With our friends at Lawyers Weakly giving some timely advice to aspiring seasonal clerks earlier in the week, we thought it would be a fantastic idea to publish our favorite advice for prospective clerks. Back in 2007, Gadens Managing Partner Michael Bradley had the following advice for aspiring seasonal clerks:

Dear Summer Clerkship-Desiring Desperado,

As you prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for the next few months of horror, in which you will:

* try to make yourself sound interesting, enterprising, broad-minded, life-experienced, mature, clever and

imagine me in my underwear!

just a little bit wacky in your application form;

* agonise over whether to include a photo of yourself looking gorgeous/cute/professional/drunk or just hope that your name sounds good-looking;

* debate with your friends over which firms should be applied to based on the hopelessly inadequate and entirely incorrect gossip you’ve heard about them;

* sit glumly in the front window at home waiting for the post that never comes;

* sit glumly in the common room at law school while people you hate (more than you used to) discuss their interviews in loud voices;

* try to find ways to describe yourself in interviews that will make you stand out more than a teapot and less than an axe-murderer;

* contemplate whether you could pass for an 18 year old once more and go to Schoolies instead of all this crap,

spare a thought for the poor law firms! There are a thousand eager beavers just like you, all dedicated with a single mind to the holy grail of a summer clerkship with, who cares, any firm. And you’re all equally fabulous and we have no idea which one of you will turn out to be an al Qaeda sleeper (actually they make quite good clerks), or who will be the most fun at the Christmas party.

All I can say is I’m glad, again, that I’m not you. Three and a half years of uni and they make you go through this torture to get one of a small number of summer jobs that are considerably less fun than a week in Amsterdam, it’s just not fair. If you miss out, trust me it won’t be your fault. Unless you believe in karma, in which case it is your fault.

So, how to get through this awfulness with your sanity intact? I have three suggestions:

1. Do something to catch the casual job application reader’s attention. If you have a personality, put it on the page in some way. If you don’t, borrow someone else’s.

2. Buy a very nice suit. Polish your shoes. Learn how to tie a tie properly. Put your skirt on the right way round. Don’t wear your father’s clothes. Stay away from smoky pubs until the interviews are over.

3. Imagine every interviewer in their underwear. Try not to laugh out loud when you do.

Clerkship applications will close on 3 August 2007.

Good luck.

Michael Bradley
Managing Partner

We would also like to wish all prospective clerks the very best of luck. Send the Firm Spy your news and views!

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