Career ServicesThe Law School Career Services Office helps students and alumni obtain professional employment. Law firms, government agencies, the judiciary and other employers seeking law graduates for permanent positions use this service to hire UMKC School of Law graduates. The office also assists students seeking part-time and summer clerking positions and short-term clerking opportunities. The office maintains a library of employment materials for the use of law students and alumni. Private rooms are available at the law school for employment interviews.The CSO provides career counseling to students and alumni, as well as advice and assistance in resume preparation and interviewing skills. The office sponsors a series of programs to introduce students to a variety of career opportunities for lawyers and others with the J.D. degree. In addition, CSO actively plans and coordinates the mentor program and co-sponsors an annual Volunteer Fair to provide students with information about service opportunities in the community. CSO also co-sponsors a Mid-America International Law Careers Day that draws national speakers and law students from around the region. The office works closely with the Public Interest Law Association, which raises funds to provide public-interest law internships to selected law students. These funds, when matched by money from public-interest law organizations, provide stipends for law students entering their second or third years to work in those organizations. UMKC students have been placed through the program to work at the Public Interest Litigation Clinic, the Missouri Public Defender's Office and the Kansas City, Mo., City Attorney's Office, among others. CSO collaborates with the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association's Summer Law Internship Program and Black Law Students Association to introduce minority high school students to the rigors of college life in general and to law school student life specifically.
Career OpportunitiesUMKC law school graduates have a wide variety of job opportunities available. The largest number of them join law firms, ranging in size from one to more than 500 attorneys. Some of these firms specialize in advising corporate clients or solving civil legal problems. Others practice solely criminal defense. Many firms offer a general practice that spans corporate, civil and criminal law; some deal mainly with litigation work, personal injury cases, family law; or copyright, patent and trademark law.Some law graduates do not want to practice law at all, desiring instead to use their legal skills in the business world as executives, bankers and corporate tax experts. Therefore, corporations, accounting firms, title companies, banks and insurance companies recruit them. The legal departments of state and municipal government agencies also employ graduates. Prosecutors' offices, public defenders and legal service organizations recruit at the school. Branches of the United States military recruit lawyers for service in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and federal government agencies, such as the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency, hire graduates to staff their legal departments. Graduates have taken positions in all of these settings. Other graduates become law clerks for judges or administrators in law schools. Some become professors of law. |
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