In most jurisdictions, giving legal advice and representing clients in court requires a license. Since the legal industry is often strictly regulated, obtaining specific lawyer work experience can be somewhat difficult. Few jurisdictions still allow legal apprenticeships, where a person works under a licensed lawyer, performing most of the duties that a lawyer would perform. Instead, most jurisdictions require future lawyers to go to law school and learn the real work of lawyers through supervised clinics, internships and through work positions offered to graduates while they are waiting for their license.
Lawyer work experience comes in two varieties: general legal experience and specific position experience. General legal experience is relatively easy to come by. Most law offices need support personnel. Taking a support position will expose you to the basic responsibilities of a lawyer, including client and case management, research and writing, and expert legal analysis.
To obtain general lawyer work experience, you can intern in a law office or public legal agency while in high school or college. You can also study to be a paralegal or legal secretary. Community colleges and proprietary schools offer certificate programs in both positions that can help you compete for a position. There are other types of legal support positions that will also give you some idea of what it would be like to be a lawyer, such as a court stenographer.
Specific work experience as a lawyer can only be obtained through programs run by law schools, positions offered to law school graduates while they wait for licensing or through apprenticeships in jurisdictions that still allow this mode of legal experience transfer. In jurisdictions that allow legal apprenticeships, you can gain lawyer work experience by applying to work directly with a lawyer to learn the ropes. Typically, you will be allowed to do most things a lawyer can do, provided you are properly supervised.
Likewise, special law school programs provide lawyer work experience to students. Students typically work between semesters in legal positions that prepare them to be lawyers. Some schools operate legal clinics that are run much like apprenticeship programs. Students perform actual legal work under the guidance of a licensed professional to gain valuable, practical experience.
Perhaps the most specific way to gain lawyer work experience is to work as one in between law school graduation and the time that you obtain a license. The licensing process can take up to a year or more. During this time, the law in many jurisdictions allows law school graduates to function as provisional lawyers, pending the results of the licensing process.
