In my last post, I discussed whether public interest students should do law review (my answer was a qualified no). Today, I’ll discuss some of the other extra-curriculars you will have the opportunity to participate in: moot court, affinity groups, student government, and volunteer opportunities being the major ones. In order to evaluate these opportunities, recall the three goals every public interest law student should have: getting real legal experience, proving your passion for public interest work, and making connections that will help you get a job.
Let’s take moot court first. You may think that moot court is essentially like getting real legal experience because you are learning how to write an appellate brief and do an oral argument. Except that moot court isn’t real, and doesn’t really approximate actual legal work. Real lawyering is messy. It is not wrapped up for you in a tidy package. The record below is often voluminous and complicated. There sometimes is not applicable case law to draw from. If there is case law, it may be convoluted and contradictory. And then there is the little matter of actually having a client.
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