Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the legal learning podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the legal learning center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school. If you’d like to ensure you are remembering everything that goes into applying to law school, visit legal learning center.com for a free law school application checklist. Today’s guest is Reza Yazzie, founder of attorney that’s ATT O R N N E E D. And organization that matches law students, law students, and young lawyers with gay turn ships to give them more opportunity to
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My name is Reza Jase, and I am the founder of a company called attorney where we connect law firms and law students through virtual encaptures.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Awesome. Okay. So I saw on your website that you call them, I think it’s gig internships. Is that how you say it? Internships, gig internships. Okay. So yeah. What are gig internships?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So geek internships are short-term assignment based projects that law students can work on and kind of gain some experience. We call them bite sized pieces of experience that they’re gaining to develop their resume and get to where they want to be. Eventually the whole goal is to kind of a bootcamp of learning things you want to do and figuring out what you don’t want to do in the law. So that by year two or year three, you’re focusing on what your practice is going to be.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So perfect. So if I have something like three different areas of interest, then it sounds like early on, even in my one L year, I could do a gig internship and start figuring out which one I like best is that right?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
For the most part. So what we require is one year, one semester of experience. And the reason we require that one semester of experience is when you sign up, you have to sign up with a law school email, and you also have to upload your resume writing sample and transcripts. And obviously you’re not going to have that unless you’ve gone through your first semester. So all law students after their first semester are welcome to join the platform, create a profile, and then whatever assignments are posted, they get an email telling them, Hey, there’s a new assignment. And if they’re interested, they can apply to that internship.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And how long do these internships usually last?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So we started out just doing big internships, which were, you know, short-term assignment based work, where someone would work on drafting, a complaint, reviewing a contract, writing a legal blog, and those would go anywhere from five to 20 hours. But as we’ve grown, we’ve kind of developed the platform in a way that you can have long term relationships with with employers, as employers can have long-term relationships with the students.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Great. So what type of areas of law do you guys generally have available?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So it varies. We work with anywhere from sport lawyers and what’s really hot right now is the name, image, likeness that’s going on with college athletes. We’ve worked with art lawyers before, obviously transactional lawyers. We have a lot of personal injury and labor and employment lawyers on our platform. And sometimes we even work with publication. So we’ve worked with treaties publications that need a bunch of cases reviewed, and it kind of really runs the gamut of the type of work that you want to do. And the best part is you’re never obligated to do anything, right? The assignments comment, if you’re interested, you apply, and if you’re chosen and there you go, but there’s no obligation to ever apply for anything or take on an assignment that you don’t want.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That sounds great. Cause I know with law school, you know, you finish your first year, you have that first internship in the summer time. And then if you’re not happy, it’s kind of over until second summer for a lot of people. And you know, maybe in their third year they’d do another internship, but there’s just not a lot of time or opportunity to get internships. And then, yeah, there’s a lot of competition for each one. So it sounds like this gives them a lot more opportunities to build the resume, to be exposed to different areas of law and just really get ahead on what path they take.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah. So when I was, I created this platform when I was a three out myself. So the idea was I was building something for myself to use and I actually got a bunch of my law school friends to put plastered their faces on my website. And I said, you’re our interns. And we actually started getting work right away. So when I built it, I had the medians in mind for law students away for them to take on assignments while still maintaining their GPA while still maintaining their obligations to their journal, whatever it may be. It’s a very flexible schedule. And some people say it’s too, too good to be true. It sounds too good to be true. And the reason for that is we made it too good to be true for law students so that the best do out and that once we have the best law students, the law firms are going to want to work with you. So it is kind of too good to be true because it’s really convenient. Most of our actually all of our assignments are paid now and you get to be flexible with your schedule while still maintaining a GPA in all the work that you have to do during law school.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That’s great. Now I know you said you have to have a transcript, so you have to have your first semester completed, but are there other skills that students need for these internships?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah. Well, I mean obviously law school is a lot a lot, so you need to be organized. You need to be able to meet deadlines and they’re the kind of characteristics that any good lawyer needs. So I wouldn’t say it’s anything specific or special. It’s just the skills that a lawyer, a good lawyer in the future will need.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So, okay. So what are some of the pros and cons of a student doing the gig internship, you know, versus just following that traditional path of, you know, an internship every summer.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So yeah, obviously the first one is flexibility. When you are doing a long-term internship, you are obligated to either go into the office two to three times a week. All of our internships are virtual, so you’re never obligated to go anywhere. You’re never spending money on the travel costs. And obviously it’s more flexible than the traditional internship. The time commitment is usually less than even if it’s not less, it’s more flexible. So most law firms are open from nine to five. Some of them are open from nine to 10 and you’re expected to work for as long as you know, you’re there. Whereas here we have deadlines and we expect really good work, but we allow you to do it within your timeframe within the, how your schedule fits. And oftentimes our attorneys know that you’re in school, they understand that this is supposed to be a flexible program. So you have deadlines that are very wide or deadlines that are very reasonable. And you know, let’s say that you need an assignment and it might take you 10 hours and you have an entire week to fit those set hours into your schedule. So obviously that’s, you know, some of the benefits of these gig internships rather than a full-time internship.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, that sounds great. Cause I know we all work differently. Some of us like to wake up early in the morning, some of us like to work late at night and if we can just get the work done, why not do it late at night? Or whenever it works for us, as long as yeah, we get it in by Friday or whatever it is. So that sounds great because yes, when I used to intern, it was, Hey, we’re open from eight to five. I mean, sure. The attorneys might work longer, but the intern has to do the work between eight and five. You know, you need to come in and do the stuff. So
Speaker 2 (07:48):
From an attorney perspective, right? You oftentimes have interns sitting in the office doing nothing, absolutely nothing. And here you’re kind of, although you’re, you know, you’re, you’re still expected to pay the students and we pay our students relatively well. The attorneys are saving a lot of money on that idle time, right? Not only the idle time, but the overhead costs associated with, you know, housing, someone that housing, but you know, bringing someone into work, the desk space, the internet, all that other stuff. And here you’re only paying for the use you get out of the students. And I think that’s a great model from both sides. You know, the student is getting money for the work they do. And the attorney is trying to get them to appraise the student’s work quality without all the other distractions that come into it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, that was actually my next question was, are there unpaid internships or are they all paid?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So the only time we do unpaid internships is for law students and jurisdictions that need pro bono hours. So in exchange for getting their pro bono hours, they’re providing free work to law firms that are working on pro bono cases. And that’s the only time we do unpaid internships.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Okay. And are all the internships with law firms.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So most of them are with law firms. Obviously there are rules and regulations that don’t allow law students to do legal work and we would never allow that to happen. The only exception is sometimes when, you know, legal scholars or foreign books reach out to us and say, Hey, we need some research on this. They’re not doing legal research for a client rather than doing general legal research. So it’s allowed, but otherwise it’s law firms, in-house departments and anything else, you know, pro bono organizations, things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And what about if a student isn’t quite in law school yet? Is there an opportunity for them if they’re still in college or gap year?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
We are, yes. We are developing our paralegal and legal assistant branch of our company. Basically, if you are an undergrad, you’ll sign up as a legal assistant, which is basically a step under a intern. And that way the lawyers know that you don’t, you don’t have law school experience, but they are willing to give you some tasks. A lot of it is administrative, but you’re still learning throughout the process.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And you’re still building a network with somebody from a law firm too. It sounds like.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that’s one of the biggest perks, especially for people who don’t have access to a large network of lawyers, especially first gen law students. Right. You know, you don’t usually have a large network of lawyers. So now you can kind of get in on the ground early on when you’re in college and you know, do a little bit of work. Yes. It’s tough work. It’s administrative work, but you’re getting a lot of knowledge. You’re getting paid for it. And now you’re building your resume towards law school.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah. I, I remember when I was in college, I had a temp job and a few years later I needed another temp job and the same firm, it was actually more an agency remembered me and wanted me to come back. And so, you know, if you did something as an internship, as a gig internship as a secretary, perhaps you can even maybe go back as a law student in a few years, you’ll keep in touch and let them know, Hey, I’m looking for another gig internship, you know, when I’m in law school, who knows. So yeah. It’s never too early to build that legal network.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
No, it’s really not. And I mean, everyone knows that you usually get your first job through your networking and if not your first job, every other job after that is networking. So it’s good to build your network early and often.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
How do students sign up for this program?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Sure. So you go to our website, www.attorney.com and you create a profile. We’ve got several types of profiles we’ve mentioned. So if you are a law student, you sign up as an intern. If you are an undergrad, you’d sign up as a legal assistant. If you’re a lawyer, you sign up as an associate. And if you’re a paralegal, you’d sign up as paralegal. Obviously if you’re a law firm, you to sign up as this lover and once you’ve created your profile and give us a few days to vet everything and make sure you are who you are, then you could go on the platform and the law firms can post assignments and the, what we call users can apply for the assignments that apply to them. So we have about, you know, four kind of different branches. If a law firm is looking for a virtual intern, they’ll post on that board, a law firm is looking for a legal assistant. They would post on that board and yada yada.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Okay. And you mentioned something actually we hadn’t covered, which is lawyers. So what types of jobs are there for lawyers on this board?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, so our lawyer branch is ever-growing. It is something we’ve recently created. And oftentimes it is just law firms, especially solo practitioners who need an extra hand or an extra eye on a emotion or contract. It’s great for entry level lawyers. I don’t want to build their experience towards something. A lot of people who have recently signed up or people who have passed the bar, but haven’t found their first job yet. Right. So those are kind of the people we are working with right now. We encourage those people to get on the platform and try new experiences and develop their resume. Like, like we talked about earlier, it’s tough to build your resume in law school. And this kind of gives you a second shot at it by working in the field that you want to. So that’s kind of where we’re at right now. It’s a lot of solo law firms, a lot of smaller firms who just kind of need a little bit more who just kind of need a hands-on assignments.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That’s so great. I know the pre-loss students probably don’t really understand how amazing that is because, you know, I graduated in a really bad economy and, you know, yeah, we’ve got a crazy economy going on right now and it can be really hard to get that first job and to get temp experience. A lot of the temp agencies for lawyers want you to have a couple of years experience, so you can’t even get a temp job. And so you’re just like, what, wait, how am I supposed to work? And for me, I actually before I pass the bar while I was waiting for my bar results was working for a regular temp agency, just doing things like customer service and just whatever, you know, just answering phones because that’s what I could get at that time, again, bad economy and all that too. But it was ridiculous when I would call these headhunters or these temp agencies. And they were just like, no, you don’t have enough experience. I’m like, but I want a job is that your job is to get me a job. So, so to have someone who’s willing to take these people who just graduated, who don’t have any extensive experience, enable them to add to their resume again, build their network, potentially maybe even get a job down the road through that network. It’s just a fabulous opportunity. I’m so glad you’re doing it.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. I mean, we, we looked around and we looked at our competitors and everyone was, as you were saying, looking for someone with three to five years of experience, and I’m like, you know, unless you’re traveling the world, why is someone with three to five years of experience going to be a temp? Like, it just doesn’t make sense. So we kind of created, you know, the, the minor leagues of temp companies that you could start at right after school. Right. And gain experience and build towards the full-time job.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah. There’s a huge gap in the employment market there. And I just love what you said earlier, too, about some of the industries that are there. I mean, getting an internship with a sports agency and stuff like that is really hard. So if you can even just get the smallest assignment with them, that’s great. And then all the other industries, you mentioned like PI and so forth, you know, work comp, PAI employment. Those areas are almost never hard hit by recessions because people get injured all the time. So they are great industries to go into. I think a lot of people don’t necessarily strive for those industries, but they are really safe industries. And so if you can get some experience in there, even if you don’t go there and you follow some other dream, if the economy hits your industry poorly, Hey, I had that internship with that PI guy. And, you know, I have a little bit of a network over there and I have a little something for my resume and it can help you over others who might mass be laid off, maybe get that job, you know? So I love that too. It’s all good stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Awesome. Okay. So I know you also have a Instagram account, which is super helpful. I have been loving the tips. You’ve got tips for students. I mean, it’s not just about job stuff is also about law school. Can you tell me a little bit more about what people can find on your Instagram?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah, so, you know, it varies, we’ve got obviously tips for law students. We have, we post every time there is a major assignment, so we post about it and you can kind of just follow us and say, oh, there’s an assignment that I want and you don’t have to be on our platform all the time. Although we do send you emails when we have assignments that interesting come up we also love our well, everyone loves their quotes, right? So he’s got a famous quotes from famous justices. And you know, we just kinda try to provide value in whatever we do especially with our social media. I mean, social media can kind of be more of a burden than an asset sometimes. So we just kinda try to put whatever out there and experiment and see what works and what doesn’t. And hopefully ultimately the goal is to provide value.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah. I highly you guys that you go check out the Instagram because there’s lots of good stuff on there. Like I said, across the board, whether it’s school tips or yeah. Interview tips or whatever, there’s just different types of tips on there. Bets again, span the whole kind of industry.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah. And I think one of the things that, that I think it provides the most value is not only do we have the on-platform assignments, but sometimes we have old school attorneys. You don’t want to use the platform. They’re just kind of contact me and say, I need an intern. And that’s when I kind of step in and my team steps in. And we kind of tell all the law schools that we work with about the internship and also our internal students who have signed up. And then we interview several students for the position. And when we interview the students, we provide them feedback after the interview. And so not only is our service, basically a job board slash gig internship platform, but it’s also kind of a way to develop your interviewing skills and resume because we provide feedback only if you say yes, because we ask you, do you want feedback?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
And some people don’t, but if you say yes, and we do go through the interview, we want to kind of provide value for the time it took out of your day to come talk to us. Right. So we’re going to tell you like, Hey, I think that you should try to take the ums out of your sentences, or maybe you should talk more and be more specific about this internship that you worked on. So I think, you know, it’s tough because we have to interview a bunch of people and it’s not very scalable, but it’s one of the biggest things that I enjoy because it makes me feel like I’m actually providing value to the people on my platform.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah. I think that having feedback on your resume and your interviewing skills, first of all, so scary, but so helpful. And it’s so hard to get, you know, it’s just, you just don’t know where to turn. And then yeah. There’s lots of people that are charging a lot of money for that, which is great. I mean, that’s well worth it, but if you can do it through another platform, that’s so wonderful.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah. And I encourage you if you are interviewing and you’re up to it, ask the person you were interviewed to give you feedback. It’s, it’s one of the only ways you’re going to grow because you know, your, your eye is sometimes blind to yourself, right? You you’re sometimes blind to what you’re doing and it it’s, sometimes it hits you like a brick. Right. But, but you get over it. I promise you to get over it and then you become better at it. So word of eyes, just ask for feedback and helps.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I, I so agree. I’ve seen students who are afraid to let their personality out. And I told them, you know, I worked for a fortune 100 company and we hired off personality. I mean, you know, if you’re an intern or if you’re a recent graduate, your resumes are very similar most of the time. And so we’re going off, who’s going to be a good fit here. And so you got to let that personality out. We want to see it. So yeah, it’s you never know what kind of feedback you’re going to get. So definitely always call for the feedback
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And to piggyback off that. I think one thing that our platform does, that’s really good for introverts or people who are not very outgoing and the personality doesn’t come out, come to the surface right away is we allow you to be kind of judged based on your work product rather than your personality. Because oftentimes there is no initial interview before people start working together. It’s just, Hey, here’s the initial call that we should have to go over the assignment, but I’ve already selected you based off your resume, based off your credentials, I’ve already slept you. So you don’t need to win me over. Now, what you need to do is do good work. And let me judge you based off your work product, which is reflected on the rating you get after you’re done with an assignment, right? So for the introverts out there who are, who don’t like interviews, and this is a great program for you because you don’t have to go through that and you can let your workshop.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Wow. Oh, that’s amazing. This is like the introvert’s paradise. So now is this available just in the U S or like Canada or anywhere else?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah. So currently we’re just in the U S although we’ve had a lot of Canadian interests, we’ve had a lot of UK interests and a lot of Indian interests and you know, we’re, we’re growing at our own pace and hopefully we can service all people around the world and all law students. But right now we are just kind of focused on the U S and growing here.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay. Good to know. All right. Well, that’s all the questions I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your company and all the wonderful things you’re doing.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Thank you for having Jolene. And I love the podcast. I hope it does. Awesome. And I am now a giant fan before
Speaker 1 (22:32):
We get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor. Juno, if you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno. First, Juno can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates than the federal government, and oftentimes with no origination fee and cash back as well, visit advisor.legal learning center.com forward slash Juno. For more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Reza, by giving students shorter experiences. So get turn ships in various fields, they can better learn what they like and what they don’t like. Number two, new lawyers can get, get current ships to while they’re waiting to get their first real job. And that’s something that most temp agencies just don’t offer. Number three, you can get a good internship, even if you’re not in law school yet all around. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in law. Now a full transcript will be available at legallearningcenter.com/attornneed, that’s again, a T T O R N N E E D. And the show notes will be there as well. And if you learned something today, if you benefit at all, please be sure to leave a review on iTunes, Spotify. It just helps us reach more people and help them. Thanks.
