In the annual rush to gain legal internships and vacation schemes, the benefits of non-legal internships are often forgotten. Many people after being unsuccessful in securing legal schemes will often just lie back and call it a day without continuing to search for other jobs. If you are one of these people or are otherwise unable to get a legal internship, this blog will try and explain the benefits of non-legal internships. In explaining how these experiences can come in handy for you, I will cover transferrable skills, being active, potential legal aspects of the internship and financial benefits.
1. Transferrable Skills
Whilst legal internships and work experiences are better for giving you more focused, specifically legal skills, non-legal ones still have great value in the form of transferrable skills. In almost all internships, you will be working in a team, helping other achieve their goals and being part of a larger task. The reason why this is beneficial to you when you are pursuing a legal career is that you can bring it up in potential interviews. Most solicitors and barristers work in teams, with the aim of achieving an overarching, larger goal, such as accomplishing a deal or seeing court proceedings through to the end. Therefore, when in future interviews and facing questions such as why you are suitable for the job, you can bring up your non-legal internship and explain how it has given you such skills. Whilst I have focussed on the benefits of teamwork as a transferrable skill, it is certainly not the only such example. Other such transferrable skills that can be gained through non-legal internships include, problem solving, analytical reasoning, critical thinking, adaptability amongst others.
2. Shows you are active
The second benefit a non-legal internship can give you is by showing potential employers that you are an active member of society and have a go-getting attitude. In most cases, if employers have two similar CVs, but one CV has this extra non-legal internship, that will sway the employer. It shows them that the company can benefit from having you onboard. This extra internship displays that you are interested in working and have taken the correct steps to achieve this goal. Furthermore, internships will keep you active and prevent you from wasting your time, especially during holidays. I personally find that if I have a goal, it helps me remain productive and focused, preventing me from wasting my time.
3. Potential legal aspects of your internship
The third benefit of non-legal internships is that you may actually end up doing some legal work. I am currently, doing a non-legal internship, and I recently had a meeting with one of the members of the team. As part of this meeting, I was asked what I wanted to gain from this internship, in order to prevent me from doing work that I found completely irrelevant and boring. As I want to pursue a career in law, naturally, I said that I would want to be given legal work. Even if you do not have such a meeting with a supervisor as part of your internship, you can just set up one. Although they will not completely change the reason you are employed, they will try to satisfy your interests where possible and so it is relatively likely that they will listen to you. Another way to ensure that you are granted these wishes is by demonstrating your competence in other areas. If you show your employer that you can do the work that you are there to do, they will be more likely to give you the work you really want.
4. Financial benefit
The fourth and final benefit of taking a non-legal internship is rather simple and does not need much elaboration. Taking internships gives you extra money! If the internship/work experience happens to be unpaid and you are at university, you may be able to get a bursary. This is a common scheme that a lot of universities run in order to encourage students to pursue jobs.
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