When you still don’t have a clerkship

Whilst week one of uni is commonly reserved for feeling anxious that you cannot identify a single fun fact about yourself, one insecure third year is already experiencing an especially sharp stab of inadequacy usually reserved for SWOT week. Contrary to your expectation, this inadequacy is not derived from the quarterly existential breakdown of being 6 weeks behind in lectures, but rather the realisation that you’re already missing the mark on work experience.

Whilst a first or second year could unashamedly chalk up her lack of legal work experience to her age, as a third year, she now realises that she seriously needs to get some serious corporate drone knowhow if she’s ever going to get a job out of school. Looking around her Consti seminar, the success of her peers is made increasingly obvious by the presence of young professional attire. I mean, people don’t come suited up to uni unless they’re already a spinning cog in Adelaide’s exclusive system of legal firms.

Although not yet in her pennultimate year of study, the third year is struggling to rationalise her lack of clerkship/internships admin roles. She comments:

“Back in high school I just got whatever I wanted, but now, the job market in my field is somehow actually competitive? Ugh” The third year continues to insist that those getting ahead with their part-time legal work are really just rubbing it in everyone’s faces

Whilst simultaneously trying to tune into the teacher’s eloquent explanation of validity, the third year frantically logs onto her Seek account. The legal work available is running thin and only one clerkship is advertised. She clicks on it, but alas, applications closed 2 days ago. Further fury ensues. She’s surrounded by pressed shirts, fluffy blouses, modest ties and it’s increasingly obnoxious. She slams her laptop down, whispering to a friend:

“It’s not like I’m going to be lawyer anyway. I’m going to work for the UN or some shit. Look at these corporate sell-outs! Nepotism is literally killing the meritocracy”

But, as always, the third year quietly and discreetly puts on a google alert for clerkships despite the new moral high ground she finds herself on.