Hello, our names are Renee and Jay. We are friends and former Arts/Law students from Monash University.
In 2020, we undertook the Victorian legal clerkship process. Our experiences confirmed what we had already heard from senior law students — this process is awfully challenging, time-sapping, and energy-consuming.
However, we are thankful that we persevered through it. We found that the arduous application process transformed us into more confident job applicants overall, with a better sense of our strengths and weaknesses, a more persuasive writing style (from drafting all those cover letters!) and greater awareness of our unique stories and what we can bring to different teams and employers. These benefits outlived Clerkship Offer Day, although we were also fortunate to receive clerkship offers from firms.
This year, we are excited to help law students undergoing the 2022/2023 clerkship process. Welcome to the Clerkship Journey Map 🗺️. We want to help you maximise the clerkship application journey by using it to develop your overall resilience and confidence in job-hunting.
We aim to do this by helping you to reflect on your unique strengths, priorities, and desired outcomes, and articulate them with persuasion. We firmly believe that this reflective process will help you to reap benefits that extend beyond Offer Day.
Many people will tell you that research is the most important aspect of the clerkship application process. However, in our experiences, reflecting on the process is probably more important.
Here's how we think research compares with reflection:
Whilst helpful for both, the Clerkship Journey Map is tailored to assist with the latter. We have broken this guide down into the three main stages of the clerkship process — pre-application, during application, and post-offer day. Each article provides some reflections from Jay or Renee, our personal tips on strengthening your application (and hopefully your confidence), and questions for you to consider.
Our desired goal is for you to come out of the clerkship process a stronger job-applicant, with an increased sense of self-awareness, confidence, and resilience. Read ahead!
How do you choose which firms to apply for?
Who can you reach out to help you through this process?
What life experiences are unique to you?
How do you cope with rejection?
Why you can celebrate regardless of offer outcomes
We hope that this guide serves you well throughout the process. 😊 If you had any questions or want to share your thoughts, feel free to leave a comment (you will need a Notion account to do so) or contact us on our emails below:
📩 Renee Tan: [email protected]
📩 Jay Ong: [email protected]