International Summer Internships

[gricole]

Hi all,

I thought it would be a good idea if we have a thread where we can share information about any international legal internships that are outside the realm of the traditional vacation schemes. Does anyone have any experience in submitting speculative applications to law firms?

 

[Salma]

I am interested in this too! Great idea @gricole

 

[phar]

I know there are a couple of firms that do international summer internships that aren’t strictly for residents/citizens, but at the same time most prefer citizens/residents for the lack of visa sponsorships depending on the country (for example outside of the EU or if one is not an EU citizen looking for an internship in the EU). Not all of the firms/companies sponsor flights/accommodations and visas, and one would need to look into that/check if language skills are necessary. Most often law firms don't specify in their internship pages the requirement whether you need to speak the native language (mostly they say “fluent in English” but omit the native language requirement in their description) or it applies to residents/citizens - so best to contact about this before sending an application.

There are a few that I can think of right now (may add more later), but it’s mostly Asian-based as I was interested in that region but wasn’t eligible due being a graduate. Perhaps it’s best to look into regions that interests you and ones that you have the language skills for luck.

Law firms:

• Shin & Kim (South Korea) (https://www.shinkim.com/eng/recruit/intern) - available for UG/PG students (8 weeks from June - August).
• Tilleke & Gibbins (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar) (https://www.tilleke.com/careers/roles/interns) - depends upon available vacancies and not speculative! I know my cousin (English non-law, commonwealth law educated and later did an LLM degree in UK) did an internship with them years ago.
• UAE: Latham & Watkins (https://www.lwcareers.com/en/offices/united-arab-emirates/how-to-apply.html) (2 weeks - not strictly open for UAE residents! Hasn't open yet for this cycle)
• If you're still at uni, check if your uni offers/advertises any international summer legal internships. I know my undergraduate uni offered some students to go to Mainland China for a legal internship with some law firms based there and paid for their flights/accommodation!

Arbitration centres - mostly unpaid, including not covering flights and accommodation:

• Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC): (http://www.hkiac.org/about-us/careers/internship-programme-legal) (June - August)

In general:

• you can find out about any legal internship opportunities by using Linkedin's job search with "legal intern", which shows a mix of law firms and in-house internships. Otherwise play around with LinkedIn general search engine and look up previous legal interns (ie “legal intern *name of city*”)in some countries - particularly non-citizens/residents with little language skills in, let’s say, Poland, doing a legal internship there;
• googling "*name of city* law firms" and go through their careers page and whether they offer an internship to non-citizens/residents;
• and/or looking up international offices of any UK/city/US firms and their individual global careers' page (ie Freshfields, A&O etc) and perhaps contacting their recruitment staff whether a foreign applicant with limited language skills of that office can apply. For example, I knew someone who did an internship with a city firm in Latin America last summer, although I'm not sure how she got it and the extent of her Spanish skills (she's from a non-Spanish speaking EU country and did her LLM in UK).

 

[J Wu]

Someone I know who went on a year abroad to Paris managed to secure something much like an off-cycle internship at White & Case's Paris office for part of his year through cold emailing/speculative applications. It must be noted that he did study French though, so I suspect language capabilities do matter for this kind of thing. I don't know if firms are as up for this kind of arrangement during the summer periods as I suspect many might have formal internship schemes, but it's always worth a go!

When he did it, I believe he emailed each firm's general recruitment email or university alumni at the target firm. He explained his situation, his availability, what he was looking for, a bit regarding his story/motivations and a little bit of what he could offer. (CV attached of course).