Over the summer months, Seton Hall Law students sharpen their legal skills as interns in a variety of diverse settings, including federal and state agencies, compliance departments in large corporations, offices of the prosecutor and public defender, public interest groups providing social services, law firms, and sports and entertainment agencies to name a few. Read on to see what each student learned during their experience.  (Content originally posted weekly on Instagram)

Prior to law school, I heard rumors about how competitive law school would be – like classmates ripping pages out of books to make sure you do not get ahead of them. As a first generation law student, these rumors terrified me. While law school is competitive, the community at Seton Hall Law School is nowhere near the rumors I heard.

During my second semester of law school, I attended the New York City Bar Association portrait unveiling of Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. As I rode the PATH train into the city, I thought about the slim chance of meeting one of my personal heroes. I thought about what I would ask her, if given the opportunity.

Attending law school gives individuals the opportunity to act selflessly and help others. Being a part of the Seton Hall Law School community and engaging with those in dire need of legal assistance is at the core of the Law School’s mission. As a member of the Seton Hall Law community, I’m proud to have taken the opportunity to help families detained in Karnes, Texas during Spring Break.

I initially did not see the e-mail for the Karnes trip.  I will admit there are many e-mails that I delete without reading because I know that most of the opportunities offered do not fit my life.  I am part of Seton Hall Law’s first weekend class.  I commute from Long Island.  I work full-time in a state trial court.  I am a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, and take on many other roles throughout the day.  My life is hectic. 

It’s going to sound cliché, but as I approached the end of my 2L summer I started asking myself what I could do to leave the law school better than I had found it. It had been a bumpy road for me, largely because of my own struggles as a first-generation law student. Although I felt very confident about my own future, having secured a job offer with Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, I realized that others were dealing with similar issues and I decided that founding a First-Generation Law Students Association (FGLSA) at Seton Hall Law School was the way to go. With plenty of help from administration and other students, the group was successfully formed in September of 2018. The mission of the organization is to create a community for all first-generation students to come together to tackle law school and the legal profession with support. FGLSA now has roughly 60 members, with more joining every week. 

Prospective law students have always been interested in the bar passage success rates of schools they’re considering attending. After all, while a law degree is a prerequisite to taking the bar almost everywhere, passing the bar is a prerequisite to actually practicing law in almost all states.

(Post updated September 14, 2023)

The Weekend JD program has graduated several classes now, but the novelty of the program still bodes many questions. We initially released these FAQs a couple years into the program, and I’m proud to see how it has grown and enabled so many working professionals the ability to obtain their JD while balancing very active home and work lives.

Although everyone is aware of the benefits of clerking for a federal judge, too many students overlook the tremendous opportunity of being a clerk in the New Jersey state courts. First, the opportunities for a judicial clerkship are plentiful, with nearly 400 trial and appellate Superior Court judges in New Jersey compared to just 33 federal district court and magistrate judges in New Jersey.

Law school is one of the most demanding academic challenges that a student can face. Reading dozens of pages to prepare for class, learning a new way of critically thinking and carefully writing, searching for valuable work experience, and establishing relationships with fellow students and professors require lots of time and attention. When thinking about my own law school experience, as well as my experiences with students to date, there are a few key themes that seem crucial to success: