Career Directions for Graduates

Three-quarters of UC Hastings graduates follow a career path in the law, while the remaining quarter choose such fields as business, finance, journalism, and education. Whatever the destination, the Hastings student is extraordinarily prepared. 

Office of Career Services

Along with practical experiences in clinical programs and judicial externships, associate and volunteer positions in the summer often represent stepping stones that lead to a life in the law. A guiding hand in the process of sorting out career choices is the Office of Career Services. Career Services facilitates career development, teaches job search skills, organizes on-campus interviews, coordinates career days, and provides job listings. The office's well-trained staff includes professionals with both legal and counseling degrees. It offers a full panoply of self-assessment exercises, individual career counseling sessions, and more practical job search training. Its information sources range across listings for summer, part-time, and full-time employment to directories of law firms, public interest organizations, corporate counsels, and law-related government agencies. 


The office places heavy emphasis on career development and organizes frequent informational programs on such topics as Options in Criminal Law, Intellectual Property, Family Law, Civil Rights, and International Law.

The office resource center also contains detailed resources describing different career options and practice areas, such as profiles of attorneys in different fields, accounts of hot practice areas and minority demographics. Hastings has also been one of the leaders in developing an intensive alumni-mentor program which matches students with UC Hastings alumni practicing in different fields throughout the country and abroad.

The office identifies employment options in government, public interest organizations, private practice, corporations, the court system, law-related and non-legal employers, and academic positions. In preparing students for the job search, the office offers training in resume preparation and job search letters, and in interviewing techniques, including mock interviews with practicing attorneys.

"We attract employers representing more than 400 offices who conduct more than 4,100 interviews in the fall on campus," noted Sari Zimmerman, Director of Career Services. "We also host one of the largest public interest/public sector career days in the country featuring over 100 different organizations. In the spring, we hold an intellectual property career fair that brings together practitioners, recruiters and law students, as well as a small firm interview program." In addition to these on-campus programs, a large number of employers solicit resumés from UC Hastings students directly.

 
Three-quarters of Hastings graduates follow a career path in the law.