Employment Sectors

Lawyers no longer practice primarily within law firms, but now deploy their skills across a wide variety of employment sectors. At BU Law, we provide focused resources across all of the major practice sectors – private practice, government and public interest, judicial clerkships, and alternative and emerging careers – to ensure our students and graduates have expert guidance in the areas they may wish to pursue.

Private Sector

Private practice encompasses work in law firms of all sizes and scope, from international firms with offices both in the US and abroad, to regional powerhouses, to boutique firms specializing in a specific practice area such as intellectual property, immigration, or bankruptcy, and smaller, local firms with general consumer practices or specialized ones such as family law.

Public Interest

While many legal careers contribute to the public good, public interest practice typically focuses on a specific issue (disability rights, human trafficking, internet neutrality) or constituency (victims of domestic violence, immigrants), with a focus on meeting unmet legal needs. This can encompass both policy work and direct representation of clients.

Government

Careers in local, state and federal government range from positions with government agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, as well as service as federal or state prosecutors and public defenders, service in a state’s Attorney General’s office or in municipal law departments.

Judicial Clerkships

Coveted for the unparalleled exposure they provide to the inner workings of the state and federal judicial systems, and for the close relationships clerks form with the judges or justices for whom they work, judicial clerkships are a great way to begin a legal career. Our judicial clerkships program assists our students in identifying appropriate clerkship opportunities, and with all stages of the application and interview processes. Members of the Class of 2020 have already garnered 21 elite federal and state court clerkships with the following courts and judges. Clerkships garnered by the Class of 2018 and 2019 are also available.

Alternative & Emerging Careers

Increasing numbers of our graduates and students use their legal training outside of traditional firm practice, whether as in-house counsel at leading corporations such as Viacom and Uber, as consultants for McKinsey or The Boston Consulting Group, as entrepreneurs, or in the burgeoning compliance field at financial and healthcare organizations. New and vital areas of employment are constantly emerging, and our work with this sector evolves and responds accordingly, to ensure our knowledge of this space and the opportunities for BU Law students and graduates develop accordingly.