General Services

The services provided by OCS include, but are not limited to, the following:

Individual Counseling: All OCS counselors are available to meet with students and alumni for one-on-one counseling sessions to discuss career interests and objectives, job search strategies, resume and cover letter polishing, interviewing skills and networking techniques; to evaluate employment experiences; and to help students and alumni make informed career decisions.

Every student is encouraged to schedule a career counseling session at least once during each year of law school. You need not wait for an invitation to meet with an OCS counselor.

Due to National Association for Law Placement (NALP) regulations, first-year students may not schedule individual counseling sessions until after November 1. However, first-year students may attend all programs offered by OCS. This regulation was designed to allow new students to become acclimated to law school and comfortable with their studies.

Interview Training: OCS provides one-on-one interview training. The mock interview program allows students and alumni an opportunity to perfect their interviewing skills prior to an actual interview and any time throughout the year. This service is provided to students by appointment only. Appointments can be scheduled with your assigned career counselor or through Diane Gayer at (516) 463-5871 or lawdlg@hofstra.edu.

Seminars and Events: OCS presents many events throughout the year to familiarize students with a variety of practice areas and professional development issues. Panel discussions and other OCS-sponsored events, such as career fairs and round table lunches and dinners, bring practitioners and students together to explore career possibilities. Recent programs have included:

• “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, an informal “table talk” with 2L, 3L and 4L Hofstra students where attendees can ask upper-class students “real deal” questions about their summer work experiences;
• “Beyond OCI”, a program addressing common misconceptions about the legal job market, including the misconception that most entry-level legal positions (including summer associate positions) are obtained through on-campus interviewing. This program also addresses job search strategies, interview processes and hiring timetables for different types of legal employers.
• “An Insider’s Guide to the Summer Hiring Process”, where representatives from one of the world’s leading law firms provided an insider’s look at how large law firms make their summer associate hiring decisions. This program also focused on critical job searching “do’s” and “don’ts”.
• “Finding and Funding Summer Positions in the Public Sector”, which focuses on how to obtain, and find funding for, jobs with public sector employers. Topics discussed included the various public sector fellowships available to law students; public sector conferences, receptions and career fairs; federal work study; Equal Justice Works; and government honors programs.
• “Lunch with a Practitioner”, an ongoing series of programs featuring Hofstra Law School alumni who provide small groups of students with insight as to what it is like to practice in different areas of the law and in different professional settings.

Resource Center: OCS maintains an extensive library of career planning resources, directories, and other information to assist students and alumni in exploring employment opportunities and conducting job searches. Reprints of helpful articles on a wide variety of topics, including, but not limited to, resume writing, career alternatives, informational interviewing, as well as background materials on law firms and public sector employers (such as government agencies and judicial clerkships) are also kept on file.

A work area contains computer terminals and a laser printer that may be used by students and alumni for the exclusive purpose of preparing resumes, cover letters, and other correspondence related to their job search. OCS also offers to students and alumni the use of a telephone and two fax machines for sending and receiving employment-related correspondence. OCS facilities may not be used for personal matters under any circumstances. Please note the rules and regulations for use of the fax machines, which are posted near each fax machine.

Job Postings: All employment positions for Hofstra students and alumni are posted using Symplicity Career Services Manager (“Symplicity”). Through Symplicity, students can, among other things, create PDF versions of resumes, cover letters and transcripts and store these documents on the system. Symplicity will also allow students to apply to job postings by uploading resumes (and any other requested documents) directly to an employer. Hofstra’s on-campus interview program (discussed below) is also managed through Symplicity.

Current students may access Symplicity via the My Hofstra Portal. Alumni wishing to access the job postings on Symplicity must contact OCS at (516) 463-5871 or lawcareer@hofstra.edu to obtain a username and password. Once you have access to Symplicity, you can browse all of the job postings and apply to those jobs that interest you.

Hofstra Law School is also a PSLawNet subscriber, which gives students and alumni who are primarily interested in public interest or government positions an opportunity to access thousands of domestic and international opportunities on the PSLawNet database. The Web site, www.PSLawNet.org, contains information on more than 10,000 public sector organizations. You must register to access the data, but registration is simple and free.

On-Campus Recruitment: OCS conducts a program each fall to give second- and third-year students the opportunity to interview with prospective employers on campus, as well as to submit resumes to employers who prefer to conduct interviews in their offices. Many major law firms, government agencies and public interest entities participate in this program. For example, employers who have participated in our recent on-campus interview programs include the following:

Law Firms

• Alston & Bird LLP
• Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP
• Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC
• Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP
• Bryan Cave LLP
• Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP
• Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
• Clifford Chance US LLP
• Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP
• Dreier LLP
• Ford Marrin Esposito Witmeyer & Gleser, LLP
• Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP
• Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
• Fulbright & Jaworski LLP
• Hodgson Russ LLP
• Holland & Knight LLP
• Jackson Lewis LLP
• Kaye Scholer, LLP
• King & Spalding LLP
• Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
• L’Abbate, Balkan, Colavita & Contini, LLP
• Latham & Watkins LLP
• Lazer Aptheker Rosella & Yedid PC
• Mayer Brown LLP
• Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP
• Morgan & Finnegan, LLP
• Moses & Singer LLP
• Mound, Cotton, Wollan & Greengrass
• Nixon Peabody LLP
• O'Melveny & Myers LLP
• Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP
• Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
• Proskauer Rose LLP
• Pryor Cashman LLP
• Reed Smith LLP
• Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, PC
• Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP
• Shearman & Sterling LLP
• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
• White & Case LLP
• Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, PA
• Winston & Strawn LLP

Government Employers

• Bronx County District Attorney's Office
• Connecticut Superior Court
• Internal Revenue Service, Office of the Chief Counsel
• Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office
• Nassau County Attorney's Office
• Nassau County District Attorney’s Office
• New York City Law Department
• New York County District Attorney’s Office
• New Jersey Attorney General’s Office
• Queens County District Attorney's Office
• U. S. Army JAG Corps
• U.S. Air Force JAG Corps
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• U.S. Navy JAG Corps.

Private Employers

• Ernst & Young
• PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP