Working from home
As we enter our seventh month of the pandemic, some of the changes instituted by legal employers could become permanent ones.
The Center for Professional Development & Career Strategy serves as the professional link among students, alumni, and employers, providing one-on-one advising appointments, training on job search skills, and educational programming from the first year of study. Staff work closely with employers to introduce them to our highly skilled graduates and create networking opportunities that transition students into their chosen career paths.
Natasha Patel joined as the interim director of the Career Center in July 2019 and took on the permanent role of senior director in March 2020. She oversees recruitment policies and supervises the Career Center team. She also advises students in their 3L year. Patel has more than 14 years of experience advising professionals and law students at Columbia Law School’s Office of Career Services and Professional Development, where she also served as interim dean and director of the office. Previously, she was an associate at Morrison & Forester in Palo Alto, California, and staff attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. She holds a JD from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, an MA in psychology from Columbia University, and a BA from the University of Georgia. She is admitted to the State Bars of California, New York, and Georgia.
Patel has dynamic approaches to the work of the Career Center that align with the changes in the job market; she outlines several below.
How does the pandemic alter the traditional work trajectory of law students, and what is the Career Center doing to help manage those differences?
At the beginning of the pandemic, so much was uncertain about how the legal world would operate. Law firms, courts, and companies quickly transitioned to the remote and virtual working world, with the likely assumption that this would be a temporary setback. Students experienced great uncertainty about the commitment of their summer internships. When the entire world first shifted to the virtual working world, our office had several town hall meetings with students that relayed information about how the pandemic was affecting employers, and these meetings helped to set new expectations for the students. Thankfully, most of the employers kept their commitments to the students and provided some summer legal experience, even if it may have been abbreviated. For the students who were unable to secure a summer internship, our office worked collaboratively with other departments to create opportunities through a tuition-free summer externship program, a virtual judicial internship program, or research assistant opportunities with professors. The most important message to our students is experience matters.
Now, as we enter our seventh month of the pandemic, some of the changes instituted by legal employers could become permanent ones. The manner in which legal services provided to clients changed during the pandemic, with courts holding virtual hearings and M&A deals closing over secured software platforms. Some of these changes could become the new standard for the industry, because they reduce the
cost of delivering legal services to clients. This could negatively impact some entry level legal positions by lowering the salary or limiting the number of new hires. Furthermore, the virtual platform is now a professional one, with a new set of professional expectations.
Through individual and group advising, the 1L Career Strategy & Design Class, and student town halls, the Career Center is keeping students apprised of the changes to the legal marketplace, ensuring they understand the professional etiquette in the virtual space and how to leverage the virtual medium to network effectively. The goal is to make Emory Law students resilient, informed, and experienced professionals who can adapt to changes to the external environment.
Pandemic aside, how is the job of a career center different today than it was five years ago? Ten?
I began in the law school administration and advising profession
in the fall of 2005 after practicing law for seven years. The job has evolved tremendously since I began. The position now demands a legal marketplace expertise and the cultivation of employer relationships. Knowledge of the variety of legal employers, the work they do, and the everchanging landscape of the legal market is critical to advising students. For example, arbitration is a rare practice for a student graduating from law school. Most lawyers who practice in arbitration began as litigators. Sports and entertainment law is essentially contracts, employment law, licensing, trademark, and copyright. Bankruptcy work increases during a recessionary cycle. M&A work increases when the economy is stable and growing (the pandemic being an exception, given that interest rates have been kept low). If students are interested in environmental law, they should consider opportunities with the Army Corps of Engineers. Through programming and education by
the Career Center, students learn the value of the billable hour, the investment of employers in students as well as their expectations and demands, and the practical mechanics of the working world. All the components that make an attorney successful, from professional behavior, meeting deadlines, and communicating with clients, are the skills the Career Center staff emphasize.
Are there specific efforts geared toward students who are traditionally underrepresented in various job types?
Our office works on many efforts to increase diversity in the legal profession. We help coordinate the large Southeast Minority Job Fair (SEMJF). In addition, we make sure that all employer DEI events, initiatives, and opportunities are communicated to students and encourage the applications. I sit on the law school’s DEI Committee and attend strategic conferences held by the National Association of Law Placement (NALP) regarding employer diversity initiatives. Most significantly, all the career advising professionals in our office who are former attorneys are also first-generation lawyers themselves, including me. We can relate to students on a personal level regarding the transition to legal practice.
What’s your approach to the mission of the Career Center?
I grew up with the philosophy that “knowledge is power.” And that is our mission. Educate, inform, and guide our students to best navigate the working world so that they are ready to become the next generation of legal leaders that this world needs.
If you are an alumna/us or employer looking to connect with the Career Center, reach them at law.emory.edu/careers.
