It's all for references.........

Hello There My Lovelies,

I am thrilled that I have a couple of new readers. Welcome :)

This is my last week of freedom before school starts up again. This quarter is my last, and then I will be out of the program. I will be taking Advanced Civil Litigation and Bankruptcy Law. I am kind of looking forward to Bankruptcy Law. Unless I end up going to law school, this will probably be the end of my education.

In the mean time, I am also looking for a new job, which I imagine can take a while. Especially in this economy. It's not that the economy is bad for paralegals, because it isn't compared to other positions. It's quite welcoming, especially in the Bay Area. (It's the attorneys that should be worried. It is more common for law firms to replace attorneys with more paralegals.)

What it is, is that I will be having a lot of competition for the various jobs out there. In this economy, many people were let go from other firms and dropped into the job search pool. It is with them that I will be competing: People that have more experience than me, more references, more skills.

Anyway, I will be looking for a paralegal position. I am almost about to get my certificate, and I figure I should get an early start. I will be interviewing with a legal staffing agency. They want at least four references. And not just any references. You know how sometimes you can bullshit a little and list your buddy coworker to give you a good reference. That wouldn't fly here. They want at least four references of people that used to supervise me.

It was then that I realized that interning for free for the past year has finally paid off. Because now I have good references. I worked my ass off. I lost contact with most people from my previous jobs, such as waitressing and car rental. Besides, those jobs have nothing to do with the legal field, and I didn't try as hard in those jobs as I did in my legal internships.

In volunteering and interning, I dealt with various supervisors and I got valuable legal experience. I tell you, it was hard work and I had to make a lot of sacrifices so that I could go and work for someone else for free. But I tell you, in this economy, and being about to graduate, references and experience, even if you worked unpaid, are like gold. And right now, I would take them over money.