job in you application.

Just do what you got to do to survive and leverage that experience to get into the law school of your dreams.

popcorn11201

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VerdantZephyr

Here's the deal Sammy, HYS is looking for people with a diverse range of backgrounds. They would love if everyone came in at 25-30 years old 4.0's 180's and with advanced degrees in a diverse array of subjects after having a couple of patents and building their own startup in some niche field related to their niche degree. That is not the reality though, so while those people will get snatched up but that leaves them with the other 97% of their classes to fill. They also know that anyone who graduated in Covid times is likely to have been unable to find a job. If you really want to go to those places (I think you should diversify your outlook, HYS are not the end all be all) think about other ways that are more achievable to pad your resume. No one is hiring a fresh faced college grad right now, sure, but lots of volunteer organizations exist where you can get valuable experience and pad your resume at the same time. If HYS is your goal, I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you are more concerned with rank than a particular field of law, but find a volunteer opportunity related to some field of law you find interesting even if you are not sure that is what you want to do. Are you interested in criminal law? Maybe volunteer with a defense advocacy group or see if there is a way to get involved with an unpaid internship at the prosecutors office. Are you interested in civil rights and justice issues? Volunteer with an organization that helps people who are at risk for injustice or violation of civil rights. Family law, look for an opportunity to work at a battered women's shelter. These things, by the way, not only make your resume look better but will help you to appear to be a more well rounded and experienced human. Law schools dig that. All that said, there are other schools in the T14 with similar or even better employment outcomes than HYS who might be more willing to give the same applicant improved financial aid over HYS.

You are not competing with the 33 year old with 2 advanced degrees and ten years of work history, but with the other, similar applicants who just graduated and also struggled to find work in Covid-19 times. A year working as a volunteer at a non-profit, especially if you can not find other gainful employment, is a lot better on an application than nothing or, honestly, a lot of other high prestige jobs. Lastly, as someone that graduated in the midst of the great recession and had to work 3 jobs at once (door to door sales, part time private tutor, and waiter) to get by for a while, what you do after this will matter more. No one will care or judge you if you worked as a waiter for a few months before getting that real estate job. They will care that you eventually found the real estate job and that you might enter HYS with valuable perspective on real estate law and justice issues.

You cannot make an awesome job appear, but that doesn't mean you can't do awesome work.