Volunteering is a great way for law students to gain first-hand experience, create meaningful relationships, make a positive contribution to the community, and develop various professional skills.
Another valuable aspect of finding volunteering opportunities as a law student is that it allows you to evaluate your current skill set and consider areas to improve by the end of your degree.
Typically, law students can participate in a variety of volunteering work with time commitments varying by task or activity. However, these opportunities aren’t just limited to the legal profession.
While it’s always great to take some pro bono cases if you can, volunteering in a different capacity has various advantages too. It makes your resume more powerful by default and can kickstart your legal career.
Here, we discuss some advantages of volunteering work for law students.
1. Helps You Build Professional Connections
If you volunteer wholeheartedly and with great sincerity, there are enough and more chances that you will be offered a job as a compliance analyst with any of the law firms or a community legal center when you graduate.
In addition to this, volunteering in your spare time allows you to network with professionals across law firms. This allows you to not only build connections but also gain valuable skills from experienced and talented lawyers.
Such connections can also be incredibly useful during the time of the job-hunting season as you can use several opportunities offered by their legal firms.
2. Empowers You To Do Your Bit For The Community
Participating in volunteer public service projects as a law student can allow you to give back to the local community.
Apart from providing critical services to underserved individuals and institutions, you can work in multiple other areas that serve the purpose. Some of these areas include:
- Work with the revenue’s office, treasurer’s office, or with your local court’s deed records and abstracts
- Participate in home repairs and improvements for low-income residents
- Help various fund programs at the high school for law and justice
- Organize a voter registration drive, blood donation drive, or others
- Spread cancer awareness, support victims of domestic violence, or advocate for survivors of sexual violence
- Organize an auction to raise money for public interest fellowships
However, it is important to note that these activities do not necessarily require you to advocate legally for the victims.
Rather, your participation in such tasks makes sure that these citizens are comfortable, have a safe place to go, and have all of the resources they need to recover from crises.
3. Gives You Some Perspective
Volunteering as a law student gives you a unique perspective, which can help you immensely in your law practice.
It allows you to learn how to see your clients in a completely different light and become more empathetic towards them. It also helps you better understand your clients in a professional manner.
For instance, if you are volunteering with a domestic abuse awareness organization, it will allow you to bring new light to your meetings with clients having similar concerns.
With a whole new perspective on the issue, you can offer much more to your clients as you would be able to see them through personal eyes while maintaining thorough professionalism at the same time.
4. Lets You Chart Your Future Course Of Action
Volunteering as a law student is an excellent way to figure out your future course of action once you pass out.
The skills and experience gained with volunteering work can help you to decide what field of law you want to venture into in the future.
Once you can figure out a passion of yours, make sure to reach out to local organizations with similar missions and start volunteering with them on a small basis.
With time and experience, allow your volunteerism to grow at a natural pace and identify the areas close to your heart.
It will not only benefit your future practice and your skills as a lawyer but will also hone your personal skillsets and allow you to make a positive difference in your life.
5. Allows You To Learn About Bar Association Work
Volunteering as a law student helps you get involved in bar association work at a much deeper level.
By doing this, you can promote a positive image for other law students in the legal profession. In addition, you get to learn about how the justice system works and the various legal resources available.
6. Improves Your Understanding Of The Law
Volunteering as a paralegal that involves offering administrative support to lawyers and solicitors can allow you to widen your understanding of the law as a domain.
Most importantly, it can offer you useful insights into the everyday workings of a lawyer.
Right from being involved with lots of exciting things, including drafting affidavits, researching cases, and organizing court dates, you learn and practice many areas of law.
7. Increases Your Employment Prospects
Most law students eventually want to work as a lawyer. But to land a decent law graduate job, you need the skills and characteristics that employers in the legal field are looking for.
Taking part in the volunteering work increases your employability significantly and helps you to address the selection criteria.
For instance, if you do not have any experience working with clients before, volunteering in a local community legal center can help you learn a great deal about meeting and interviewing clients.
Wrapping Up
While the idea of volunteering might seem a little difficult to juggle with an already hectic college schedule, it can be an enriching experience for law students.
Apart from strengthening your ability to assess situations, listen, and offer objective advice, doing pro bono projects with real clients allows you to develop the most important skills valued by employers.
It is also an excellent way to make a rewarding career in your chosen field later on. You would be well placed to land lucrative roles in the legal field, such as senior compliance analyst.
Volunteer work makes you a much stronger communicator who can easily find a way around complex situations and work empathetically.
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