Blog Details

Author - Venkatesh Ajayrao Shinde

An intern is a student who work for limited time to get work experience of legal professional. A law firm is a very competent platform for an intern to work with. An intern gets ample of opportunities and experience in a law firm. This article is about different works that an intern does in a law firm.

Introduction 

Legal profession is a profession of attorneys, lawyers, legal practitioners, judges, legal researchers, paralegals, etc. An intern is a student who works for a limited period of time in order to gain work experience. Often legal profession is considered as a bottle of wine, “the older it gets, the better you become”. In this profession where your experience is one of the most important things to be considered, what an intern, with no experience and not even complete knowledge about the law, would do in a law firm which practice is the field of law with a high pace? 

Law firms practice in different areas such as corporate law, company law, taxation laws, litigation, arbitration, etc. Area of practice of every law firm differs, so as the work of interns in those law firm differs. A legal intern’s duty varies based on the requirements of the firm and student’s individual experience. The objective of an internship is to better understand what being a lawyer involves, and best way to do that is to be around one. Interns come to work for a law firm to gain work experience of the law firm and to get acquainted with the work practice and work culture of the firms. An intern before starting an internship is optimistic about learning new things at the law firm. Hence, he is completely motivated for learning whatever he can through him internship. There is no discrete set of work that interns do in a law firm. Internship is to give students an insight into professional lives of advocates.

The day to day work of interns vary in a law firm. Some interns are given work of client counselling while some may get to work with an attorney, some may also have to do copying and printing work. There is no fixed work for an intern but some of the work that an intern do in a law firm is drafting legal documents, filing for cases or procedures, doing legal research on any topic or on questions of laws, administrative works of the firm, analyzing data which is already compiled by others or compiling data, assisting clients in work and making them more accessible to the service of law firm, assisting lawyers for there day to day professional work.

There is one synonym for law firm that is “massive amount of paperwork”. Law firms may differ in their area of practice but all of them have one attribute is common which is the massive amount of paperwork that they have to deal with in their day to day work. An intern’s day to day work consist of drafting document, filing, application, petitions, etc.  Most of the firms hire interns for drafting of small matters. Law firms has to do drafting in abundance if the area of practice of the firm is very vast. Law and literature go hand in hand with each other when it comes to legal profession. A legal practitioner has to be very good at drafting in legal language. If law is the bread of a legal practitioner then drafting is his butter.    

In dealing with the complexities of the legal problem and finding solution, a good lawyer has to make his research game strong. The purpose of legal research is to find legal precedents or authorities that will help in finding the solution of the legal problem. In law firms, interns conduct thorough legal researching on legal problems. The volume of problems in a firm is high hence firms use interns to find solution for legal problems arising before them. By conducting research, interns become well versed with the problems and researching and interns also get acquainted with the resources that a law firm has to aid in research. Such resources are sometimes not available with students or libraries, etc. getting acquainted to those resources during   internship is one of the best perks of internship at a law firm.

A good lawyer should always have an eye for details. As law firms have tremendous amount of paper work, analyzing it and compiling it becomes a challenge. Job of an intern is law firm also includes analyzing this tremendous paperwork detailly and compiling it for the convenience of associates. By analyzing papers for details, a habit is developed into interns for seeking details which helps lawyers throughout their carrier. Analyzing data without compiling it is like playing football with goalposts. When an intern compiles the data that he has analyzed only then that data is going to be of firm’s use and some outcome can be brought by it.

Firms are approached by their clients for every small legal problem they get into and experience. The managing partner or the associates cannot feasibly solve every such problem. These problems are given to interns to solve. Counseling is all about giving such information which a client would like to know regarding his legal problem. Counseling a client is one of the most important tasks of an intern as he represents the firm while counselling the client. This is the best chance given to an intern for interaction with the clients.

A law firm has loads and loads of paper work. Coping, printing, filing, compiling, etc. of papers are a part of day to day activities of a law firm. These works come in the purview of administrative work. Administrative work does not limit itself to these works, receiving calls, making of appointments, organizing and prioritizing works, maintaining calendar, etc. are some of the administrative works that an intern does at a law firm. Efficiency in these works result into smooth running of the firm. An intern gets close idea about actual running of a law firm after helping in administrative work. 

A Chinese proverb states “if you help a great chef in cooking every day, one day you would become a great chef.”  Aiding associate attorneys of the firm with paperwork and courtroom preparation is a part of job of an intern. It helps the interns to get well versed with the courtroom procedures and practicality of the litigations. It also helps them in developing their relations with the seniors and more experienced people in legal field.

An internship in a law firm helps for holistic development of the intern in the field of law. An intern gets great exposure in a law firm. He also gets chances to make his own recognition and to make his work recognized. The fast pace of work and competitiveness in the law firm makes a huge positive impact on the intern. The competency of an intern is increased in a law firm.

Conclusion

A law firm helps an intern in many ways. It gives interns substantial work and experience that they want to seek. Interns do various works in a law firm that include drafting of legal documents or filings, etc., researching on legal problems, analyzing data, compiling the analyzed data, client counseling, helping lawyers with paperwork and courtroom preparations, etc. these are often complex works and need great amount of time and integrity. Internship helps interns in a great way and gives them exposure they want to seek.